woke at breakfast time-but not at Boulogne. We were still by the landing stage in London, there being a thick fog on the river. By mid-day we got out to sea, but with a strong head wind blowing, and the fog so thick that we lay off Margate for three days. I am not exaggerating matters in the least; in ordinary circumstances we might have risked something to get on, but the ship had some valuable race-horses on board, and if anything had happened to them the company would have had to pay for it, so the captain refused to move. When I remonstrated (which I did rather strongly), he pointed to the back of my ticket on which was printed the words "wind and weather permitting." On the third day, though there was a heavy sea running, indignation overcame fear, and I embarked for Deal in a little boat that had brought us provisions from shore. This cost me a ducking and a guinea. In my irritation I had forgotten dates, and when I landed I found it was Sunday, on which day there was no train from Deal to Dover. I had consequently to take a carriage-another guinea. Here was the whole saving of my expedition gone in two items. Moreover, there was the bill for the three days' eating and drinking on board ship, wherein I threw away one of the noblest appetites upon very inferior viands, but which were sold at anything but an inferior price. When I got to Dover, three days and a half after date, I found myself about five pounds to the bad, and by no means at Paris after all. If I ever try a cheap expedition again-for pleasure-call me Cook, or what you please,

Co

OMPLAINT has been made, both publicly and privately, of the statements and tone of the articles on the play of "Edward III.” in the last two numbers of the Gentleman's Magazine. I can only remind my correspondents that the writer of the articles is alone responsible for the statements therein contained. On the committee of the New Shakspere Society are valued friends and fellow-workers of my own; among its members and vice-presidents are men of the highest rank in the literature, science, and art of England, whom I truly honour-Tennyson and Browning, Huxley and Lubbock, Leighton and Dante Rossetti. From the founder of the society, Mr. Furnivall, I have received courtesy and help; and for his labours as a man among the riverside poor and at the Working Men's College, and as a scholar in the many societies that he has founded and done such good work with, I have the highest respect. I heard with pleasure of the starting of the New Shakspere Society, and I think the following statement in its last report is justified by the facts :-" The committee can fairly call on the society's members to look back with

satisfaction on its first six years' work, and to feel that the worth of it, done in honour of the great name the society bears, was sufficient ground for them to ask Mr. Robert Browning to take, and for him to accept, the presidency of the society, so long left vacant 'till one of our greatest living poets should see that it was his duty to take it.'"

H

AVING undertaken as a holiday jaunt a pilgrimage to Chinon to see the site on which is to be placed the projected monument to Rabelais, I took the opportunity of looking at the few memorials of the great reformer preserved in the place of his birth. These are singularly slight. The house in which he is known to have been born and the chamber in which he is assumed to have first seen the light are both visible, and have undergone less alteration than might have been expected. It is but just to say, however, that any other room in a fifteenth century house would seem as appropriate a birthplace for Rabelais as that now exhibited. A portrait which is preserved in the Mairie and adorns the chamber in which the municipality is in the habit of meeting, is apparently not very ancient, and is a good deal idealised. In this I recognise the same features which, with a slight element of caricature infused, are shown in the two very similar portraits exhibited at the châteaux of Azay-le-Rideau and Chenonceaux. In the Chinon portrait the author triumphs over the buffoon, in the others he can scarcely be said to do so. A broad grin irradiates the features in the Chenonceaux portrait, and the thick and sensuous lips, parted widely, reveal a fine row of teeth. The face recalls that of one of the figures in the well-known picture "Une bonne histoire." A marked depression of the head just below the temples and even with the eyes is seen in all. An effect of this is to give the upper portions a curious appearance of rotundity. The site chosen for the statue is upon the banks of the river Vienne at the foot of the street leading into the market-place. I trust that English Pantagruelists will subscribe to this monument of the most advanced teacher and thinker of the Renaissance.

HE success of the Vega in accomplishing, almost at a first attempt, the north-eastern passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific suggests considerations of some interest. It is singular that after men had recognised in the American continent a bar to the proposed westerly route to "far Cathay," they should still have sought for a north-westerly passage to the Pacific, even though it had become quite clear that such a route must carry the voyager as far to the north as a north-easterly passage round the shores of Norway,

North Russia, and Siberia. One route would be nearly as good as another so far as distance is concerned; and either route would be a shorter way to the Pacific than a direct westerly course. Again and again Arctic seamen tried to find a north-westerly passage to the Pacific, while scarcely any attempts were made to penetrate the seas to the east of Novaia Zemlia. The north-westerly passage was found, but it has never yet been traversed, and probably never will be. It will be remembered that the problem was regarded as solved when a course was made from Behring's Strait to parts reached from the Atlantic, but neither have voyagers from the Atlantic passed to Behring's Strait, nor voyagers through Behring's Strait to the Atlantic. Now, the Vega was only prevented by accidental delay of two or three days from passing in a single season from Gothenburg (whence she sailed on July 4, 1878) to Behring's Strait, which she could have reached in September if she had left the mouth of the Lena a few days earlier than she did. As matters chanced, she was imprisoned in lat. 67° 6', long. 173° 30', for 264 days. Released at length, on July 18, she passed East Cape, Behring's Strait, on the 20th, having accomplished her object and given proof of the existence of a practicable north-east passage. Professor Nordenskjöld considers that the journey can always be effected in a single season when a little more experience has been obtained respecting these northern

seas.

