8i6 



The National Geographic Magazine 



During the five niontlis ending March S, 

 1907, according to an official statement, says 

 Mr Durland, 764 persons were executed in 

 Russia for political crimes and activities, or an 

 average of 5 a day. When the reader realizes 

 that the executions by guillotine in France 

 during the Terror were only 2,300, the appro- 

 priateness of the author's title, ''The Red 

 Reign," is evident. The revolution will prob- 

 ably last for many years, but the ultimate 

 triumph of the people is inevitable. Mr Dur- 

 land's narrative is dramatic in the extreme, 

 and probably is as fair and accurate a picture 

 of present political conditions in Russia as has 

 been written. 



"Since October, 1905, the Russian people 

 have advanced enormously, and the Duma ex- 

 periments, handicapped as they were, have yet 

 proved immense educational influences ; they 

 have served to arouse the whole people to 

 what may be, and to awaken within them a 

 realization of what sooner or later must be. 

 On this count alone the value of these short- 

 lived parliaments must not be underrated. 

 The Russian people now understand their own 

 situation as they never have grasped it before. 

 They have not merely lost faith in the Czar ; 

 they have learned that the trouble with Russia 

 today is that it suffers a blight, and that blight 

 is autocrac}', which in its very essence is in- 

 compatible with modern civilization, and that 

 while the obliteration of autocracy may be a 

 long task, the only escape from their present 

 bondage is the accomplishment of this task ; 

 and the period of the struggle making for this 

 end will be recorded in history as the Russian 

 Revolution." 



Poland: the Knight Among Nations. By 



Louis E. Van Norman. With an introduc- 

 tion by Helena Modjeska. Pp. 359. 8^ 

 X 554 inches. Illustrated. New York : 

 Fleming H. Revell Co. 1907. $1.50 net. 



In view of the hundreds of thousands of 

 Poles who have been coming to the United 

 States in recent years, this excellent description 

 of that remarkable race will prove of value to 

 all students of our immigration and citizenship 

 problems. 



"If the Polish eagle has never yet been tamed ; 

 if it bears its captivity and its wounds, but re- 

 fuses to become domesticated, it is because 

 the Polish women have nur?ed it and kept 

 before it the scent of the upper air and the 

 love of liberty. If no prescription has as j'et 

 been discovered for making a Russian or a 

 German out of a Pole, it is because the 

 Polish women have kept the fountain head of 

 the national life pure and incorruptible. Fred- 

 erick the Great once said, "In Poland the wo- 

 men attend to politics, while the men get 

 drunk." 



"As among all original Slav races, the Polish 

 woman of the lower classes has not yet em- 

 erged from the physical and mental slavery of 



former ages. Among the Polish peasants, as^ 

 among the Russians, she is valued chiefly for 

 the work she can do and for the number of 

 children she can bear. What little freedom' 

 and happiness she has ceases after marriage, 

 and a peasant woman, old, stooped, and hag- 

 gard at twenty, with a heavy, stupid child in 

 her arms, wearily tramping the muddy road of 

 some village, or driving the cows afield in the 

 pelting rain, is a sight to personify "dull care,'"' 

 a typical "woman with the hoe." 



"The Poles grow up and become good Ameri- 

 cans. The Polish immigrants spread over our 

 great West, and the cities of Buffalo, Chicago, 

 Milwaukee, Pittsburg, Cleveland, Philadelphia, 

 Detroit, and Toledo are the main centers in' 

 which they congregate. In Chicago alone 

 there are more than 250.0C0 of them, forming 

 thejargest Polish city in the world after War- 

 saw and Lodz. They come from all sections 

 of the former commonwealth, but principally 

 from Galicia. They are, in general, indus- 

 trious, frugal, and soon amass a competency. 

 Comparatively few professional men or mem- 

 bers of the upper social classes have come to- 

 this country except for political reasons. The 

 following is the Polish population in the 

 United States (I quote even thousands), a 

 total of somewhat over 2,000,000 : 



Pennsylvania 423,000 



Illinois 389,000 



New York 3S6,ooo 



Wisconsin .....' 198,000 



Michigan 161,000 



Massachusetts 129,000 



Ohio 96,000 



New Jersey 93,000 



Minnesota 89,000 



Connecticut 61,000 



Indiana 41,000 



Missouri 21,000 



Maryland 19,000 



Nebraska 19,000 



Texas 18,000" 



The 'Whirlpool of Europe. Austria-Hungary 

 and the Habsburgs. By Archibald R. 

 Colquhoun and Ethel Colquhoun. Pp. 349. 

 854 X 6 inches. Illustrated. Maps and 

 diagrams. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co. 

 1907. 

 Nowhere else in Europe is the past so mter- 

 mingled with the present, and under the Em- 

 peror-King Francis Joseph one may study at, 

 the same time every phase of European civili- 

 zation, and every kind of question — racial, 

 political, and social — which has agitated Europe 

 in the last two centuries. 



The Alfold, the richest agricultural land of 

 Hungary, is the great central plain, the largest 

 in Europe, and the dwellers in this region are 

 passionately attached to their wide spaces and 

 distant horizons, which they prefer to the most 

 majestic mountain scenery. Even the extreme 

 cold of the winter, when the sea of gold is 



