ful place of worship. Girls," says Ruskin, "should be like daisies, nice and white, with an edge of red if you look close, making the ground bright wherever they are." Herein he echoes the words

of Dan Chaucer :

That of al floures in the mede

Manne love, I most the floures white and rede,
Such as men callen daysyes in our towne.

Mr. | herself, from among the precious books, "The Queen of the Air," reserving for her chief maid-of-honor "The Seven Lamps of Architecture;" and the other thirty volumes are handed to the chosen recip. ients with little encomiums from the throne. Part-songs follow, and high holiday is decreed to conclude the ceremony. We know not who may be this year's queen, but all accounts agree in stating that she must be a very winsome lass to eclipse in favor her five precursors. Three years ago a touching thing happened. The choice fell on the only girl present in black. She was mourning a dead father. The trembling maiden required some persuasion before she would consent to don the May queen's shining at tire; and her first act after doffing it was to send off the pure white lilies that had surrounded her, to lie on her father's new. made grave.

In the chapel this large choir of sweet voices from blossoming humanity makes the young May air glad, and through the painted window of St. Ursula the sun throws upon them "warm gules," that fall like a shadow of blessing. Ere the service concludes the principal delivers a pithy address on the forthcoming ceremony and its meanings. Then, at ten o'clock the students assemble in the lecture-room, where, after a reading or two, and perhaps another address, the votingpapers are filled up before the vacant throne. All the rooms bloom, but the fragrant daïs is a mass of flowers. The choice of the girls is generally a surprise to the governesses, who confess, however, that it is always justified by results. When this choice has been announced, the queen-elect retires to be robed. The garment has of course been prepared by the authorities for a nobody, since it is obviously impossible to have foreseen what kind of a figure would fill it; but a wise simplicity of design makes the robe adaptable to most sizes. The royal potentate provides herself with three maids-of-honor, who assist her, during the robing, to make the list of those who are to receive her favors. At last she re-enters the assembly, crowned with a wreath of moss and marguerites, and bearing a floral sceptre. Before her step the youngest scholars, who bear on velvet cushions the books to be distributed. The very youngest girl of all carries the queen's crown and chain of gold. Each year these are designed anew by artists like Mr. Burne Jones or Mr. Arthur Severn. Thus the queen possesses and hands down for all time a unique specimen of nineteenth-century art.

ERIC S. ROBERTSON.

From The Spectator.

GOOD FRIDAY AMONG THE MEXICAN
PENITENTES.

[FROM A CORRESPONDENT.]

THE godlessness of the Western States of America is too well known to need description again, and I am told that the practices of the sect of Penitentés among the Mexicans, who are almost all Roman Catholics, have often been described for the reading public. For myself, though I have lived in the country long enough to know that the sadness of Good Friday and the gladness of Easter pass alike unnoticed, and even generally unknown to the majority, in this worldly Western life, yet I had never till this year realized with what awful reality the event which the observance of Good Friday commemo. rates, is brought back to the devout among the despised race with which we mix every day. The contrast between the white men, who do not even know what the day means, and the dark men, who have often died of their wounds, is startling in the The queen seated, her predecessor, now extreme. The tone of the following ex. called a queen dowager, is placed by her tract- from the leading paper of the side, wreathed in forget-me-nots; and the leading city of the West - which appears next matter of interest becomes the pres- as, and really is to very many here, an entation of gifts. As Mr. Ruskin's ner-item of news, shows more clearly than any vous state precludes his attendance at any considerable gathering of his fellow beings, some friend deputed by him in vests the new potentate with her insignia of office. The queen next selects for |

statement of facts can show, the incredible ignorance and indifference regarding the greatest event in the world's history which is bred by the selfish, hurrying, changing life of a new country.

