Review of Revietce, JI7J06. 



The Revleivs Reviewed. 



79 



ber of neither. For some weeks after his first epoch-mak- 

 ing speech, nine individuals out of ten one met were in a, 

 ■state of utter indecision on the question. Mostl of them 

 were not reading for the purpose of making up their minds, 

 but were waiting for infection, which in due course they 

 caught. 



IMPROVING THE HUMAN BREED. 



T'ncler the whimsical title of " Eugenics and St. 

 Valentine." on wlmse day Mr. Francis Galton brought 

 Eugenics before the Sociological Society, Mr. Have- 

 lock Ellis lays down the law that with high civilisa- 

 tion fertility inevitably diminishes, sterility inevit- 

 ably increases. As this fact appears in our ^ital sta- 

 tistics, the idea at once suggested is, if the quantity 

 diminishes shall we not improve the quality? He de- 

 scribes Mr. Galton's endeavour to ascertain as far as 

 may be the facts as to the different qualities of 

 stocks, and the respective values of families from 

 the point of view of eugenics. The valuable informa- 

 tion lying at present unused in the great insurance 

 offices, if utili,sed for scientific purpcses. would be of 

 great social gain. He supports Mr. Galton's proposal 

 that a suitably constituted authority should issue 

 eugenic certificates. The eugenic ideal which they 

 hope will spread like a new religion is. after all. not 

 an artificial product, but a reasoned manifestation of 

 a natural instinct. It wall not override love or pas- 

 sion, but rather point the natural course these power- 

 ful impulses will take. He says: — 



The eugenic ideal will have to struggle with the criminal, 

 and still more resolutely with the rich: it will have few 

 serious quarrels with normal and well-constituted lovers. 



The physique of girls is dealt with by Miss K. 

 Bathurst, late in,spector to the Board of Education. 

 She describes Madame Osterberg's admirable College 

 of Physical Culture at Dartford, and pleads for more 

 lady inspectors who will introduce more of the mater- 

 nal and less of the military spirit into the training 

 of girls. She would fain see the same standard of 

 efficiency demanded in intellectual matters, but a dif- 

 ferent and special standard adopted in matters of 

 hygiene. .Just the opposite course is at present in 

 vogue. Intellectual deficiency is condoned, but the 

 girls are made to do the same physical exercises as 

 the boys. Even the babies are drilled. Miss Bathurst 

 makes out a good case for the supersession of our bar- 

 barous British methods by rational Swedish methotls. 

 A similar change is evidently necessary in the teach- 

 ing of cookery, as A. Kenney Herbert shows. Ludi- 

 crous instances are given of cookery examinations con- 

 sisting of elaborate questions in physiology and chem- 

 istry. The writer insists that cookery is an art pri- 

 marily, and the time given in elementary schools t^ 

 teaching cookery should teach the girls how to cook 

 rather than a smattering of sciences more or less dis- 

 tantly related. 



HOPES FOR A SANER PRESS. 



Mr. D. O. Banks, writing on the vocation of the 

 journalist, laments the conque-st of the Press by the 

 merely commercial spirit. He quotes a comforting 

 parallel from the history of the English stage. He 

 says : — 



Theatre-managers whose ambition it was to have the 

 people struggling to reach the pay-box like the crowd at a, 

 baker's shop during a scarcity, accommodated themselves 

 to the tastes of a crowded house, and gave their audiences 

 variety entertainments in place of drama. But after a 

 time the persistence of the regular playgoer asserted itself, 

 and the the.atre recovered its standing. There .are indica- 

 tions that the press is at the beginning of a similar ph.a«e. 

 Competition for advertisements and ii large circulation will 

 lower tile journalistic standard. 



But this cannot hast for ever, although it may last for 

 eome time yet. It will iiltim.ately be found that the public 

 that runs after sensation, hodge-podge, and blurred en- 

 gr.avings. fluctuating and capricious a^it is. cannot be de- 

 pended upon. A jonrnal's best hope is to gather about it 

 a body of pupjiortcrs to whom questions of real and general 

 interest appe:il— (juestions of politics, literature, science. 

 and art. 



THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. 



The April number contains very little of eminent 

 interest. There is much that is readable, but little 

 to quote. Criticism of life in Ireland does claim sepa- 

 rate notice. 



FOSSIL ARGUMENTS AGAINST PENSIONS. 



The last article is a discursive discussion of the 

 condition of the poor in view of the Eioyal Commission 

 on the Poor Law. It makes the sensible suggestion 

 that men deprived of work by infectious disease 

 should be relieved by the sanitary authority, and 

 should not, as at present, be compelled to become 

 paupers. It expects the Commissioners to do no more 

 than try to adapt the exi.sting system of Guardians 

 and Local Government Board, It urges the gradual 

 bringing of the two great cla,s,ses of funds, voluntary 

 and compulsory, into an intelligible and systematised 

 relation to each other, so that voluntar.y funds ma.y 

 be more and more reserved for non-pauper cases. 

 But the general spirit of the article may be inferred 

 from the following belated and exploded arguments 

 against O'id-age Pensions : — 



First, there is no danger of starvation; the Poor Law 

 secures subsistence to all. Next, the difference between 

 pensioner and pauper is only one of n.ame, so that the offer 

 of pensions in a desirable form must intensify the very 

 condition r.f things against which the agitation began — 

 i.e., increase the number of old people dependent on the 

 public. Again, the provision of State pensions must either 

 be universal or not. If universal, besides being ruinously 

 expensive, it must interfere with all existing sources of old- 

 age allowances, e.g.. friendly societies, trades unions, rail- 

 way and other industrial undertakings, private employers' 

 benevolence, and, last but not least, the help by friends 

 and relatives. 



WANTED— A CODE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW. 

 A review of Dr. Oppenheim's treatise on Interna- 

 tional Law puts forward an urgent plea for the codifi- 

 cation of International Law. Such a process is the 

 nearest approach to international legislation that we 

 possess : — 



The codification of International Law can only be ac- 

 complished by an international agreement binding on the 

 parties to it, and the very fact of the agreement trans- 

 forms a reasonable practice, or a practice adhered to by 

 one or two nations only, into a rule binding on the whole 

 world: in other words, it creates as nearly as may be a 

 piece of International Law. . . . Large portions of inter- 

 national usage are now fit to be formulated in a code, and 

 by such codification they become binding on civilised na- 

 tions as nearly as international rules can be law in the 

 strict sense of the term. The time has, in fact, arrived 

 when an actual code of International Law might be at- 

 tempted. 



AN INCOME TAX ON WORKING MEN. 

 In a survey of the political situation, the writer 

 urges that working men must be made directly sen- 

 sible of what increased expenditure means. He 



says : — 



If it were possible largely to reduce some of the indirect 

 taxation which now f.alls with exceptional weight on the 

 working man, we see no reason why some such course 

 should not be adopted. Suiipose, for example, the house 

 tax was extended to all houses of ,a v.alue of £10 and up- 

 wards, and that, instead of being fixed at ninepence, it rose 

 and fell with the income tax. If some su^h arrangement 

 weie practicable, it would liring home to every £10 house- 

 holder in the country — ajid many working men live in £10 

 houses — the effect of any increase or decrease in the in- 

 come tax, and would give in consequence a stimulus to 

 economy which, at the present moment, does not exist. 



Air. W. T. Oonnell wishes us to say that while it 

 is true that he was the proprietor of the Australian 

 Press Cuttings Agency, ho has lately, '' ow'ing to in- 

 creasing business, divided the responsibility of pro- 

 prietorship with others," and has tried to ensure 

 still ^.'leater elliciency by " having principals attending to 

 the (lili'erent branches of the work of preparing press 

 cuttings." 



