I

NEWS AND NOTES.

T is very much to be regretted that the International Literary and Artistic Congress, which has been sitting from October 4th to October 11th, should have been managed with so little consideration for its success. Nobody knew that it was going to be held; nobody knows, now, who invited the Congress to assemble in London. They have received the hospitality of the Lord Mayor, who has proved himselt ever ready to welcome every kind of work and every good worker. But that is not enough. English authors have been conspicuous by their absence. How could they be expected to attend? They knew nothing about the Congress. The Society of Authors was not informed until a few days before the Congress met. Nor were they officially informed even then, but heard casually through the Mansion House. Two or three of the members, however, joined, at this last moment, the Reception Committee. But the Society was absolutely ignored by the managers of the Congress. As a natural result, not a single English author took part in the proceedings of the Congress. The proceedings will be briefly reported in the next number.

VOL. I.

At the Church Congress, which has just concluded, Archdeacon Farrar read a paper on the "Ethics of Commerce." He began by saying that he would purposely take only the most obvious and elementary side. This is well. Men require to have always kept before them the elementary side. The Decalogue is extremely elementary, yet it is found most useful to hang it up, written large, in every Church. "Human beings," he said, "do not constitute a mass of dead, impersonal force, to be treated only in accordance with the laws of supply and demand; every living soul has rights, indivisible, inalienable, eternal, which cannot be trampled and crushed into the mire as though political economy were some monstrous Juggernaut which must be dragged along in triumph. As for the law of honesty what are we

to say... of bargains made by skilled preying on the ignorance or the necessities of others; .. of betraying a confidence fraudulently gained by pretence of simplicity?. ... Imight expose the dishonourable customs which in many cases taint what should be, and often is, the eminently respectable trade of the publisher; I might speak of the sweating publishers who, without a blush, toss to the author perhaps a hundredth part of what, by bargains grossly inequitable, they have themselves obtained. There are many

reasons why the conscience of England should be awakened on this subject. In the words of a

K

living historian, 'When men live only to make money, and the service of God is become a thing of words and ceremonies, and the Kingdom of Heaven is bought and sold, a fire bursts out in higher natures. Show me a people whose trade is dishonest, and I will show you a people whose trade is a sham.'"

Dishonest trade may be the buying or selling of things adulterated, bad, not what they pretend to be; or it may be selling at such a price as to give an unjust profit to the seller, over and above what he has given to the producer. He then becomes a Sweater. Now there will be found on p. 139, certain examples of profit made by the S.P.C.K., which do not, indeed, touch the hundred fold spoken of by the Archdeacon, but they are double, treble, tenfold, and even twenty-fold! Other traders sweat for their private gain. These traders sweat for the promotion of Christian Knowledge. Which is worse the poor wretch who only degrades himself, or he who traffics in the sacred name of religion?

My answer to this "Memorandum" of the socalled Committee of Inquiry of the S.P.C.K. will be found on pp. 141–148.

The Standard has recently published a long string of letters concerning a so-called Society of Science, Letters, and Art. It is an interesting exposure of human folly and human cunning. This precious Society confers upon a member the privilege of calling himself a "Fellow," of wearing a gown and a hood, showing a diploma, and even wearing a badge, like an omnibus cad. As for any qualifications necessary to secure these privileges, there appear to be none; and as for any joy to be got by wearing the badge of the Society, this writer cannot understand where it comes in. Certain schoolmasters, it is stated, find it to their advantage to call themselves F.S.Sc., and on prize-giving days to wear the hood, which appears to be a very splendid thing. The Society, however, holds examinations. Well, so does the College of Preceptors, so does the Society of Arts; there is no reason why one Society should not hold examinations as well as any other Society, if they can persuade people to believe in their certificates. It does not appear that this Society of Science, Letters, and Art, does anything else at all to justify its existence. It is said to publish no balance sheet, and the evidence is overwhelming that it offers its membership for sale, although the President-they have got a President, as well as a Secretary-parades the fact that a form of election is gone through. One need not, how

ever, be too hard upon the S.Sc. L. and A. It does pretty much what all Societies do which permit their members to put letters after their names. How many antiquarians, geographers, geologists, astronomers, would belong to the Societies representing and supporting these sciences if it were not for the letters which they allow their members to use. Schoolmasters, writers, lecturers, and people generally anxious to make themselves known, always try to

make up for the absence of a degree by the addition of these letters. To be an F.R.G.S., F.R.H.S., F.R.C.S, F.R.A.S., F.R.S.L., seems to the outside world a proof of distinction. Why not, therefore, F.S.Sc.? It means nothing, nor do any of the letters, except the plain old-fashioned M.A., R.A. (whether Royal Academy or Royal Artillery), R.E., LL.D., D.C.L. or F.R.S. The poor schoolmaster who cannot use one of these legitimate titles might as well call himself F.S.Sc. as F.R.G.S. And if it helps him in his business, he will, I suppose, continue to do so. As for the hood, it seems to be believed that only a University can confer a hood. That is not so. All that a University can do is to confer a certain kind of hood; and, indeed, if a man chooses to make and to wear an Oxford hood when he does not possess an Oxford degree, what pains and penalties does he incur? I once saw a reverend gentleman mount the reading desk in quite a splendid hood, of the Oxford colour, but ampler, fuller, more magnificent. I did not remember to have heard that he was an Oxford man. He was not, in fact. He wore, I was told, the hood of St. Bees or of St. Augustine. Perhaps, after all, it was the hood of the Society of Science, Letters, and Art. Five guineas would have been cheap for such a hood.

When a daily paper has exhausted all the subjects of the day, there remains, at the bottom of the basket, one-the novel of the period. The editor can always have a fling at the novelists. In every paper, once a year at least, and generally twice a year, there is the leader on modern fiction by a leader writer who never reads any modern fiction. His view, of course, is pessimistic. In the same way, when a man has attained a certain position -no matter in what line-he considers himself qualified to address his fellow-creatures on the choice of books. This gives him also an opportunity of "slating" fiction of the day.

Mr. Frederick Harrison, I learn from the following extract, has been lecturing us on the Choice of Books, and has naturally seized the occasion to fling mud at the novelists. Let him speak

"But assuredly black night will quickly cover the vast bulk of modern fiction-work as perishable as the generations whose idleness it has amused. It belongs not to the great