responding edifices in Paris and Vienna. As regards the private houses, this may be explained by the Continental custom of living in flats but as regards the public buildings, no such explanation can be offered. There seems to be something mesquin in everything undertaken by Government or public authorities in England. Whether this arises from a fault in the national character, from the severity of a practical judgment, which ignores the ornamental, and has even but little feeling for the beautiful, I am not prepared to say. Compare, for instance, the Bank of England with the Bank of France, or the Quai d'Orsay with Whitehall, and you will admit the fact, however you may seek to explain it.

On my first visit to England, I asked myself, one morning, where I should go, and of course decided first to visit Westminster Abbey. The building itself is a beautiful one it seems to me that enough has not been said in praise of it. But the monuments inside are-again my English fails me. Things of such grotesque ugliness are not to be seen elsewhere in the civilized world. The sense of artistic beauty seems to be lacking in the modern Englishman, and this is a most terrible shortcoming. The offensive ugliness of those monuments in the Abbey oppresses me, when I think of them, like a nightmare. The English are not an art-loving people, and temples to the beautiful are not likely to be erected within these four seas.

Other unfavorable impressions live with me. Of course, on the very first day I was struck with the immensity of London, with the ceaseless traffic, and the order which controls it. But then, some of the chief business thoroughfares are narrow, winding streets, and this entails loss of valuable time. I wonder how much the perpetual blocking of traffic-say at Newgate Street or Cheapside-costs yearly, and whether this sum capitalized would not pay for the widening of the streets. It should be taken into account, too, that this evil is certain to increase in a sort of geometrical progression with the growth of London. The individual Englishman is pre-eminently practical and efficient, but when Englishmen act in bodies they leave much to be desired. The streets in the world's capital are insufficiently lit with what is evidently a low quality of gas, and electric-lights such as delight one in Paris,

Vienna, or even Milan, seem to be almost unknown. The small extent to which electric-lighting is employed in London is, I understand, due to the insane restrictions devised by a Radical Minister who, in his hatred of monopolies, throttled an infant industry, and deprived Londoners of an almost inestimable benefit. But his unwisdom in this matter did not, I believe, diminish Mr. Chamberlain's popularity.

Germans and Frenchmen, indeed all foreigners, often wonder why Englishmen turn up their trousers at the bottoms even in fine weather; they do so simply by reason of unbroken habit-a habit born of necessity. Never have I seen streets in Vienna or in Paris in such a dirty state, in such an impassable condition, as the streets of London exhibited for weeks together last winter. The streets are as well made and almost as well kept up as the boulevards of Paris, but in Paris snow has scarcely ceased to fall when it is swept off every boulevard and every chief artery of commerce. In London the snow is allowed to freeze on the streets, and is then tardily, painfully, and in piecemeal fashion shovelled into embankments of frozen mud, which are hideous and uncomfortable, to say the least of them. Here the English practical sense is manifestly at fault. I understand from my friends that the disgraceful condition of the London streets in winter-time or during rain is due to the fact that in London there is no competent municipal authority as there is in every other European capital. In London, they tell me, the parish system still obtains, and the various parish authorities are not adequately supervised. As a witty Conservative friend said to me one day, "The streets of London afford an object-lesson in the blessings of local self-government." But fancy such a condition of streets in London! London is today the business centre of the world; it is the banking-house, the mart and exchange of the world; it is the richest of cities; and yet for months together the inhabitants of this great capital put up with a condition of the streets and squares such as cannot be found elsewhere west of Constantinople. The English must be a very patient people; they must expect little from constituted authorities, for they get little.

