that her population has been stationary, it is not surprising that these additions have proved very burdensome to the French taxpayer.

These figures are more eloquent than words. If Europe had accepted the original proposal of the Russian Czar at the first Hague Conference to discuss and seek a remedy for the increasing burden of armaments, and if that proposal had been successful in bringing about, at any rate, an arrest of military and naval expenditure, all the Eurepean Powers would now be enjoying overflowing treasuries, with ample funds both for the reduction of taxation and for the improvement of social and economic conditions. Has not the time come for British statesmen to

revive this proposal, and to endeavor to bring about an international agreement? Every Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary who folds his hands and does nothing while the machinery of warfare and the cost of armaments grow at this unheard-of rate is directly responsible for a monstrous and avoidable evil.

natural characters or qualities, and that the "self that ought to be" developed from "the self that is" and the universally reciprocal resolve to live the largest life is the only road to altruism. Man does not need to be shown the duty of altruism, but how to be altruistic, and the successful society is that in which each member's complete fulfilment of his own nature contributes toward the realization of perfection on the part of all other persons. chapters entitled "Law and Obligation" and "Logic and Obligation" are especially interesting to certain classes of inquirers, and the chapter on "Theology and Obligation" will probably become the subject of much controversy. The Macmillan Company.

The

The younger Mr. Roberts, Mr. G. E. Theodore Roberts, so absolutely refuses to settle into a groove, to write two novels of any type that one half suspects him of assuming this attitude in order to prevent the circulating library readers from confusing him with Mr. C. G. D. Roberts who, in the intervals of his historical and poetical labors writes only two species of novels, and stories of animals. Mr. Theodore Roberts's newest book, "A Cavalier of Virginia," is a tale of Virginia in the days when the savages still needed severe punishment at brief intervals and received it at the hands of the young men who went to battle as gayly as they went to the hunt. On the sea, the pirate was as bad as the savage on land, and the Spaniard in one guise or another might attack an honest Englishman afloat or ashore.

Accordingly,

life was never dull and Francis Dourie, Mr. Roberts's hero, slips from adventure to adventure, happily at first but later falling into misfortune whence he emerges only just in time to save his sweetheart from countless horrors. The picturesque villain who makes all the mischief is a familiar friend to

readers of American pirate tales half a century old, and the heroine is very feminine and very sweet. The general indefiniteness as to dates by no means militates against the reader's pleasure and there is small doubt that Mr. Roberts will please all his old friends and make many others. L. C. Page & Co.

"The Little Knight of the X Bar B" suggests by its cover that it is intended for children, for it is a small boy who figures thereon, a boy equipped in correct and costly cowboy finery; but the reader of experience soon discovers that although this young gentleman occupies the centre of the stage, the interest really lies in the discovery of the causes placing and keeping him there. To a boy reader, the situation will not appear especially remarkable; he himself, if at all romantic, probably has a theory that he is a changeling liable at any moment to be restored to his royal father, or his beggar mother or to whatsoever kindred his fancy may have suggested as actually his, in spite of the commonly accepted fiction that he belongs to the sadly commonplace pair who call him son, and he will see nothing incredible in the hero's unheralded appearance at a Wyoming cattle ranch. That the owner who brings him thither should insist upon calling him his nephew, and giving him a name denied by the hero, will appear a natural part of the game, and the boy reader will watch his ascent to the position of camp favorite with prescient eye. Elder readers meanwhile will be more and more puzzled as the tale proceeds for the author, Miss Mary K. Maule, a new writer, displays a veteran's skill in concealing all that the elder reader wishes to know, until it pleases her to reveal it, and then he also is pleased. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company.

In all the years since the publication of "The Amber Gods," very few

American women have deliberately chosen to write of things noteworthy for their beauty, and Mrs. Mabel Loomis Todd's "A Cycle of Sunsets" is doubly remarkable because it comes from one who has repeatedly proved herself capable of valuable work in other fields. Having trained her mind, eye and hand to the minute, swift observation necessary to record the exact truth of an eclipse or other astronomical phenomenon, she has made her description of any celestial aspect or event a thousand fold more valuable than any that could possibly be produced by an observer not so trained. The reader feels tempted to go through the pretty volume, tabulating the colors recorded in order to know exactly which predominates and then one is disgusted with the very thought of such prosaic treatment. Mrs. Todd attempts no such folly but she weaves the tissue of a pretty love story through which the beauty of air and cloud is seen and she sets a solemnly aristocratic black cat to be entirely unimpressed either by cloud or by story, and with that touch of contrast vivifies the whole spectacle. Best of all, she does not remind one of Ruskin, but is always unaffected. Little, Brown & Co.

Major James McLaughlin's "My Friend the Indian" attracts instant attention by its name. The Indian has enemies, he has flatterers; he has been studied, and he has been used as a means of obtaining advertisements, but, missionaries excepted, his friends have been few. Major McLaughlin seems to have earned the name given to him by the Indians themselves, by hard work extending over a period of thirty-eight years, during which he has been employed by the government to work for them and for their rights. He set himself to know the red man because simple honesty seemed to him the only policy to apply to commerce with

him, and simple honesty is not to be achieved by ignorance acting through interpreters and other interested third persons. Naturally, his Indian is not the Indian of romance, but still less is he the Indian of Sheridan. His apparent stoicism is shyness and secretiveness; he is capable of romantic love; he worships his children and indulges them unreasonably; and he sometimes develops exaggerated sentimentality. Major McLaughlin has not one story alone but sheaves of stories in proof of all his assertions and his book should count for much in the extensive and valuable literature which has grown up since the Zunis were studied by Cushing. He describes the battle of the Little Big Horn impartially, showing why Gen. Custer was defeated; and he treats of the Modocs, the Nez Percés and the Utes in the same spirit and his friendliness by no means hinders him from regretting that the Utes were not well punished for the Meeker massacre, to the end that they might be something better than the troublesome, unhappy creatures that they are to-day, "irresponsible, shiftless and defiant." He treats of them and their history in his penultimate chapter, thus making it the preface to "Give the Red Man his Portion," his closing argument for his friends. He is hopeful for the Indian, if he can be left to himself, after receiving his money now held in trust for him by the government, together with a patent for his fee in allotment, and thus being transformed from a lazy annuitant into a man compelled to choose between energetic industry and perpetual discomfort. As the author's opinion is valuable it is to be hoped that the book of which it forms the climax will be carefully read. With its excellent pictures after photographs, and its regiment of good stories it affords amusement for the young and for the frivolous, but it is also a work for statesmen and legislators and ethnologists. Houghton Mifflin Co.

THE SUBURB.

All wild it lay not long ago,

In billowing curve and dip.

pray.

THE SONG OF SOLOMON

Arise, my love, my beloved, and come

away;

The winter is past, and the rain is over and done

In the land, and the time of the singing of birds is begun;

The flowers that appear on the earth have made it their stay;

The fig putteth forth new green figs on the tender spray,

The vine putteth forth a good odor beneath the sun;

Arise, my beloved, my love, my companion;

Until the day break, and the shadows are fled from the day,

Look down from the top of Amana, look down from the head Of Hermon, the dens of the leopards: and come with me hence To the summits of myrrh and the mountains of frankincense.

(Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, a bundle of myrrh),

Where far from the tents of the shepherds on green is our bed,

And the beams of our house are of cedar, our rafters of fir.

The, Nation.

M. Jourdain.