GOOD FRIDAY.-To-day is observed in the | further south the path is strewn with cac Christian Church as the anniversary of the tus, and the penitents are tied to, and left most solemn of events- the crucifixion of to hang upon, the cross for hours. Many Christ. It is called "Good" because of the and many a time death has been the rebenefits conferred on the world by His death. sult. There is, close here, a mud house Good Friday is the only day in the year on in the shape of a coffin, that used to be which mass is not celebrated in the Catholic church. Services in both Catholic and Epis- the scene of the scourging. One devotee copal churches are remarkable for length and lay down in the doorway, and begged solemnity. In some of the Denver churches, every one to step on his already mutilated services commenced last evening. To-day, in body in passing in and out. In the night many of the churches a long "agony service," he was carried away for burial. Now, in in commemoration of Christ's agony on the each Mexican settlement here, a little log Cross, will be celebrated. The solemnity of hut plastered with mud is the unpretend. the day and its observance is in strong contrasting building which shelters the sufferers with the joy of Easter Sunday--the celebra- in the intervals of prayer which fill up the tion of Christ's resurrection from the dead. holy days. Good Friday is, of course, This is the language of a man writing the last and greatest of the three. This about some strange custom of foreign year, the sky was gloomy from early morncountries. The contrast between Gooding, and became darker as the hour of the Friday and Easter Sunday seems to ap- solemn rites approached. It was not till pear to him as a remarkable coincidence late in the afternoon that we reached the only. scene, which has made a deep impression In the little town of W, everything on my mind. We rode from the town to was going on just as usual, and the day the settlement, some two miles away, was hardly known but as the day on which through a heavy rain, which made every. the Penitentés would "perform." At the thing look doubly gloomy. Just as we ranche, when we left in the morning, the reached the top of a little hill which overhorses themselves were not less ignorant looks the spot, the solemn procession of its being any special day than were the issued from its humble church, and passed men who drove them. The sect of the through the line of burden-crosses stacked Penitentés is fast dying out under the by the side of the path. The scene was profound disapprobation of the white pop- impressive in the extreme. The clouds ulation, most of the Mexicans themselves, were now black as night, the thunder rolled and particularly of the priests, who have incessantly, and the lightning flashed over excommunicated all who persist in belong- the great cross, set on the barren slope ing to the order. I have not been able to of a still more barren hillside, towards learn much about the tenets of the faith, which the penitents were moving. As we to which, by the bye, only the men belong; watched, the unhappy penitents, masked and as the fact of holding it is kept as and wearing nothing except their white strictly secret as possible, it is difficult to drawers, their backs already streaming find out whether the austerity of the creed with blood, moved very slowly through produces a corresponding holiness of life. the cold, drenching rain. Every one was But so far as I have been able to learn, attended by two men, who continued a those few whose secret has slipped out do ceaseless, low, and solemn chant. At each seem to be good and earnest men. The alternate step, the penitent swung over only outward sign of the order is the tor- his shoulder a heavy scourge of cactus ture endured on Wednesday, Thursday, and cutting grass, which fell, each time, and Friday in Holy Week. The pressure with a sharp report that we could hear far which has been brought to bear upon the off, making the blood fly from the old self-appointed victims, has driven the de- wounds. This they continued all the long vout little band that still holds out, to two hundred yards to the cross, and back perform their penance in as quiet and to the church. Then they would go again unostentatious a way as possible. In days over the same course, staggering under a gone by, the procession used to be formed burden almost, if not quite, more than the in the main streets of the towns, and move heart could bear without breaking. The slowly to the sound of music, and labor-sight was too sad to make us wish to see ing under the burden of heavy crosses it all, but we came away deeply impressed which strained the heart sometimes even to bursting-to the holy symbol before which the penitents were to imitate the sufferings of their Master. Here the bearing of heavy crosses and the scourging are the only two tortures now used; but

by the fact that among the ignorant and despised there are many who- however mistakenly willingly, gladly, because they think that Christ approves it, go through even in some cases to death what we should not dare to face. H.