Numberless instances of bad government recur to memory. For example, no one

would compare the postal arrangements in Germany with those which obtain in Great Britain. The German postal system affords every convenience known here-and how many more. Let us take but one. You can telegraph money from one end of the German Empire to the other. You pay, let us suppose, a thousand marks into the Post Office in Berlin, and in half an hour it is paid across the counter to your son's demand in Heidelberg or Hamburg. The petit bleu of the Paris Post Office, too, is unknown in London. Of course, I refer to the Télégramme Postale. In Paris you can write a letter on a sort of stiff blue paper with adhesive edges, which you fold and direct, and which then reaches its address within the city limits in about half an hour, at a cost of fivepence. These conveniences and many more of the same sort are totally unknown in London. And yet I understand that the Post Office in Great Britain is a source of immense revenue to the State. Again, the telephone service in London is so execrably bad that one cannot be surprised at the slight progress it has made in public favor. It cannot be compared in efficiency with that offered in half a dozen Continental capitals. Such examples of inefficiency and backwardness in great institutions cannot, I imagine, be referred with justice to the innate Conservatism of the English people. Forty years ago the English postal service was the best in the world; to-day it has been outstripped, apparently be cause Government Departments in England are badly administered. Whether this in turn is due to the Party system of Government, which places orators and not specialists at the head of great departments of State, I am unable to decide. This explanation has more than once been offered to me in England, but it scarcely seems to be satisfactory. The democratic system of government obtains in France, and yet the postal arrangements in Paris are better than those of London. No. Everything in Great Britain ordered by Government seems mesquin and inefficient, but the reason of this lies, it seems to me, in some defect in the character of the people. The national business, I understand, is shockingly badly managed by Parliament. Business men complain of private-bill legislation as costly in the extreme and very slow. The English, it appears, are more interested in the rhetoric

of Mr. Gladstone than in good administration. Seriously, one asks one's self, are they becoming unpractical? Whatever the reason may be, the fact seems to be undeniable that, even in the practical dealings of life, the English no longer lead the world as they did half a century ago.

Let us now take another instance of what seems bad government. One evening, I remember, a friend from one of the embassies came to my hotel to take me to his Club; it was about half past eleven o'clock, or perhaps a quarter to twelve, the time at which people return home from theatres or evening entertainments. I wanted to take a hansom; he assured me the club was only a few minutes' walk distant, and so we set forth on foot. Never had I undergone such an experience. Loose women crowded the pavements of Piccadilly, setting law, order, and common decency at defiance; these women were not content with soliciting you, they laid hands upon you, forcible hands, vengeful hands, and remedy there was none. The policeman, so serviceable in the daytime, seemed now, when he was most needed, to be non-existent. I confess that after being stopped forcibly three or four times, I took a cab to avoid the nuisance. This evil scarcely admits of explanation or of excuse, and the apathy shown by the authorities and by the people is altogether unaccountable. Various explanations of this fact have been offered to me by my English friends. I have been told that the Puritans object to houses of ill-fame, and have them all closed by the police authorities; but to turn thousands of prostitutes loose upon the most frequented thoroughfares, to allow them all license, elsewhere unheard of, in public, and to the discomfort and disgust of every decent citizen, is something worse than puritanical, it is irrational, disgraceful. In this sea of vice the policeman, whom in daytime I so much honor, is submerged. So far as I have seen, European civilization offers no spectacle so heartrending as the streets of London exhibit about midnight. Ladies cannot go home from the theatre on foot, the streets are impassable, delivered over to the lawlessness of the vile. Decidedly the English are patient of misgovernment; perhaps centuries of liberty have taught them to be patient-but they are patient, patient as Issachar.

