283 



The Review of Reviews. 



THE POPULARITY OF GHOSTS. 



Mr. Frederick Rogers writes in the Treasury for 

 February on the ghosts at Hampton Court. He re- 

 cords the stories about three ghosts— Jane Seymour, 

 Catherine Howard, and Mistress Sibell Penn — but 

 fails to find conclusive evidence. He says, how- 

 ever : — 



Criticise them, laugh at them, or rationalise about them as 

 we will, it is an undoubted fact that ghosts remain subjects of 

 permanent and abiding interest in literature and in the reading 

 world. They vary in characteristics with every generation, but 

 Ihey do not pass aw^ay, and probably no generation has pro- 

 duced such a rich crop of supernatural stories as the present. 

 Perhaps the best writer of ghost stories to-day is Monsignor 

 Robert Hugh Benson. His story entitled "The Traveller" is 

 simply perfect as a piece of literary art, whether it has any 

 foundation in tradition or history, or not. Mr. Algernon 

 Blackwood runs him close, but his ghosts are often things rather 

 than embodiments of .anything like a human spirit, and the 

 same may be said of the crowd of smaller men whose ghostly 

 creations fill the columns of " occult " and other journals. And 

 after all, it is the relation of the ghost to humanity that makes 

 it interesting. We cannot work up much interest in things 

 which belong neither to this world nor the next. 



It was Lord Byron, scoffer and sceptic to the last, who wrote 

 concerning things ghostly : 



I merely mean to say what Johnson said, 



That in the course of some six thousand years, 

 All nations have believed that from the dead 



A visitant at intervals appears. 

 And what is strangest upon this strange head 



Is, that whatever bar the reason rears 

 'Gainst such belief, there's something stronger still 

 In its behalf, let those deny who will. 

 His was an eighteen century voice, a century that filled its 

 literature full of ghosts, never succeeded in making them 

 convincing, and yet aian.aged to get for them as much belief as 

 would heartily frighten, not only timid young ladies, but staid, 

 elderly men and women as well. 



104 YEARS OLD. 



Rov ViCKERS, in the Royal, gives an account of the 

 life of Captain Jackson, an old man who has attained 

 the age of 104 years. He is in full possession of his 

 faculties. Said this aged worthy :— 



Men are not so cheery as they used to be. It seems to me 

 that somehow, in your frantic rush to " got on," whether at 

 work or play, you have lost the art of being sociable. Vou can 

 no longer entertain yourselves. Vou have to p.iy others to do 

 it for you. 



In my day a countryman's life interest was his work, whether 

 as farmer or labourer. He lived simply and dressed simply ; 

 and anything like social pretension never entered his head. But 

 nowadays he spends his spare time trying to imitate the City 

 clerk. He has a smart suit in which he lounges about in the 

 evening (how often have you young men seen a smock ?) ; and his 

 cottage is furnished with a lot of furniture which would have 

 been laughed at when I was a boy. He has learnt, in short, to 

 do what you call " keep up appearances." I grant you he is 

 smarter to look at, and, ni.iybc, more intelligent, but — he isnoi 

 so happy. 



He can even remember seeing a duel in the Batter- 

 sea Fields between a noble lord and a jjolitician, in 

 which neither was injured. The old man went on : — 



I have noticed a great change in the relationship of m.ister and 

 man. In my day there was a bond of mutual respect between 



them. Each was interested in the other's welfare. But now 

 respect seems to have given way to hatred. I am not saying it 

 is the fault of either in particular. I suppose that it's really on 

 .account of all your wonderful inventions which ha\e made com- 

 petition so keen that both master and m<an have to fight so hard 

 for a living that neither has lime for the civilities. 



He attributes his longevity to his healthy, open-air 

 life, to his eating slowly, to his moderate habits, and 

 to being early to bed and early to rise. 



AN INFANT PRODIGY. 



The Royal for February contained an account of 

 an eight-year-old genius. 'J'he list of her distinctions 

 is indeed astounding : — 



One of the most remarkable children of the age is Winifred 

 S.ickville Stoner, daughter of Dr. James Buchanan .Stoner, of 

 the Public Health and Marine Service, Pittsburg. 



\i the age of eight Winifred can speak eight languages— 

 lOnglish, French, German, Japanese, Russian, Esperanto, Latin, 

 and Greek — and she has already written three books of essays 

 and verse! The latter shou her remarkable sense of rhythm 

 and rhyme. 



Her education began when she was a tiny baby, for her 

 mother used to read Virgil to her instead of singing her to sleep. 

 To hearing these lines of perlcct metre her parents attribute 

 the child's genius for writing xerse at so early an age. When 

 Winifred was two months old her mother began to show her 

 pictures, and a month later she used to read to her, pointing to 

 the illustrations. 



At six months old Winifred began to talk, pronouncing all her 

 words distinctly. She was never taught to read, but learnt to 

 do so by playing with lettered blocks. .\t three she began to 

 use the typewriter ; and at four she knew Esperanto (in which 

 she has written a play), as well as French. .\K the same age 

 she could repeal many pass.ages of Virgil. At five she began to 

 write verse, in which she embodied her knowledge of natural 

 objects. 



The wonderful achievements of the child are the direct result 

 iif a system of education eareluUy planned by her mother, to 

 produce what she calls "a linguistic and literary prodigy." 



COLD CHARITY, INDEED! 



Those who live among the poor, and have rejoiced 

 to see the improvement in the faces and lives of the 

 children of the very poor since the necessitous chil- 

 dren have been fed in our ])ublic elementary schools, 

 will smile at the quaint jiarado.x which appears in the 

 pages of the Economic Review for January. It is a 

 clergyman who is writing on a Children's Care 

 Committee ; his name is Rev. Henry Iselin. The 

 journal in which he is writing is the organ of the 

 Christian Social Union. Yet this Christian minister, 

 writing for the Christian Social Union, thus bewails 

 the feeding of starving children : — 



The fact remains that the Education Act, as it applies to the 

 provision of meals, is b.id. It was an ill-considered attempt by 

 politicians in a hurry to appease the demands of an outcry by a 

 section of agitators, l-'alsc to all theories of rational govern- 

 ment, the Act has shown itself pernicious in practice ; and if its 

 policy constitutes friendship " for the masses," the self-reliant 

 poor may well pr.ay to be saved from their friends. At the 

 outset social workers who, for the sake of the people for whom 

 they cared, have undertaken its .administration, prophesied its 

 failure and its mischief, and their prophecies have been too 

 sadly fulfilled. 



