large sums of money, failing in the end. The system has always been one of wholesale corruption; but owing to the utter destitution of the whole official class, it has never been so barefaced, or so excusable, as at present. One immediate consequence of it is that, as the money question is more pressing than the patriotic one, it does not matter how advantageous to the interests of the nation a proposal may be, the person offering it must be prepared to bribe. If to-morrow a philanthropist were to offer to give the Government a million of pounds sterling in exchange for a million of liras,—each lira being worth only eighteen shillings, he would be compelled to bribe in order to get his offer accepted. As philanthropists of this kind are rare, the more common experiment unfortunately is for the unprincipled speculator from Europe to bribe heavily in order to obtain concessions or contracts which will enable him to swindle the Government on a large scale, -a very easy operation, provided the swindle is a big one, and the profits to be divided are extensive.

The appointments to functions and offices in the Provinces, involving great opportunities of robbing the people, are also purchased in the same way; but the centre of all this corruption is now not so much the Cabinet as the Palace. And this brings us back to the great change which has been practically effected during the last year through the overthrow of Khaireddin. The Government of the country has really been transferred from the Cabinet to a Court cabal, consisting of a small and very select circle of the Sultan's intimates, and who share his fanaticism, his suspicion of all foreign interference, his consequent hatred of all schemes of reform, and his determination to thwart by every means in his power every proposal, no matter how desirable it may be in the interests of his Empire, which emanates from abroad. It is no secret that two, if not more, of this conclave are in the receipt of a permanent salary from the Power which, since the war, has assumed the role of private adviser and friend of Turkey, especially in all matters concerning the future of its Asiatic Provinces, and that acting under this influence their hostility to England is undisguised. This clique is presided over by the Sultan, and no affair, from the most important question of State to the smallest detail which has occupied the attention of the Cabinet, can be settled without its approval. It originates measures, and sends them down to the Cabinet to be agreed to and sent back; it arbitrarily rejects others which have originated in the Cabinet. and been sent up for approval, or even returns those which have been unfavourably decided by the Cabinet for reversal of its decision and a report in the opposite sense. It is a nest of intrigue and corruption subject to no control, except that of the Sultan himself, the arbiter of the destinies of the Empire, and precipitating it at headlong speed to destruction.

Its spies are everywhere; it has organized a secret police upon a scale hitherto unknown in the country, and the objects of its especial

animosity and suspicion are the able and patriotic Turks of the old school, who still have the interests of the country at heart, and who are suspected of conspiring to save it. This cabal is well aware that a wide-spread feeling of the keenest discontent exists throughout the country amid all classes of the population, Moslem even more than Christian; that the Palace is execrated by high and low; that the veneration in which the office of Sultan is held by the people is rapidly disappearing under the influence of hatred of the man,—a fact of which he is himself so conscious that he condemns himself to perpetual imprisonment in the grounds of his Palace, a victim to the most morbid terror and distrust.

How much longer a Government so detested and despised as that which now controls the destinies of the country will be permitted by an oppressed and starving population to exist it is impossible to conjecture, for the Turks are the most patient, submissive, and longsuffering of races; but that the crushed worm will turn at last there can be very little doubt, and in the interests of the Empire, and of the policy of England, the sooner it does so the better.

These, then, are the conditions under which we are now attempting the reform of Asia Minor: it is as well that we should be no longer under the delusion that the task is possible so long as they exist. How they are to be overcome-whether England is to take the initiative of substituting for the existing order, or rather disorder, of things at Constantinople, a form of government more in accordance with the spirit of the age and the requirements of the country, in which the representatives of the people shall have some voice in their administration, or whether it will leave it to those people themselves to work out the problem of their own deliverance, is a subject for the Government and the people of England to decide; but nothing is more certain than this that until a revolution of some sort is effected, the necessity for reform not only in Asia Minor, but all through the Empire, will continue to increase, the financial difficulties of the country grow more overwhelming, its political relations with foreign countries become more complicated and full of peril, and the power and influence of England for good be seriously impaired and diminished.

A SEQUEL TO "THE PEDIGREE OF MAN."*

A DIALOGUE.

PERSONS.

Clericus, the Vicar of the Village.

Medicus, a Physician occasionally residing in the Village.

SCENE.

The Study in the house of Medicus, in which Jules Macrou's Geological Map of the World and a Chart of Co-tidal Lines are hanging in front of the book-cases.

CLERICUS. What are you doing?

Medicus. Nothing to any good purpose. I have been trying to make out whether the facts set forth in Jules Macrou's large new Geological Map of the World confirm or confound certain notions respecting the tides which have been brewing in my head for a long time; and I have only bothered myself.