From Le Génie Civil. THE CURRENTS OF THE ATLANTIC

OCEAN.

send the inclosed paper to the authorities of his country, in order that it might be sent to the French government, with WE read, and we see it everywhere re details as to the place and date, and the peated, that the climate of Norway, which circumstances under which the float was is mild as compared with that of the picked up. The Hirondelle, having on American coast in the same latitude, is board the material for the experiment, set due to the influence of the Gulf Stream. sail about July 1, 1885. It was agreed This is the common opinion shared in by that the floats should be put into the sea a large number of competent persons in to the north-west of Corvo, the last of the France and elsewhere. The public, in its Azores. On July 27, at a quarter past six turn, goes still further and attributes the in the morning, the vessel being about mildness of the temperature on certain one hundred and ten miles north-west of portions of the French coast to the same Corvo, the putting of the bottles into the cause, that is to say, the warm currents of ocean was begun, and was kept up, mile the sea. It is nowadays generally agreed by mile, till forty minutes past three, when that the Gulf Stream is soon lost on the a beginning was made with the kegs, and surface of the Atlantic, and an endeavor afterward with the spheres. These two has been made to refer the heating action, latter styles of floats were spaced two which it thus could no longer possess, to miles apart, and the last of them was another current that forms a sort of con- thrown over on the 28th. Then the sectinuation of it, and which, after all, is ond series of bottles followed. The floats nothing more than a slow movement of were distributed over a line which ran the surface waters of the ocean from the about fourteen degrees north by east, and east toward the west. Hence the ques- was one hundred and seventy miles in tion of beating through a slowly moving length. The place that had been selected mass of water becomes very problemati- in advance for the operation, and where cal, and there is now an opinion forming Prince Albert accomplished the latter so which would attribute the calorific influences formerly ascribed to the Gulf Stream to an atmospheric circulation, and not to an oceanic one. The circulation of the ocean nevertheless presents considerable interest, and the reason that the question has not been more fully studied is because such researches require large pecuniary sacrifices, on account of the vast field to be covered. A contribution to our knowledge of this subject, however, has recently been made by Professor G. Pouchet, who, through the liberality of the city of Paris, and the co-operation of Prince Albert of Monaco, was last year enabled to undertake some experiments. Prince Albert's sail yacht, the Hirondelle, which had been placed at Professor Pouchet's disposal, was fitting out at Lorient, and it became necessary to make haste, and, in a manner, improvise the apparatus to be used. The following three forms of floats were decided upon: 1. Ten copper spheres, one foot in diameter, formed of two hemispheres screwed upon a rubber joint. 2. Twenty kegs similar to those used for beer, and of a capacity of three and one-half gallons. 3. A hundred and fifty ordinary bottles, closed by a selected cork, and capped with rubber. Each float contained a request, printed in French, Russian, Norwegian, Danish, English, German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, and Mangrabin, that the finder of it would

happily, is situated almost exactly upon a line which joins the Strait of Florida (through which the Gulf Stream enters the Atlantic) and the entrance of the British Channel. It was Prince Albert's opinion that if any of the floats reached the coast of Europe, it would be between forty and fifty degrees of north latitude; but up to the present no such thing has occurred. Three of the floats were picked up, after a travel towards the east, in which they at the same time strangely inclined toward the south. Two bottles and one keg were found at the Azores one of the bottles ten miles off the port of Saint Iria, San Miguel Island, one a mile east of Porto Formoso of the same island, and the keg at the port of Porto, Santa Maria Island. The two bottles had taken fifty-three days to travel a distance of four hundred and twenty miles. The keg, which stranded on Santa Maria, seemed to show that the floats were continuing their course towards the south. It is allowable to suppose that the floats, after turning the Azores, continued to travel in the direction of the Cape Verd Islands, in order to cross the Atlantic and directly reach the Antilles, or to revolve indefinitely in the immense and pacific whirlpool called the Sargasso Sea. However this may be, the positive although partial results obtained seem to establish the fact that from the latitude in which the floats

