286 



REVIEW' OF REVIEWS. 



HOME RULE. 



That Home Rule must come, but that 

 Ireland is not yet ready for it, is the 

 opinion of Richard FitzWalter, writing 

 in the British Review. The root of the 

 Irish trouble is the utter want of sym- 

 pathy between the gentry and the 

 peasantry : — 



In Ireland the gentry is verj' new ; and 

 certainly the peasantry is a very old one. 

 Day by day the line of cleavage between 

 the two classes is becoming more marked. 

 As new and wider interests arise for the 

 people the older ones lose their force. Those 

 older interests were to a certain extent 

 shared by gentry and peasantry alike, be- 

 cause they were very narrow. 



Ireland is only just beginning to 

 realise that she has strength, and she 

 mav make wrong use of it : — 



The people are beginning to see directions 

 in which they can strike out. But the evils 

 of the past cannot be undone all at once. 

 Care and sympathetic handling are necessary 

 in feeding a starved man. There are not 

 wanting signs that ugly licence may grow up 

 where liberty has been sown. 



Sympathy is what is wanted, and the 

 gentry must try and work with the 

 people. The Catholic gentry are as 

 bad as the Protestant in their lack of 

 consideration, and are held to a certain 

 extent in less esteem by the people. 



Much could be done by efforts to im- 

 prove the conditions of the people. 

 Drink and lunacy flourish. " To a town 

 of 10,000 inhabitants there are 120 pub- 

 lic-houses all doing well. Over every 

 second miserable bedraggled shop there 

 seems to be some legend about " beer 

 and spirits." Just outside the same 

 town is the lunatic asylum containing 

 700 or 800 out of a district population 

 of 150,000." 



The Irish upper classes give no assist- 

 ance, however, to tlrose who are endeav- 

 ouring to improve these conditions. 



Unless something is first done to in- 

 crease the sympatliN' between the gentry 

 and the people, the writer fears Home 

 Rule ma}- lead to disastrous results. 



THE THEOSOPHICAL AND PSYCHIC. 



C. Spurgeon Medhurst contributes an 

 article on " The Rebirth of China " to 

 the Theosophist, in which he sounds a 

 note of warning to the missionaries. 

 China, he says, has awakened and is 

 rapidly taking on the forms of many 

 Western institutions and is making 

 drastic changes without the necessary 

 underlying idealism and power to carry 

 them through. The missionaries are still 

 the centre from which the ideas now in 

 demand can be most easily tapped ; 

 their opportunities are unique, but, as 

 on other occasions, the opportune 

 moment will probably slip away with 

 most of its gifts unused. He urges 

 Theosophists to render aid in assisting 

 China through the stage of adolescence 

 to mature manhood. Marguerite Pol- 

 lard continues her paper on " Theoso- 

 phical Ideals in Poetry." and deals with 

 the poetry of Meredith and Francis 

 Thompson. In a paper on " The Joys 

 of India " Elisabeth Severs sings a song 

 of praise to a land where religion is joy. 



The Psychic Gazette for February 

 contains an account of a boy of nine 



who has the most woiitlerful command 

 o\er dates ; he can tell the day of the 

 week of any date in any year, no matter 

 how far back. This " Living Calendar ' 

 is delicate, cannot read or write, and can 

 only do the simplest sums in arithmetic, 

 and yet invariably gives the correct an- 

 swer when catechised on the calendar, 

 and seemingly without an)- effort on his 

 part. 



In the International Theosophical 

 Chronicle are two articles dealing with 

 the "child." one by R. Machell on right 

 education and training, under the title of 

 " Prison Builders," and another by H. 

 T. Edge on " Theosophy and Eugenics." 

 in which he condemns endless talk and 

 endeavour to escape the penalt\- without 

 repairing the negligence, and pleads for 

 the ideal ; he maintains that the force 

 for improvement should come from 

 within ; each individual can cherish 

 high ideals and help to propagate them, 

 thus aiding in the true creation of the 

 human race. 



The Occult Review contains man\- in- 

 teresting articles, one by John D. Leckie 