C. You succeeded in bothering me not a little by what you said a few nights ago about the action of the solar rays upon the earth*about the earth being a spheroidal lens, deep down within which the solar rays are brought to a fiery focus, about the heat of this focus being fierce enough to fuse rock, and to raise the land above the water, and about the bounds of the land and water being fixed as long as the axis of the earth preserves the same attitude in relation to that of the sun. Remembering what you said about the way in which an alteration in the axis of the earth sunwards might, in time, transpose the position of the land and sea, and bring about the Deluge, I read the account of that great catastrophe before I went to bed, and banished sleep for some time by so doing. How strangely circumstantial is that account! The rains descend, and the flood ascends for forty days and forty nights before the earth is submerged; one hundred and fifty-one days and nights in addition pass away before the waters attain their full height of fifteen cubits above the topmost hills; and one hundred and fifty days are added to these before the flood has retired and left the ground in a habitable state. Nearly a whole year is spent in this way. During six months, apparently, the ancient land goes on * See CONTEMPORARY REVIEW: January, 1880.

sinking and the bed of the ancient sea rising, until, by both being brought more or less to the same level, the waters prevail over the whole earth. During the next six months, apparently, the ancient land goes on sinking and the bed of the ancient sea rising, until eventually the relative position of the ancient land and the bed of the ancient sea is transposed; as at present. I had to do, as it seemed, not with a sudden miracle, but with natural causes which worked slowly and steadily throughout the course of a whole year, as your fiery focus within the carth might be supposed to do. I saw, as it seemed, the truth of Scripture verified by science, and the grasp of science strengthened by Scripture. For, if you are right in supposing that the land is raised above the waters and kept above them as long as the position of the axis of the earth in relation to the sun remains unchanged, an alteration in the position of this axis by which the focus was shifted from a point under the ancient land to apoint under the bed of the ancient sea, must, in time, have had the effect of making the ancient land and the ancient sea change places, and of bringing about the deluge when this change is mid-way. And, seeing so far, I also wondered whether there are at present any diurnal and seasonal fluctuations in the level of the land above the water. What do you say to this dreamy notion of mine? I wish you would tell me. But, before you do so, I want you to explain to me a little more clearly why I may believe that this focal concentration of the solar rays within the carth is itself more than a mere dream. I can see that the earth, by its form, is fitted to play the part of a spheroidal lens, and that is all.

M. I believe that there are unmistakable diurnal and seasonal fluctuations in the level of the land above the waters which may have something to do in causing the tidal movements of the ocean. I had been thinking about this matter when you came into the room, and trying to find the key to the facts set forth in the Official Tide Tables in Jules Macrou's Geological Map of the Globe; and I shall certainly puzzle you unless I pave the way to what I have to say on this subject by adding something to what I have already said about the focal concentration of the solar rays within the earth, and the rest.

C. I am ready enough to listen.

M. When parallel rays of light are made to pass through spheres of different refractive power, these rays are brought to a focus in different places. If, for example, the sphere in each case be one inch in radius, the actual position of the focus in Tabasheer,* in water, in glass, and in zircon† is that which is here, as you see, tabulated by Sir David Brewster :-"

*This is the Persian name for a concretion of pure silex (found in the joints of bamboos), which is the least refractive of all known bodies.

+ A mineral found in Ceylon (containing the earth zirconia and silica), of which hyacinth is a red variety.

"Encycl. Britan:" 1858: art. on "Optics."

and alphabetical index for them, and to see that the packets are sent by post to subscribers, and that is an amount of labour which, taken altogether, does not require an hour a day to perform it. Fees and travelling expenses of officials play a very great part in the case. If there is an important public work in process of completion in a Province, it is an exceptional case when an official from the Ministerial Department does not make half-a-dozen journeys to inspect it. The amount

of writing before a plan of building is fixed upon is endless, and it very often turns out that every revision has only made it worse. The system itself necessitates a throng of officials, for when a proposal is laid by any Ministry before, say a Superior President, and by him before a Government, and by it before a Rural Council, and by it before a Burgomaster, and goes back again through the same channels, it is manifest that all this costs time and money. Autonomy or selfgovernment has no place, at least not among the State authorities and Corporations. When, for example, a University Professor wishes for any reason not to deliver in any particular Session a public course of lectures-i.e., a gratuitous course of one or two hours a week,-he must apply for a dispensation. This requires,-1st, a written request; 2nd, a decision of the Faculty; 3rd, an intimation of this decision to the Curator; 4th, an intimation by the Curator to the Ministerial Department; 5th, an order from the latter; 6th, a letter from the Curator communicating this order. It lies in the nature of a State so wholly guided by officials that the public must accommodate itself to the officials. For example, one is required to pay his taxes in the first eight days of the month, but the tax-collector has his office open only from nine to twelve in the forenoon, and on some days, not reckoning Sundays or holidays, it is not open at all. In spite of the multitude. of officials, the transaction of business is often delayed many months, even in the courts. The number of cases in arrcar at the time of the inauguration of the new judicial organization of Germany on the 1st October, 1879, amounted to many thousands. The complicated procedure makes it possible for a case to wait two, three, or four years for settlement, if the high Provincial officials or the Minister deem it meet.

II. We will now pass to the second greatest German State, the kingdom of BAVARIA. With 5,022,390 inhabitants, Bavaria has for its Central Government a Council of State and six Departments of Stateviz., those of the Royal House and Foreign Affairs, of Justice, of the Interior, of Church and School Affairs, of Finance, of War. It is divided into eight Administrative Districts, each of which has a Government, with two Chambers, and under this District Offices, Revenue Offices (Rentämter), and Forest Offices, which are filled by the various Judicial authorities. For the administration of the Interior there are for Finance, 1317 higher, and 496 subaltern officials; for Justice, 1086 higher and 393 subaltern-in all, 3292. Besides these,