Fur Company of Hudson Bay is reduced | zambique and Zanzibar, or gets entangled to eking out its dividends by land sales. among the missionary settlements on the The seals, as Nansen told us in his recent Shiré and the Lake Nyassa. His con. volumes, which used to swarm on the frères on the Upper Nile and its Abysalmost inaccessible coasts of East Green- sinian tributaries have fared little better; land are leaving the Arctic ice-floes for and were Sir Samuel Baker to revisit his the inland ice, and thither they are al- old forest-lodge on the precipitous banks ready being followed up in specially con- of the Atbara, he could no longer enjoy structed steamers. Should the seals be from the windows of his morning-room the ever thinned down towards the vanishing delectable spectacle of the daily parade of point, the Polar bears, to say nothing of stately tuskers and graceful camelopards. the roving Esquimaux, will necessarily The greed of the ivory dealers and ivory be starved out of existence. One sub-hunters has been killing the geese that Arctic resident has disappeared already, in the shape of the great auk; the last of the race is supposed to have been seen off Iceland about the beginning of the century; and zoologists pay a questionable tribute to the memory of the mighty departed by offering fabulous prices for even a cracked eggshell.

laid the golden eggs, and we shall soon have to put up with vegetable substitutes for the handles of dinner-knives and the backs of our hair-brushes. Talking of Sir Samuel Baker, we may turn to Ceylon. When he wrote "The Rifle and the Hound," nearly forty years ago, the island, as he says, and especially in the malarious and sandy south-eastern districts, posi tively swarmed with big game. The great tanks in the lonely forests of the interior were infested by solitary rogue elephants, who were the terror of the unfortunate villagers. The buffaloes ranged about in herds by the hundred; the number of the elks and the spotted deer was legion. Though he had seldom scruples as to holding his sanguinary hand, he was often disgusted and satiated with slaughter. He thought little of knocking over half-a-dozen elephants of a morning, with two or three savage buffaloes thrown in; and, although he had a train of some fifty coolies and servants in his camp, the spare venison turned bad in that burning climate before

The changes in Africa have been even more general since tourists, commercial adventurers, and enthusiastic explorers have taken to traversing it in all directions. The dominions of the truculent potentate Moselekatse, where Cornwallis Harris found a perfect paradise of sport, are now given over to the gold-seekers of the Transvaal, and the quiet pools in the limpid streams of the Limpopo, where the "mighty hippopotamus wallowed at will," are troubled now by the rocking of the gold-cradles. The elephant, who is as shy and modest as he is bulky, has been driven northward beyond the Zambesi, mile by mile, before the deadly inroads of professional hunters, till he is headed back by the Portuguese and the Arabs from Mo-it could be cut up to be sun-dried.

JEWS AND THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. - A question has been asked in the Jewish Chronicle concerning the subject of Sabbath observance in relation to the use of the electric light, and Professor Crookes, the well-known electrician, has replied: "It is a rule of the Jewish religion that, on the Sabbath day, no fire may be kindled. The observant Jews obey this law very strictly, and abstain from any act which directly or indirectly can cause the production of fire or the consumption of anything by fire. The following acts, for instance, are abstained from: Touching fire, lighting or extinguishing fires; striking matches or smoking; lighting or extinguishing gas lamps, oil lamps, or candles; moving or turning up or down gas lamps, oil lamps, or candles when alight; putting anything into the fire or taking anything out." The question was, "Would a man be transgressing these

rules of conduct by switching off or on electric glow lamps?" Professor Crookes replies:

The words 'fire' and 'flame' have in all ages and countries been associated with the idea of what we now term 'combustion.' That is, the rapid union of the atmospheric oxygen with combustible material, which, in the majority of cases, would be compounds of carbon and hydrogen. The carbon burns to carbonic acid and the hydrogen to water, both going off into the atmosphere in an invisible form. Historical research shows that the 'sacredness' of fire and flame in the old Eastern religions was intimately connected with combustion, and consequent purification. All the instances of acts to be abstained from given above involve combustion and flame. The modern glow lamp has no connection, direct or indirect, with fire,' 'flame,' or combustion.""

No. 2512.- August 20, 1892.

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TO THE GOLD CREST BUILDING IN MY 'Twas like a vernal morn, yet overhead

From The National Review.

population of the city of Rome compare with that of London? We may take it that London, in its widest extent, has a circuit of nearly fifty miles, and that it is nearly seventeen miles from north to south and from east to west. The population may be taken as about five millions. Rome was of much less extent; but it does not follow that its inhabitants were fewer. The circumference of the city was only about twenty miles, and its diameter seven miles; but its limits were fixed by the fourteen quarters marked out by Augustus, and afterwards enclosed within the walls of Aurelian. Suburbs analogous to Hendon or to Croydon were not reckoned in the population of Rome. A curious proof of this is to be found in the fact that in the census of Rome only large houses or palaces, and houses let out in flats, domus and insula, are mentioned. The villas, which are frequently mentioned by Juvenal and other writers, appear to have been entirely beyond the boundary. Even within this limited area the population, it is probable, was as large as that of greatest London. The streets of Rome were very narrow. Over nearly all London the houses vary from two to four stories in height; those of Rome varied from five to seven stories. And Rome was much more completely built over than is modern London. There were, indeed, few vacant spaces; not one of them could compare with Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Regent's Park, Greenwich Common, Hampstead Heath, and other public recreation grounds which are all included