were thrown overboard, not a drop of the Atlantic's surface water reaches the coast of France. This is a point that now appears to be demonstrated. If we admit that there exists a current or simply a shifting of the warmer water from the west towards the east on a level with the coast of France, it is, then, to the north of the forty-second parallel that we must look for the origin of the heating of this water. Every one now appears to argue that the Gulf current no longer makes its influence felt beyond the fortieth degree of latitude. In reality, outside of its sphere of action, which is now well known and has been perfectly measured, it seems that the motion of the superficial water of the At lantic between the Azores, the Cape Verd Islands, and the Antilles is in great measure a function of the movements of the atmosphere. On comparing the travel of the floats with Brault's wind charts for July, August, and September, it was found that their direction sensibly agreed with that of the current that carried the floats along.

From St. James's Gazette.

The Finns are a cleanly, thrifty, indus trious, and singularly honest race of people. They have what Mr. Gladstone calls "a spirit of nationality so masculine "that they have not, like the Irish, lost their language or yielded easily on the field of battle to a foreign invader. Though they were reduced to straits that rendered resistance hopeless, yet they fought with such ferocity in 1721, in 1780–90, and last of all in 1809, against the Russians, that they extorted from the czar the right of imposing conditions even on their conqueror. Alexander I. was, in fact, fain to grant Finland some constitutional liberty; and it was therefore not her conquest but her "union" with Russia which he found it convenient to proclaim. Following the advice of the astute Speransky, he accepted the principle that "Finland was a State, not a Russian province to be administered in common with other provinces." She was accordingly exempted from the twenty-five years conscription. She was permitted to manage her own army and finances, to have her own system of representative government, and to give her citizens an absolute monopoly of all official positions in her administration. The Constitution of Borgo, framed under the good influence of Speransky and when Alex. A RUSSIAN EXPERIMENT IN HOME RULE. ander I. was full of progressist tendencies, IN the Observer there is an interesting gave Finland a great deal of independence. reference to a Russian experiment in But it did not lessen the hatred of the home rule, to which the writer satirically Finnish peasants for Russian rule, any directs Mr. Gladstone's attention. The more than Mr. Gladstone's concessions grand duchy of Finland enjoys autonomy to Ireland would lessen the hatred of the so much autonomy that she is virtually Irishry to England. The Diet which an independent State. But how has she framed the Constitution in 1809 was not obtained it, asks our contemporary? called together for fifty-three years, and Why, simply by taking the concessions the "Finnish Committee" at St. Petersmade to her by the czar Alexander I., burg governed the country in accordance and using them like wedges to widen the with the autocratic ideas of Nicholas I. crevices in her union with Russia. If, Yet that did not break the spirit of Finnish says the Observer, a strong, autocratic nationality. Slowly and pertinaciously government like that of Russia could not the Finns regained their liberties. Since prevent the germ of self-government in 1863 their Diet has been pretty regularly Finland developing into independence, summoned every five years, and it has how can a weak government like that of rarely met without widening the scope of England prevent Mr. Gladstone's "do- Finnish autonomy. By steadily working mestic legislature" from growing into a for an enlargement of their privileges, separate Parliament? The condition of and by cunningly avoiding open conflict Finland is certainly a very curious one. with the czar, the Finns have attained the It is true that she enjoys a great deal of position which now leads some of their home rule; but we should not describe admirers to describe Finland as 66 virtually her as virtually an independent State. an independent State." As a matter of Large as are her autonomic privileges, fact, Finland is governed by a Diet which the czar has kept in his hands a far greater consists of four chambers; nobles, clergy, amount of control than Mr. Gladstone burghers, and peasants; the latter elected would permit us to have over Ireland; in "two orders." It is summoned every and yet in some respects Mr. Gladstone's five years by the czar, to meet for a shor Ireland would not be so free as Finland. | session extending over four or five months

