Comments on the enormous public interest generated by 'the series of cricket matches between the elevens of England and Australia', and speculates that the 'money which the newspapers must have spent on telegrams about the doings of the respective teams will probably make a considerable difference in the revenue of the Australian cables' (11–13). Reports that amid the trial of Alfred DreyfusDreyfus, Alfred
(c. 1859–1935)
CBD CloseView the register entry >>, another 'event which created at least a ripple in the feverish arena of the French capital was the death of M. de LessepsLesseps, Ferdinand, vicomte de
(1805–94)
CBD CloseView the register entry >>, who passed away from a world in which he had been lingering, more dead than alive, ever since the catastrophe which overtook the Panama shareholders' (14).
Medical Treatment, Heterodoxy, Homeopathy, Quackery, Controversy, Analytical Chemistry, Boundary Formation
Complains of 'the persecution to which Dr. TheobaldTheobald, Robert Masters
(1829–1914)
RLIN CloseView the register entry >> has been subjected by the Medical CouncilGeneral Medical Council
CloseView the register entry >>, his name having been removed from the Medical Register because he has dared to call attention to the fact that Count Mattei'sMattei, Cesare
(1809–96)
WBI CloseView the register entry >> remedies have really cured disease'. Also notes 'the triumphant assertions of some of the enemy that Professor StokesStokes, Sir William
(1839–1900)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> has analysed the medicines and found them to contain nothing but water', but counters that 'the only test that is worth anything is physiological—do the remedies cure, or do they not? Medical analysis often fails to discover the healing elements in other medicines than those of Mattei'.
Review of Reviews, 11 (1895), 33.
Why the Ass is an Ass; or, the Origin of the Donkey
Explains that 'the capitalistic inventor [...] may be fairly said to make his fortune. But this "Nunquam"Blatchford, Robert Peel Glanville
(1851–1943)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> will not allow. No man has a right to what is not produced by his own unaided labour. The invention was not the product of the inventor's own unaided labour. It was the product or further development of the product of countless preceding workers' (77).
Disease, Medical Treatment, Sex, Morality, Race, Ethnology, Military Technology, War
Reports a 'very scandalous' event in Detroit, where the 'Secretary of the Board of HealthDetroit Board of Health
CloseView the register entry >>, hearing that a young girl of seventeen was virtually a prisoner in her own house under quarantine pending her removal to the small-pox hospital, twice entered the house at night, with an immoral intent', although the remonstrations of the sick girl were enough 'to compel him to desist before he could accomplish his infamous purpose'. Despite these scandalous actions, the 'Board of Health of Detroit refused to dismiss the Secretary', and 'the scoundrel' is at present 'still fulfilling his official duties'. (113) Observes that before the Japanese army captured the Chinese city of Wei-hai-Wei they had 'behaved as if they really had been civilised more than skin deep', but after this military triumph 'the aboriginal savage broke out' and 'Japanese soldiers indulged in several days' cold-blooded massacre'. The 'Japanese, although they use the mitrailleuse and torpedo-boat, are Asiatics, who for centuries have carried on war in the regular Asiatic fashion. It is not therefore surprising that they should have had a bad relapse after the first serious fighting which they had to face'. (117)
Section: Leading Articles in the Reviews
Review of Reviews, 11 (1895), 137.
Catholic Priests and the Bicycle. Its Use Prohibited
Transport, Machinery, Christianity, Religious Authority
Notes that 'the Holy Congregation at Rome' has 'decided to prohibit the use of the bicycle by priests, not only from consideration of their personal safety, but also because it may shock the feelings of the faithful and bring ridicule upon the priests themselves'.
Zoology, Periodicals, Publishing, Science Communication
Gives details of a new and 'very extensive scheme to be started in this country by Dr. H. H. FieldField, Herbert Haviland
(1868–1921)
WBI CloseView the register entry >>' in which 'slips and extracts' from zoological periodicals will collected by correspondents from across the world and 'sent in to the Central Bureau, and it is proposed to issue both the slips and the Record in parts, according to the various subjects. This alone will give Dr. Field an advantage over the present Zoological RecordZoological Record
(1870–1900+)
BUCOP CloseView the register entry >>, which is sold in one bulky and expensive volume, even to those who need only a few pages of it'.
