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His name was Nikolai Szcheswa Pschitzchisoffsni, which alone, one would think, was sufficient to keep him a bachelor.

He was a Galician; the benevolent Canadian Government, in its inscrutable wisdom, had seen fit to invite him to come over from his country of serfdom to the land of freedom and broad acres.

And Nikolai Szcheswa Pschitzchisoffsni came; and his path was a path of roses and his entry like that of a conqueror (for the pet hobby of the Canadian Government at that time happened to be the Galician Immigration Scheme), and Government officials did pet him and gush exceedingly.

But other settlers, who had had the misfortune not to be born in Galicia, did not gush-not much; but they said bad words and growled unpleasantly as they saw tracts of Canadian land converted into Galician settlements.

Fort Sturgeon is in Alberta, N.W.T., Canada: there is a Galician settlement close to the Fort, and to this settlement Nikolai came.

And there he took up land and did his best to become a Canadian by mixing only with his own people, speaking his own language, and clinging to the ways and customs of his native country. And, after his fashion, he prospered, for if he made but little money he spent nothing; so he was either hoarding his wealth or sending it to friends in Galicia-which, of course, was very creditable to him, and eminently satisfactory to the people of Canada.

Now there was at the Fort a Church of England missionary, who would. have satisfied Amyas Leigh.

Read your "Westward Ho!" and you will find that Amyas Leigh was of

Of

He was dressed, after his wont, in the usual uniform of the Galician peasant, which consists of a collection of loose, shapeless, more or less dirtylooking garments, neutral tinted. course, he wore a greasy sheepskin coat with the wool inside; and he brought into the Reverend Bertram's house the perfume of old Russia.

Nikolai had been more than three years in Canada, and it was a remarkable fact that he could speak English fairly well; so, after a few moments, during which he shuffled his feet and twirled his high fur cap, he stammered :

"Melinka, Papa, (little father), you marry me? Eh? Yes?" And he smiled an expansive smile.

"Certainly," replied Mr. Holcombe. "Have you a marriage license? Paper from Mr. Fraser, you know, paper for marrying?"

"Oh, yes-paper-I got good paper, good for marry anybody!" and he drew from some mysterious recess in his blouse a crumpled piece of paper.

The Reverend Bertram unfolded it and found to his surprise that it was the certificate of the death of one Aniska, wife of Nikolai Szcheswa Pschitzchisoffsni.

And it was dated only three months back.

"I am afraid that this paper will not

be enough," said the parson. "This is not a marriage license; this is a certificate of the death of your wife."

"Oh, yes," politely but firmly persisted Nikolai. "That all the same good for marry. She dead, very dead; been dead long time. I can marry any peoples."

"Now look here; you don't understand. No doubt your wife is dead; but before you can marry again you must get a marriage license from Mr. Fraser, a paper with your name and the name of the lady you are going to marry written upon it. You pay Mr. Fraser two dollars for the paper and then come here with the lady, and then we can arrange about the wedding."

"Ah, but I have not woman's name. How do then?"

"Well, you can find out that, I suppose. Where is the lady?"

And then Nikolai told his artless little tale, and it ran thus:

At that time there was, on the way from Galicia to Canada, a party of Galician damsels who were destined to become the wives of the pioneers who had come out before them. This party was daily expected to arrive at Fort Sturgeon, and the wily Nikolai, thinkink to get ahead of his fellows, had struck upon the ingenious idea of having the best chance and the first choice by making arrangements for his marriage before he saw his bride. For he was determined that a bride he would have.

Then Mr. Holcombe took infinite pains to explain to him what he would have to do before there could be a successor to the late Mrs. Pschitzchisoffsni —and, of all the preliminaries, the choice of a wife appeared to Nikolai to be the easiest and most simple.

A few days later Nikolai again presented himself before the Reverend

Bertram Holcombe. This time Nikolai was accompanied by a sturdy, Galician damsel, a hard-featured, strong-limbed woman, evidently a worker and a bearer of burdens.

The woman was dressed rather curiously for a bride.

On her head was a coloured handkerchief; her hair was uncombed, dusty and somewhat straggly; over a shapeless blouse she wore a long, greasy, sheepskin coat which reached to her knees; below this coat was to be seen a pair of heavy boots, into which her bare feet were thrust.

And this time Nikolai had provided himself with the proper papers, so the Reverend Bertram Holcombe married them; and at the conclusion of the ceremony the newly-wedded pair knelt and kissed the clergyman's hand, much to his embarrassment.