Each chamber debates separately, but can | languages being won, the next step is to only discuss the programme of legislation be a democratic reform of the Constitusubmitted by the czar, and even then sub- tion with a view to the expulsion of every ject to the imperial veto. The imperial Swede from the public service. Thus the right of issuing decrees is not very clearly Swedes of the rising generation are abandefined; but the theory is that no taxes doning their nationality and joining the can be imposed without the unanimous Fennomanes; and the Finns welcome the consent of the chambers. When, how- adhesion of renegade Swedes just as Mr. ever, unanimity appears impossible, a Parnell welcomes the adherence of an committee of sixty, fairly representative Irish gentleman to his faction. The Fenof each chamber, meets and arranges a nomanes do not (says Prince Kropotkin), compromise. If they fail, then the Fin-like the Poles, vainly dream of reviving nish Committee at St. Petersburg, consist- the past. They aspire to create a new ing of the secretary of State for Finland autonomous Finland by converting the and four members, two nominated by the Fennomanic movement, which is in the crown and two by the Senate of Finland, main a literary one at present, into a posettle the matter. The Senate of Finland litical, which is to be combined with an is nominated by the czar, but its members agrarian, movement. Education after are natives. It meets under the presi- Finnish ideas, the monopoly of the admindency of the governor-general, who is also istration, the land freed from the Swedish commander-in-chief of the army, and who caste- these are the objects which the may be a Russian, in which case he is Fennomanic party have in view. They the only Russian who holds any office are advancing from autonomy to indepen. whatever in the country. The Senate is dence so rapidly that the Muscovite Chauthe supreme administrative authority, as vinists are warning the czar he will one the Diet or Seim is the supreme legis day wake to find a hostile nation at the lative authority. Everything is under very doors of his capital. senatorial control-except education, the Church, customs, and the army; which, with foreign affairs, are under the imperial government. The army of Finland consists of seventy thousand; and all the officers must be Finns, though the commander in chief, being governor-general, may be a Russian. Finland coins its own money, manages its own debt, and is free of all entanglement with Russian finance; so much so that, whereas Russia cannot borrow money for less than six per cent., Finland can always borrow for four and one-half per cent. in the open market, and the paper money of Finland circulates at par, whereas the Russian paper rouble is worth only six tenths of its reputed value. Russia has meddled very little of late with the grand duchy; and yet the national movement has been stimulated rather than arrested by concessions of autonomy. | Finland now seeks for absolute independence, and is using, as Ireland would, her autonomy as a stepping-stone to it. The Swedes were once the dominant race in Finland. As their language was till very recently the only official language, they monopolized all the offices; but they form only about one-seventh of the population. They find now, under extending autonomy, that they must either join the national party or be crushed; for the Finns hate the aristocratic Swedish caste just as the Irishry hate the loyal gentry in Ireland. Equality for the Finnish and Swedish

From The Spectator.

KING LOUIS OF BAVARIA. WE see no reason whatever for the sus. picion, which we perceive lingers in some quarters even here, and is widely diffused upon the Continent, that King Louis of Bavaria was in any way unfairly dealt with by his ministry or his relatives. It was quite natural that he should go mad. There is a deep taint of insanity in his house. Not to mention the endless intermarriages between the Wittelsbachs and the Hapsburgs, in whose family the disease has reappeared at intervals for hundreds of years, King Louis inherited a predisposition from his mother, whose father and brother were both so afflicted; while his own brother Otto, the present titular king, has for many years been un. der medical restraint, and is known on all hands to be incurable. Granted a poison of that kind in the blood, one would expect, under favoring circumstances, a strange, ill regulated man, possibly with a trace of genius; and under unfavorable conditions, an eccentric one, in whom wilfulness would slowly develop into positive, and probably dangerous mania. The king's conditions were singularly unfavorable. Wilful from birth, he was, as a lad, over-governed, educated to death, drilled