One of the first places of amusement I went to in London happened to be the Alhambra Music Hall. The entertainment was, of its kind, good, but what struck me was the quietude, decorum, and order kept throughout the house. Now, compare the Alhambra in this respect with the Folies Bergère at Paris. If a man goes to the Folies Bergère in evening dress, he is sure to be accosted by loose women three or four times on his way to his seat; but no one speaks to you at the Alhambra unless you first speak to them. In fact, the streets of Paris in this respect are as much superior to the streets of London as the Folies Bergère is inferior to the Alhambra; but, of course, it is preferable to have a disorderly music-hall rather than disorder in a public street. Why the streets of London are allowed to become impassable at night, I am at a loss to inagine, unless, indeed, the practical sense of the individual Englishman is lost whenever he acts in concert with others. For order and decorum form the "note" of English life. I have been struck by this again and again. For instance, go to any of the restaurants to dinner-to the Bristol or Berkeley, let us say. The first time I went to the Berkeley, I was impressed with the decorum which prevailed there. Every one spoke in the most quiet way, so as not to disturb his neighbor; there were no loud orders given-in fact, the tone was the tone of a well-bred salon rather than what one finds in most of the restaurants in Continental cities, though in Paris and in Italy there are restaurants where the same tone prevails. There is an air of distinction in this English quietude and respect for the comfort of others which is most impressive. Here are people, one says to one's self, who are as slow to give offence as they are manful in resisting it. I can well believe what I have been told, that if one hears loud voices in a restaurant in London, the offenders are either of a low class or Americans or foreigners. But why can't some order be maintained in the streets?

I have been impressed everywhere in England by the physique of the people and by their sturdy bearing it is evidently a strong and vigorous race. But in no other European country are the better classes so much finer physically than the lower. The English gentleman seems to me to be the finest human animal in the

world. But the lower classes-and they are after all the majority-are not exceptionally robust. They do not seem to be stronger than Germans or Russians. Yet the race on the whole is eminently healthylooking, with health as its characteristic rather than refinement of feature or splendor of coloring. The women are goodlooking and the children are more beautiful than any others I have seen in the world. The air of health and of physical strength is, of course, due to the habit of constant outdoor exercise, and this it is which makes the life at English country houses so enjoyable. What can be healthier, for instance, than the life in one of the country houses in Scotland? The air is splendid, the scenery beautiful-in fact, everything conduces to that perfect health of the body which is seen nowhere else at such perfection as in Great Britain. In some of these great houses I have enjoyed living untroubled by any thought. After a long day's shooting, a warm bath, and a perfect dinner, I have lounged in the smoking-room in a state of semi-torpor, feeling assured that not even an Eskimo after a full meal of whale-blubber could possibly be more "comfortable." But why is not Scotland re-afforested? Hundreds and hundreds of square miles of those Highland hills and valleys are perfectly adapted to the growing of trees, and forests scientifically cultivated, as in France and Germany, are no mean source of income. Or is it true, as I have been told, that in this case the luxurious self-indulgence of the few rich is allowed to turn land which might be a source of national wealth into a-deer-run ?

The subject of forestry in England might be used as an example of a national shortcoming. A hundred years ago Englishmen were incontestably the best foresters in the world. They were the first to teach how trees should be cultivated, and how rough Nature could be made beautiful by that finest art which excludes artificiality. All over Germany the public parks are still called Englische Garten, as in Munich and Dresdeu, in honor of the Englishmen who were called upon to form and fashion these pleasure-grounds. But since Germany and France have established Government schools of forestry, English pre-eminence in this art has ceased to exist. The English foresters had learned their craft by experience, but in the schools of France

and Germany their experience has been supplemented by scientific knowledge. There are, I understand, no schools of forestry in Great Britain. And so it comes about that when Englishmen are needed in India, in the department of Woods and Forests, they have to be sent for two years to the schools of Germany and France at the expense of the English Government to learn their business. To a foreigner no single fact in connection with England could be more astonishing than this, or more luminous. It shows a contempt on the part of the English people for scientific education, which is certain, if uncorrected, to have no small influence upon their future. Nor does this strange fact stand alone, as a solitary example of, let us call it, narrowmindedness. Half a century ago the roads throughout Great Britain were the best in the world. The English, in fact, taught all civilized peoples the value of good roads, and how they should be made. To-day the roads in England are certainly inferior to the roads in Germany and France. It may, of course, be said that the military requirements of these Continental nations have made the best possible roads a condition of existence, but still as the best roads are now universally acknowledged to be the cheapest, it seems strange that the pioneers of road-making should have been so far outstripped. Here, as in other departments of life, the individual Englishman proved the superiority of his practical judgment over the individual German or Frenchman, but as soon as the question became one for the Government, the English were surpassed. Perhaps the explanation is that the schools, if indeed there be any in England in which roadmaking is studied as a science, are inferior to those of Germany and France. The English appear to make roads still by rule of thumb, by what they complacently call "practical methods. And, as we have seen, their forestry suffers from the same cause. We seem here to have come to a real defect in the national character.