Now, in the Northwest it is no unusual thing for the bridegroom to be unable to pay a fee in cash; often it is paid in kind-flour, meat, or, perhaps, furs.

The Reverend Bertram was used to that formula, but the next thing Nikolai said was refreshingly novel.

"Dobre Papa (good father), give me fifty cents and I pray for you sometime."

And Nikolai got his fifty cents and went off with his bride; and afterwards the Reverend Bertram Holcombe missed a valuable meerschaum pipe.

I think Nikolai, the Galician, deserves to succeed in this country; for it is not every man who can secure, in one day, fifty cents, a meerschaum pipe and a wife.

Basil C. d'Easum,

WE

E are assured with a certain smug complacency that the Samoa affair is not likely to cause a rupture between the powers concerned. A joint commission to consider the situation is on its way to the islands and in nearly all these cases when time is gained the outlook becomes peaceful. The way is opened for a graceful retreat on someone's part and with a little of the oil of compromise all round, matters are got working again. The conclusion will doubtless be that the tripartite government of the islands is a failure, and we shall probably see a division of them among the three powers. Germany has unquestionably the largest interest in them, her purchases from the islanders being $225,ooo as compared with $22,000 by the two other powers and her sales to them are over one-half greater than the combined sales of the other two. In all conscience, therefore, Germany has excellent reason for her interest in the Samoans.

While, then, there is no danger of a war among the great powers there has been already the customary sprinkling of blood on the altars of Empire. Three gallant young officers and a number of the unconsidered Jackies have, in Kipling's phrase, salted Samoa with their bones, and we may be sure that in the slaughter of the enemy their manes were appeased ten to one. We read of the ships riding along shore belching out death from their dread sides on the offending villagers. I venture to say that most people are beginning to make a wry face as they continue to read of these battues of savages, the red details of which have been strung through the press for months past. Beginning with Omdurman, carried on at Manila and, let us hope, wound up at Apia, we have had in our mind's

Indeed, in all the cases we are furnished with excellent reasons why the giant should have his meal of raw meat and bloody bones. At Manila the hecatomb is made necessary because the ignorant savages cannot see that the people who are raking them fore and aft with grape and canister are the best friends they have in the world. They have no excuse for their benighted condition, for President McKinley's commission has assured them by proclamation of the philanthropic spirit that actuates the Americans and the exceeding regret that fills their hearts at being obliged to kill them. Aguinaldo and his Tagalos must necessarily be profoundly interested in these proclamations, but the first thing to strike them would be that of the thing about which they fight, namely, the desire of the natives to be independent of foreign rule, there is not one word. This is rather strange, is it not? It is as if two men should have a dispute about the ownership of a horse and the one who had possession should issue a proclamation to the other telling him how he worshipped justice, humanity, honesty, and all the other virtues, and how he hated tyranny and oppression, but omitted to say anything about the horse. If in their proclamation the Americans assured the much-harassed Filipinos that the question of their independence would in due time be left to their own choice freely expressed,

the fighting would, we think, soon

cease.

It would require a professional casuist to decide whether civilization has done more harm than good among savage people. The history of the slave trade in Africa transcends in horror and deviltry the utmost imagination of The rule of most African chiefs is a continual carnival of fiendish cruelty, the extirpation of which would be a gain to humanity, even if whole tribes had to be blotted out in the process. But there is another

man.

side to the shield. Most people have read Capt. Cook's voyages, and under his guidance have re-discovered those island paradises in the Pacific to whose shores his ships brought anything but health and peace. Capt. Cook was a humane, large-hearted seaman, and, no doubt, thought he was according the islanders a boon in making them known to the white world. Many of these dots of territory in the ocean could well have figured as the Islands of the Blest, with their fervent skies, fat soil, and inhabitants without a care, and almost without an ache. Civilization will not be pleased with her image if she gathers it as reflected from these once happy isles. The fate of the easy, indolent, merry, thoughtless

aborigines is one of the hideous offences that she or her accompanying brood has to answer for.

Stevenson, in his Vailima letters, tells his friend Colvin of the tremendous struggle he is having in clearing a plantation for himself-how he fought with the forest, and with its tropical luxuriance it grew almost as fast as he cut it down. How amused the natives must have been to witness his exertions! They feasted daily on the abundance that the wild, uncultivated forest supplied, while he the poor consumptive, was hastening the end with his British idea of having things shipshape, and toiling for what nature in Samoa yields without toil. Could two such races ever be got to understand each other? The black man may respond that the

white man does not take up the burden. but puts it on him. When he subdues the black man he sets him at work and then the wonder is that before he had the good fortune to meet with his white friend he lived very much better and did not have to work at all. This is in accordance with the gospel of work, which is the cardinal tenet in the white man's creed.