Meteorology, Disease, Class, War, Progress, Conservatism, Scientism
Comments on 'a spell of winter weather severe and protracted beyond all precedent in the lifetime of this generation', and notes that when, at last, 'the frost began to give, the influenza descended upon us, as its fashion is, striking down high and low, rich and poor, with a preference, indeed, for the well-to-do', and constituting a 'detestable substitute for the malarial fevers of hotter lands' (211). Reports the latest victories of the Japanese army over the Chinese, and observes that 'there is no doubt that in the outer world it will tend to re-enforce the popular feeling in favour of modern scientific improvements and drastic reform. It was not by remaining in the ancient ways and by reverently nursing every mouldy fragment of medievalism that time had spared that the Japs were able to grasp the thunderbolts with which they have hurled China from her ancient throne in Manchuria and Korea. The Japs have won because they were progressive with a vengeance, and, having once grasped the new ideas, carried them out to their ultimate logical conclusions' (220).
Review of Reviews, 11 (1895), 225–35.
Character Sketch. The Right Hon. Henry Herbert Asquith, Q.C., M.P.
Anon
Genre:
Regular Feature, Biography
Subjects:
Industry, Disease, Public Health, Bacteriology, Government, Sanitation, Crime, Analytical Chemistry
Observes that early in his career as Home Secretary Herbert H AsquithAsquith, Herbert Henry, 1st Earl of Oxford and
Asquith
(1852–1928)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> turned his vigilance to the 'exceptionally high [...] mortality among the linen workers' of Belfast, and commissioned a 'thoroughly competent official' to investigate the causes that had previously 'escaped attention'. The subsequent 'report when received was clear and conclusive. The hot, damp air of the factory, charged as it was with the waste product of the linen manufacture, brought on phthisis'. Applauds the 'linen manufacturers of the North of Ireland' for acting upon the 'recommendations of Mr. Asquith's commissioner [...] with commendable promptitude', even though the necessary improvements to factory conditions will involve 'an expenditure of several thousands of pounds'. (232) Also expresses 'regret that under the circumstances Mr. Asquith did not see his way clear to liberate Mrs. MaybrickMaybrick, Florence Elizabeth
(1862–1941)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>', and suggests that he 'appears to have believed that, whatever the technical flaws of her trial may have been, she was in fact guilty of attempting to poison her husbandMaybrick, James
(1838–89)
RLIN CloseView the register entry >>, even if he died from some other cause, and so Mrs. Maybrick remains under lock and key to this hour' (235).
Expresses surprise at finding in 'the Nineteenth Century of all places in the world [...] a question which has hitherto been regarded as only suitable for the catholic pages of BorderlandBorderland
(1893–97)
Waterloo
Directory CloseView the register entry >>. Mr. KnowlesKnowles, Sir James Thomas
(1831–1908)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> seems to be getting on: who knows but that in time we may see professors of palmistry and of other occult and mystic arts enjoying the hospitality of his pages?'.
Finds several signs that 'a religious revival is in the air', and foresees the beginning of the end for the 'science that was nescience so far as the soul of man was concerned [and] has been swaggering in the foretop of civilisation'. Over the last few decades, in 'the phraseology of the Stock ExchangeStock Exchange
CloseView the register entry >>, religious stock has been depressed with a tendency downward, while the ring engaged in bulling the shares in the Joint Stock Bank of Naturalistic Agnosticism'. The 'intolerance of the bigot of the Churches was succeeded by the even more detestable superciliousness of the Brahmin of science'. However, in recent years the 'barbaric thunder of the scientific tom-tom' has begun to be silenced by religious thinkers such as Marie F BrunetièreBrunetière, Marie Ferdinand
(1840 or 1849–1906)
WBI CloseView the register entry >> and William E GladstoneGladstone, William Ewart
(1809–98)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>, as well as the recantation of his naturalistic philosophy made by the late George J RomanesRomanes, George John
(1848–94)
DSB CloseView the register entry >>, and 'signs are multiplying that the winter of our discontent is passing away; the song of the birds, the heralds of the spring, is heard in our midst, and, in short, religion seems to be once more gaining its lost prestige'. (274)
Notes that Max S Nordau'sNordau, Max Simon (originally Südfeld)
(1849–1923)
CBD CloseView the register entry >> recent volume is 'a bad but interesting book', in which the author, applying 'the ideas of his master, Professor LombrosoLombroso, Cesare
(1836–1909)
CBD CloseView the register entry >>', presses his idea of the degeneracy of 'certain much trumpeted anti-social tendencies of the present day [...] home unsparingly with manifold examples, and with a continuous vigour of writing' (291).