N their journey round the north of Asia the men of science on

the acquaintance of a new race or tribe, and learned a new language. The people are called, or call themselves, Tschutschers, and are supposed to have come from Greenland, though this is rather difficult to believe. They are, however, a kindred race to the Esquimaux. The Tschutschisk language, as might be guessed from the name, is not easy to understand, but the explorers learnt it, and have compiled a Swedish-Tschutschisk lexicon of 330 words. However, the special point to which I want to direct attention is the evidence afforded by this blubber-eating race respecting a certain difference of temperament (shall I say?) between the sexes. In England not so very long ago men as well as women wore habiliments of gorgeous hues, but now most men avoid splendid tints (though 'Arry and his friends are exceptions), and the ladies only retain the taste for variegated colour in attire. So also the last relics of the absolutely savage style of adornment the ear-ring-is worn by women only. Again, systems of compression by which nature is to be improved-as when the Indian

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parent compresses his papoose's skull into an abnormal shape, or when the European mother causes her daughter's waist to be compressed to the conventional wine-glass figure-are not in favour among our men. Now, it is curious to notice that among the Tschutschers the men seem similarly in advance of the women. "The women have their faces tattooed," we read, "but the men have not," just as a Tschutscher visiting this country might say of us, "The women wear tiebacks" (or, according to the time, chignons, crinoline, trains, or the like), "the men do not." Yet it must be admitted that the costume worn by men at Court hardly accords with this theory, which, simply expressed, is this, that men are a little in advance of women so far as sense in dress is concerned. It would be well if a Lubbock or a Tylor would discuss savage customs and costumes with direct reference to this question, comparing the fashions followed by men and women of all known races, savage and civilised. Such a work (edited, perhaps, by a committee of ladies) could scarcely fail to be interesting, and might be found to possess considerable scientific value.

H

AVING once admitted into a species of intimacy those "foreign devils," from whom he held aloof as long as he could, the Chinaman seems determined to study their ways, and turn his knowledge of them to profitable account. It is no longer a novelty to meet educated Chinese in the chief cities of the Continent. Twice during the past month I have sat down in company with them at French tables d'hôte, and that in cities as remote even as Tours. Meanwhile, the renewal of vigour in a nation which a generation ago was regarded as effete, is a noteworthy sign of the times. China is now regarded by both England and Russia as an important factor in the sum of Asiatic politics, as a country larger than all Europe may well be considered. There is, however, a direct and unmistakable outburst of national life, the effect of which seems likely to be, so far as some of their neighbours are concerned, to substitute King Stork for King Log. Meanwhile, I am told by those best able to form an opinion, that the Chinese, when well officered and well led, are good soldiers. Man for man, they are superior to anything our Indian army can produce, the famous Ghoorkas not excepted.

I

SHALL, I doubt not, startle not a few of my readers, when I state that during a recent visit to France I have frequently seen French children intoxicated. Strange as such an assertion may seem, I deliberately make it and stand by it. Again and again at tables d'hôte I have seen children scarcely more than babies suffering distinctly

from alcohol. It is, as travellers in France know, the custom in all districts south of the Loire to supply wine gratis at the two meals, breakfast and dinner, at which the residents in an hotel eat in company. Repeatedly, then, in the hotels in French watering places, I have watched children of five years old and upwards supplied by their mothers with wine enough visibly to flush and excite them. At Sables d'Olonne one little fellow, whose age could not be more than six, drank at each of two consecutive meals three tumblers of wine slightly diluted with water. The result was on each occasion that he commenced to kiss his mother, proceeded to kiss the person on the other side of him, continued by sprawling over the table, and ended by putting his head in his mother's lap and falling asleep. It never seems to enter into the mind of a Frenchwoman that water may be drunk at a meal. When long journeys by rail are taken, there is always in the neat basket in which the French mother carries provisions a bottle of wine or wine and water, out of which those of her children who have passed the stage of absolute infancy are allowed to drink. I can indeed say with truth that in the course of a pretty long series of observations of the French, chiefly made, I admit, in public vehicles and hotels, I have rarely if ever seen a glass of cold water, unqualified with any admixture, quaffed by a native. It is now the fashion to mistrust water even when blended with wine, for which purpose the various springs of the Eau St. Galmier are largely employed.

A

FTER the exposure, supplied in the Pall Mall Gazette, of the horrors of a steerage passage on board the Cunard steamships, the management of that company is called upon to come forward with some denial of the facts advanced or some promise of future amendment. How strangely difficult men are to rouse in any matter in which their own interests are not at stake, is shown in the fact that this terrible description of a life existing in our midst has caused apparently no slightest sensation. It is to be regretted that the period in which our newspapers open their columns to this class of essay is the slack or, as it is called, the silly season, when readers are few, and when an abiding impression is difficult to make. Before, however, we commence to reform those gipsy classes, on whose behalf Parliament is, I see, to be stirred, we might do something for the encouragement of cleanliness and decency among those to whom such things are not superfluous or objectionable. Powerful as it is, the Cunard Company at least cannot afford to pass over without notice the grave indictment that has been brought against it.