Almost the first thing which strikes a foreigner in talking to Englishmen, even of the best class, is the scarcely veiled contempt with which they all speak of book-learning. I was astonished once to find that a gentleman who had been men tioned with unfeigned respect as 66 a good man all round,' was not of a high order

of intelligence. A fine rider, sportsman, and cricketer, his accomplishments were mainly physical. English schoolboys, I am assured, think more of bodily strength and nimbleness than of study, and their heroes are not scholars, or thinkers, or artists, but athletes. And this boyish and extravagant cult of the body is universal in England. Almost every Englishman one meets, quotes with high approval the saying which is ascribed to the Duke of Wellington, that "Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton." Yet it is even now scarcely doubtful that the Waterloos of the future, at least, will be won by the head rather than by the arms and legs, useful as these are. And what about the industrial battles of our time? Some of the gravest shortcomings of the English to-day can be ascribed to the national contempt for science, and learning, and art. And as science in our time is coming more and more to rule industry, their contempt for it is already handicapping them in the race of life. A year or so ago Mr. Goschen delivered a speech in which he exemplified, in many ways, the necessity of education in our industrial civilization. He drew attention to the fact that German clerks were ousting Englishmen from situations in the City simply because they were better educated. The German's knowledge of two or three languages gave him the superiority. Mr. Goschen showed, too, that English trade with the Continent and, indeed, with all foreigners, is suffering because English commercial travellers are generally ignorant of the language of their customers. He dwelt upon the value of technical education, and deplored the rarity of technical schools in Great Britain. But, in spite of the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke wisely and with authority, his words appear to have remained without effect.

The education of the poorer classes in England still leaves much to be desired. Technical instruction is to the poor of the nineteenth century what the apprenticeship system was to the same classes in the fifteenth, and technical instruction in England is in an embryonic condition. The education of the middle classes in England is incredibly bad, and that of the richer classes may be described in a phrase. Three fourths of all the schools for higher education which can be found to-day in England were in existence in the time of

Elizabeth. Yet the needs of a population of less than five millions in the sixteenth century can surely not be compared to those of a population of twenty-five millions in the nineteenth. It is not my business unduly to labor this theme. It seems probable to me, however, that some of the glories of those "spacious days" of the great Queen may be attributed to the love of learning which was then as characteristic of Englishmen as contempt of it is to-day. Fancy an Erasmus of the nineteenth century coming to England to learn Greek, or, indeed, anything else!

"In our time," Goethe said, "victory will be with the specialists," and yet there are not a few special industries and arts in which no training or teaching worthy of the name can be found in Great Britain. The characteristic desire of this age is a longing to touch life at many points, to give the freest scope to that differentiation of faculty by means of which alone the individual can attain his highest development. It would be true to say that in this essential point life in England to-day is poorer than life in Germany or in France. Some years spent in England have

taught me to regard the English with respect. I think of them as strong, healthy, human beings, with some high moral qualities, such as a keen sense of justice and a certain stability of character which corresponds almost exactly to their physique. But they are neither flexible nor many-sided; they represent the powers of the past, but they are not so well adapted to victorious supremacy in the present, and still less in the future. And if in a forthcoming paper I write much more frankly than I have here written of their shortcomings (for as yet I have but touched the externals, as it were, of their life) I shall do so because they can afford to hear the truth. It be that some of my may opinions are ill-founded, that many of my judgments are crude by reason of ignorance, but none of my views are inspired by spite or malice. I have found in England a generous hospitality and fair play in the struggle for existence. I am indebted therefore to the English for much. I can do no harm by writing what I honestly think of them-I may possibly do some little good. —Fortnightly Review. (To be continued.)