In considering 'prenatal impressions and influences', notes that the 'way in which Colonel IngersollIngersoll, Robert Green
(1833–99)
CBD CloseView the register entry >> became an Atheist [...] was clearly traceable to his mother's reading during the time immediately preceding his birth' (328).
Review of Reviews, 11 (1895), 330–32.
Mr. Balfour's "Foundations". By Principal Fairbairn, Dr. Martineau, Etc.
Science Fiction, Degeneration, Entropy, Imagination, Futurism, Fear
Declares: 'I cannot understand why so little attention has been paid in the Press and elsewhere to the remarkable story which Mr. Wells is contributing to the pages of the NewReview. I referred briefly to it last month, but this month I must really return to the same theme. Mr. Wells has hit upon a very striking conception, and one of gruesome horror'.
Praises Edward Clodd'sClodd, Edward
(1840–1930)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> 'little book', and asserts that a 'better or clearer presentment of the theory of evolution in so short a space could not be' (389).
Records that 'the reportFinal Report of the Royal Commission on Opium:
Final Report of the Royal Commission on Opium; with Minutes of Evidence and
Appendices, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, Session 1895 [C.7723],
42, 31–220
CloseView the register entry >> of the Opium CommissionRoyal Commission on Opium
CloseView the register entry >>' led by Thomas BrasseyBrassey, Thomas, 1st Earl Brassey
(1836–1918)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>, which was intended to remove the 'deep, underlying, uneasy suspicion' that 'we were only able to keep up the dazzling fabric of Imperial rule in Hindustan by poisoning our own subjects and the Chinese' and to ascertain 'the truth about opium', has returned 'a verdict in favour of opium', and is 'strongly in favour of things as they are'. Although the news will be 'a sore blow and great discouragement' to those who have campaigned for the 'total prohibition of opium', and one of the commissioners, Henry J WilsonWilson, Henry Joseph
(1833–1914)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>, has already signed 'a minute of dissent', it is nevertheless 'difficult to see how we can logically prohibit the export of opium from India, while allowing the limitless export of alcohol from Great Britain'. After all, the 'evidence taken in India seems to show that the evils resulting from the taking of opium and of hemp products are quite insignificant compared with those which follow the consumption of alcohol'. (400) Also gives details of the success of the Scandinavian 'Gothenburg or dispensary system' of regulating the supply of alcohol in the Southern states of America (401).
Section: Leading Articles in the Reviews
Review of Reviews, 11 (1895), 416.
How the World will Die. A Ghastly Vision of the Fate of Man
Announces that the Free Review is 'a monthly magazine which affords a refuge for the scattered band of Mr. Bradlaugh'sBradlaugh, Charles
(1833–91)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> journalistic colleagues'.
Announces that the blind typist whose skills were advertised in an earlier number of the Review of Reviews [Anon, 'A Blind Typewriter', Review of Reviews, 8 (1893), 182] 'has had considerable success, and hopes that he is now in a fair way to establish a business. Friends who are interested in the welfare of the blind will do well to give some of their patronage to this attempt to open up a new field for the sightless' (446).
Gives an account of the early mixed fortunes of 'one of the few philosophic or sociological books of our time, which have had the run of a sensational novel' (472).