It is enough to make the forebears of Nicholas turn in their graves to see him writing, or having written, a pretty little note to the European press, thanking everybody for the interest displayed in the coming Peace Congress at the Hague. The suspicion that attaches to it has by no means been removed, however. While the preparations for the Congress go on, Mr. Geo. W. Steevens, the London Mail's correspondent, who is now in the East, points out that simultaneously with the preparations for the Congress there is a corresponding activity in pushing railway construction in Central Asia. It will be remembered that a book entitled "The Russians at the Gates of Herat," attracted a good deal of attention a few years ago. She has not as yet got into the gates, but Mr. Steevens declares the momentous moment is at hand. He thinks that Russia should be made fully aware that coming to Herat means war, his view being that the struggle might as well come off at once as later. To the lay mind the labyrinthine wilderness of mountains that lie between Herat and Quetta would seem to be defence enough for Hindostan. In these defiles would seem to be the place to withstand an invading army. To go out and meet him at Herat would be to commit the blunder that Gen. Leslie committed at Dunbar. Military opinion is strongly, nevertheless, convinced of the impolicy of allowing Herat to be seized by Russia. The meaning of their declarations is that so long as Herat is in hands hostile to Russia, an attack on India will be next to impossible. It is the only point at which an attack in great force could be prepar

ed. In the hands of the Russians, too, it is feared that it would be a centre of intrigue and agitation of grievances at the various native courts in India. The position, indeed, seems to be that England herself does not want to advance outside the lines of the Hindoo Koosh, and yet objects to the occupation of Herat by a possible enemy.

Russia's alleged designs on India. are not the uppermost topic in the British Isles just now. If we are to be guided by the newspapers we must conclude that what is called the crisis in the church is the engrossing theme of the hour. Under the protecting ægis of Lord Halifax, head and front of the society known as the English Church Union, ritualism has become bold. A recent service at St. Clement's, City Road, London, is thus described: "Here there is the assumption of vestments, there there is removal; here they are held up, there they are let down; here the stole, the book, the altar are kissed. The clergy bless the incense, they cense the altar, they cense the elements, they cense each other, they cense the congregation. Mysterious movements mark the officiants. The celebrant glides to the south of the altar, washes his fingers, then glides to the centre; then suddenly faces the people with uplifted hands, and as suddenly reverses his position. Meanwhile the thurifer is busy censing the deacon, the subdeacon, the servers or acolytes, the choir and finally the people. Candles are lighted. But the strangest thing of all has yet to be mentioned. The celebrant turns round and embraces the deacon by placing his hands affectionately on his shoulders; the deacon similarly embraces the sub-deacon, who in turn embraces the server !"

Surely no honest-minded person will pretend that these are not innovations on the practice of the Church of England. That they are offensive to the great majority of Englishmen both in and out of the church will scarcely be

denied. I am convinced that the spiritual embracings noted above are wholly foreign to the character of Englishmen, and it is not too strong to say that they are repulsive to the national mind. Auricular confession stands in the same position. This is the innovation of all others that will be most bitterly opposed, and, on the other hand, most obstinately pressed. That it is being pressed by the innovating clergy may be seen by the declaration that at one church, St. Bartholemew's, Brighton, ten thousand confessions were heard in a single year. In the House of Lords, in a recent debate, Lord Salisbury said with regard to it: "It has been injurious to the moral independ ence and virility of the nation to an extent to which probably it has been given to no other institution to affect the character of mankind." It is in this aspect of it-its effect on a manly character-that it must be regarded as a national disaster if the custom of auricular confession again became general in England. If the people have to choose between the confessional boxes and disestablishment, it is not hard to foretell on which the choice will fall. A married priesthood sitting in the confession box would be both an abomination and a scandal.

The first County Council elections have been held in Ireland. The voters have exercised their privilege to the full by electing those whose political views pleased them best, aside from every other consideration. In some cases noble lords and landlords have been elected but in a great many more instances they have been rejected, while insignificent and unknown personages of Nationalist proclivities have gone in with tremendous majorities. Those who expected any other result must be political babes and sucklings. There is no need to be concerned about Ireland. It will be found that no very serious national dangers flow from the County Council, nor would they flow from an Irish Parliament.

John A. Ewan.