from the farmer; but the farmer might not find it convenient to supply them. They would have to go seeking for these elsewhere, possibly at great inconvenience, perhaps at greater expense, and at all events, at their own trouble and in their own time. They might live less on milk and meal than they now do, and take to tea and loaves. Their modus vivendi would in that case become less healthy and undoubtedly more expensive. They would further be dependent on bakers' and grocers' vans, or would have to go to the shop to make their own purchases. As it is, they are saved all this trouble and expense. It is the farmer's business to see that the men are provided for in respect of the necessities of life. If they are content with their milk and meal, they need never have a moment's trouble about a single diet. It is true that a distinction should be drawn in the case of married men. It is not to be supposed that a man with a wife and family can meet his household requirements without a certain command of ready money. These, therefore, might be legally entitled to weekly or monthly part-payment of their wages. Unmarried men have less need; and if they require extras, it has now become usual for them in many quarters to keep a running account with the travelling van. If weekly or monthly payments were instituted, this credit would be denied them. If money were paid them for all, hardly a tradesman would trust a ploughman to the extent of a shilling. This might not be a disadvantage in every sense, but it would be an inconvenience, and it would be a reproach. It may be asked, wherein lies the disadvantage of getting weekly wages to pay as they go, and getting credit from a vanman? One disadvantage, and it is undeniable, is the encouragement the former gives to improvidence. About this there can be no question whatever. Young unmarried ploughmen who are in the habit of getting 'sub,' as it is called, are found upon experience to be invariably the most intemperate, the most improvident, and the worst payers of accounts: they are generally the worst men about a place, and the worst clad. The value of the money is little esteemed, because they can get more when what they have is exhausted; and commonly it goes as it comes. Yearly or half-yearly payments,

on the other hand, have in general something of the effect of a Savings' Bank on the ploughman's wages. His money is kept together for him. He gets it entire, goes and settles his accounts, and lays the rest securely past.

A further point may be noticed. The quantity of meal a ploughman is entitled to is far more than will supply any single man's wants. He could not use 61⁄2 bolls of oatmeal in a year, though he fed on nothing else; and now that conveniences are so great for getting other things, ploughmen are less inclined to live on oatmeal than they used to be. The ploughman is therefore obliged to dispose of a quantity of his meal, commonly half of his allowance, and he may do this as he pleases or finds convenient. It is usually found most convenient to dispose of it to the farmer himself. He gets the full price for it, and there is no trouble given. There can be no reasonable objection to this arrangement; but it would be a very different thing if the ploughman were not entitled to the meal at all, and had to depend upon getting it from the farmer as a favour.

Another, and the main, objection to this proposed change in the payment of ploughmen's wages, is the fact that such a change would put ploughmen on an entirely false footing. Such a change would completely revolutionize farm-life, and speedily deprive ploughmen of all the solid advantages they now possess. In this proposed reform we observe more clearly than elsewhere the drift of the whole agitation. It is an agitation proceeding from Trades' Unionism, and inspired by all the common principles of Trades' Unionism. The trades have their half-holiday: why not the ploughmen? Workmen do not have Friday markets, and why should ploughmen go like so many serfs to a market to barter and bind themselves? Workmen are paid extra for extra time: why should not ploughmen have the same privilege, or have their evenings to themselves, like mechanics and mill-workers? Tally is illegal among the trades: why should ploughmen submit to receive payment in kind? Workmen are paid money in full every week or fortnight, and why should not ploughmen be also paid money in full every week or month, so that

they might go might go to whatever market they pleased and buy what they pleased? All of this is simply a rigmarole of ignorant sophistry. Trades Unionism is an excellent institution for workmen, but ploughmen are not, and never have been, in the same position as other wage-earning men, and it would be an immense pity for ploughmen themselves if their status were altered so as to put them in the same position. At present the ploughmen of a farm are part and parcel of the farm-establishment, and rank more in the character of domesticservants than of men working for day's or hour's wages. They do not directly participate in the profits of the farm, but in other respects they form part of the establishment, and come next in importance to the farmer's own household. Formerly they were lodged, in many cases, in the farm-house, and were not allowed to quit the farm, night nor day, but with the farmer's permission. At present they are provided in food and lodging without a question of cost. If they are disabled through accident or illness from going on with their work, the former is bound to send for medical assistance, and to pay a doctor; and meanwhile for a reasonable time, six months at least, their wages, meal, and milk, go on as usual. Put them on the footing of weekly-wage men and you deprive them of all these privileges; you oblige them to provide their own food, their own doctor, and perhaps, also, their own home accommodation, like ordinary workmen-from whom they so entirely differ that every tool they work with belongs to their master, and they are not even obliged to purchase their own whips. Such a change would have more serious consequences than temporary inconvenience. If feeing-markets were abolished, and weekly or monthly payments instituted, notice to quit on either side would quickly follow, and farmers would hold themselves at liberty to treat their ploughmen in the same way as masons or joiners. If farmers had to pay monthly, they would hold themselves at liberty to engage monthly and dismiss at a month's notice. When the month of May came round, and the turnip-seed was sown, the farmer could if he liked, without serious inconvenience, pay off nearly every man on the place, hire women to thin the turnips at one shilling and sixpence a