Crime, Sexology, Sex, Pathology, Morality, Schools, Engineering, Time
Reports that the 'trial of Oscar WildeWilde, Oscar Fingall O'Flahertie Wills
(1856–1900)
CBD CloseView the register entry >> and TaylorTaylor, Alfred
(b. 1862 or 1863)
RLIN CloseView the register entry >> at the Old BaileyOld Bailey Sessions Court
CloseView the register entry >>, resulting in their conviction and the infliction of what will probably be a capital sentence—for two years' hard labour in solitary confinement always breaks up the constitution even of tough and stalwart men—has forced upon the attention of the public the existence of a vice of which the most of us happily know nothing. The heinousness of the crime of Oscar Wilde and his associates does not lie, as is usually supposed, in its being unnatural. It would be unnatural for seventy-nine out of eighty persons. It is natural for the abnormal person who is in a minority of one. If the promptings of our animal nature are to be the only guide, the punishment of Oscar Wilde would savour of persecution [...]. But we are not merely animal. We are human beings living together in society, whose aim is to render social intercourse as free and as happy as possible', and the tolerance of crimes such as those of Wilde might cast 'the blighting shadow of possible wrong-doing' over the 'friendship between man and woman' (491–92). Points, nevertheless, to the hypocrisy of 'the tacit universal acquiescence of the very same public in the same kind of vice in our public schools', where 'boys are allowed to indulge with impunity in practices which, when they leave school, would consign them to hard labour'. Notes, however, that the 'English public has [...] taken comparatively little interest in the Wilde case, partly from the fact that they did not understand it, and chiefly because the newspapers cut down their reports to the minimum'. Instead, the 'great interest of May was cricket'. (492) Also records the opening of the Kiel CanalKiel Canal, Germany CloseView the register entry >> in Germany, observing that to 'spend millions in expediting the shrinkage of the world is a piece of work eminently characteristic of the end of the century, which is becoming quite intolerant of time and space' (495).
Review of Reviews, 11 (1895), 225–35.
Character Sketch. The Right Hon. James Stansfeld, M.P., G.C.B.
Anon
Genre:
Regular Feature, Biography
Subjects:
Sex, Hygiene, Public Health, Morality, Endeavour, Heroism
Praises James StansfeldStansfeld, Sir James
(1820–1898)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> for 'the part which he took in leading, and ultimately in bringing to a triumphant close, the campaign against the C. D. Acts', a 'piece of work the like of which has not been done by any man in our time [...] comparable in some degree to the heroic exertions made [...] to secure the emancipation of the slaves and the abolition of the slave trade. Although the work was no less arduous it was far more repulsive'. Fighting for the idea that 'that which is morally wrong can never be hygienically right', Stansfeld openly took on the 'medical tyranny', even though the 'horror of the subject was such that it could hardly be explained on the platform or exposed in the press'. (516) Observes that the victory gained finally in 1886 came 'only after twenty-five years' hard fighting' (519).
Newman's article claims that 'Looked at philosophically, the criminal is really an object for admiration. He represents a variation from the ordinary type; and variation implies excess of organic force'.
Review of Reviews, 11 (1895), 541.
What I Think of Madame Blavatsky Now. A Testimony by Annie Besant
Observes that there are 'homes which have been desolated by bereavement, and there are others that have been almost as desolated by the influx of what may be called supernumerary children', and that at present 'society has provided no medium of exchange that would tend to equalise the supply and demand and redress the balance between those who have too many babies and those who have too few'. Speculates 'as to whether it might not be desirable to look forward to the establishment, in some tentative fashion, of a regular system of Baby Exchange', and makes an 'appeal to my readers to communicate with me, if any of them should know of any child [...] for whom it would be an advantage to secure adoption'.
Claims that 'This blue book is the first intelligible document that has been issued by the Home OfficeHome Office
CloseView the register entry >>, and the first impression which it produces is that there is nothing so deceitful as statistics, nothing so misleading as official reports, and nothing so hopelessly bewildering as the tables which heretofore have been palmed off upon the British public'. The 'statistics of vice and crime' nevertheless give 'an approximate idea as to the direction in which the nation is moving, whether progressing upwards or retrogressing downwards'. However, only 'a very small proportion of the forty millions of our population will ever have the opportunity of inspecting this imperial quarto with its elaborate maps and diagrams. Therefore—with what I hope the Home Office editors will regard as a permissible infringement on their copyright—I take the liberty of reproducing their maps [...] together with diagrams'. Notes that 'suicides alone among the incidents recorded in this volume show a continuous steady rise'. (569)