day, and engage no more men till harvest. Ploughmen would quickly cease to have the same interest in their places and in their work; and instead of their condition being improved or made more independent, the breach between master and men would be widened, and class-distinction, already only too prominent, would be confirmed into a positive burden.

There is much to be said also, on the subject of allotments and small holdings for ploughmen, but that must be reserved for another occasion. The foregoing criticism, which is in substance that of intelligent ploughmen themselves, may help to show how dangerous it is for agitators to tamper with what they know little about. In their ardour to be reformers they not uncommonly turn out to be bungling meddlers.

J. G. Dow.

ART. X.-SUMMARIES OF FOREIGN REVIEWS.

GERMANY.

DEUTSCHE RUNDSCHAU (April, May, June). The first two items in the table of contents for the first of these three numbers are, respectively, the continuation of Herr Theodor Fontane's serial, Unwiederbringlich,' and the closing instalment of Herr W. Henke's paper on Conscious and Unconscious Movement.' -These are followed by an essay in which Herr Karl Woermann traces the development of portrait painting in the 16th century. -The next contribution has for its subject the conversion of the Emperor Constantine.-A wider and more living interest attaches to the article in which Herr Paul Reichard reviews Major Casati's book on Equatoria. In so far as it is a summary of the explorer's work, English readers need not linger over it. Neither will they greatly care to learn that the German version appears to have been hurriedly and badly done. It will interest them more to learn that the German critic pronounces the book to be fascinating, and accepts, as being of the highest value, the materials which it supplies for a history of the great drama in the Equatorial province. But, he says, the real enigma of it is not solved, even by Casati; he is wanting in political insight, he is too much under the influence of his feelings and sentiments. He further objects that Casati is too severe upon Emin, and that the promise

of the preface, in which the book is said to contain a rehabilitation of Emin, is not fulfilled. He concludes by expressing the opinion that, even after reading Casati it is not possible to arrive at a decisive judgment concerning the history of the province, for the reason that the chief witness of the revolutions which have taken place in it has not yet spoken.—In an article extending through two numbers, Herr W. Lang gives a sketch of one of the secondary characters of the French Revolution, Karl Friedrich Reinhard, a Suabian schoolmaster, who became a French diplomatist. The period more particularly dealt with is that of his stay in Hamburg, from 1795 till 1798, as representative of the French Republic. The well-known name of the novelist, historian, and egyptologist, Georg Ebers, appears above a most interesting paper, entitled 'The First Cataract.' Besides giving a most vivid and interesting description of the whole district, the writer indicates the immense advantage which would be derived from the construction of a canal to facilitate navigation. The May number brings another African article. In this case it is also a review; but whilst summarizing Dr. Peters's account of the German Emin Expedition, the writer finds opportunity to say a good many hard things of the English, on the score of the obstacles which their officials placed in the explorer's way. In the same number Herr Th. Gomperz devotes an able article to a résumé and appreciation of the recently discovered treatise of Aristotle.-Microbes have had a very hard time of it lately. One scientist after another has discovered them here, there, and everywhere, but only to hold them up to general execration first, and, then, himself as a benefactor of the human species for having found a means of destroying them. But a champion has at last arisen. Herr Eduard Strasburger, in a most able and most instructive paper, takes up the cudgels for the microbes. He shows that those of which Pasteur, Koch, and their colleagues have constituted themselves the detectives and executioners, are nothing better than the criminal classes, but that there are countless millions of others which are not only harmless but absolutely indispensable.-The remaining articles, which it is sufficient to indicate by their respective titles, are, exclusively of fiction and continuations, a technical paper by Admiral Batsch on Naval Fallacies,' and the reproduction of an academic address on the Doctrine of Conscience.'-The June part contains one contribution of high and special interest, consisting of eleven letters from Darwin to Professor W. Preyer of Berlin, one of his earliest disciples in Germany. Apart from considerations of space, the fact that they are translated from English into German would deter us from attempting a version which could

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