ANCIENT ROME AND MODERN LONDON. IT is commonly believed among Englishmen that in respect of extent, of population, and of wealth, London is the greatest city the world has ever known. Probably, however, Nineveh, Babylon, the Egyptian Thebes, and Rome in the second century of our era and in the third were at least equal to London. Nineveh and Babylon appear to have occupied a greater area. Nineveh was described as a city of three days' journey; Babylon, which is expressly said to have been four-square and twelve miles in every direction, would occupy one hundred and forty-four square miles. The square miles in greatest London are one hundred and twenty. As to Nineveh, Babylon, Thebes, we have no data by which we can with certainty estimate their population and wealth. We know that these were very great; but we cannot measure this greatness by exact figures. When we come to Rome we have precise information. Apart from area, ancient Rome was probably superior to modern London. It was at the least as popular and as wealthy, and it was more beautiful. I know that this conclusion differs from that of Gibbon, and that, practically, Gibbon's work is the only acknowledged authority in our public schools and universities. To relieve the fears of those who hesitate to differ from so great a master, I will give a few instances of the historian's inaccuracy. Gibbon reckons the area of the Roman Empire at one million six hundred thousand square miles; really, it was about three million two hun-in London. dred thousand square miles. He gives Gibbon - who was, in every case of the probable tribute of Spain, Gaul, and large figures, extremely sceptical-calEgypt as about five millions sterling each; culates that the city of Rome contained at yet he reckons the total revenue of Rome the most about a million and three-quaras from fifteen to twenty millions. Thus, ters of inhabitants. Lipsius, in his "De he allows, at the most, only five millions Magnitudine Romana," reckons at least from the rest of the world Africa, Asia five millions; but Gibbon puts this aside Minor, Austria, European Turkey, and with the remark that "the book, though Italy itself. He seems to take no account ingenious, betrays signs of a heated imag of any revenues other than the tribute or ination." It is singular that both writers land-tax; for, although he accurately enu- rely for their conclusions on the same fig. merates the additional taxes imposed by ures, and differ in their interpretation. It Augustus, he makes no attempt to esti- is distinctly recorded that in the fourth mate their produce. century, in the reign of Theodosius, there were enumerated 1,730 domus, or great

How, then, in the first place, did the

ing that there were very many slaves in the palaces of Rome is overwhelming, and appears to justify the estimate of at the least a hundred people in every domus.

houses, and 46,602 insula, or large build- | proposal was rejected. Seneca asked the ings, let out in flats or single rooms, and Senate to consider "quantum periculi imcorresponding very closely with our model mineret si servi nostri nos numerare coelodging-houses. But how many people did pissent." Tiberius in the year A.D. 21 each of those buildings contain? Lipsius condemned the number and variety of reckons an average of a hundred. Gibbon slaves, "familiarum numerum et Dareckons an average of twenty-five. The tiones."* In short, the evidence provonly reason given for Gibbon's estimate is that in his time the houses in Paris were mostly let out in flats, and contained only twenty-five people in each house. Thus the question is narrowed. Did the palaces on the one hand, and the insula or lodging-houses on the other, contain an average of twenty-five people or one hundred? The larger number is more probable, and therefore the estimate of a population of five millions is the more acceptable. As to the domus, or palace, we must recollect that it contained not only the master and his family, but many slaves.

The slaves included (besides domestic servants) librarians, doctors, hairdressers, painters, carpenters, architects, and so forth. "Almost every profession," Gibbon says, "either liberal or mechanical, might be found in the house of an opulent senator." Pedanius Secundus, prefect of the city, whose office corresponded with that of the lord mayor of London, was murdered in his own house in the reign of Nero, A.D. 61, and the murderer was not identified. It was thereupon proposed that all the slaves in the house should be crucified; and, after a long debate in the Senate, which is fully reported by Tacitus,f the proposal was adopted. It was then found that the slaves in this one house numbered four hundred. Again, we are told that when a great man went to make a call, he would, although his journey might not be more than a few hundred yards, have a retinue of at least fifty slaves. Ammianus Marcellinus, quoted by both Lipsius and Gibbon, gives a long description of the progress of a wealthy citizen from Rome to his country residence, a description which clearly suggests a household of four or five hundred slaves. It is certain that when it was proposed that the slaves should wear a distinctive dress the

Gibbon's Decline and Fall. Cap. a. † Tacitus, Ann., xiv. 42.

Then as to the 46,602 insula. Did they contain twenty-five people each (as Gibbon conjectures), or more than one hundred? There are many reasons for thinking that here Lipsius is nearer to the truth than Gibbon. These lodging-houses contained many flats; for we know that laws were passed by Augustus, Tiberius, and Nero, with the object of limiting the height to seventy feet from the ground - edicts which are said to have been constantly disobeyed. On the authority of Heineceus, Gibbon says that the annual rent of the several flats coenacula was about £360 a year. It may be taken for granted that in most cases each flat was occupied by several families, or that in any cases where a whole flat at such a rent was occupied by a single family there was a considerable company of slaves. Thus, the estimate of one hundred persons in each insula seems not excessive.

The ground floor of the insula was often occupied by shops; the next two or three floors either by several families on each, or by single families wealthy enough to own a staff of slaves. The upper stories were let in smaller compartments, and often in single rooms. Juvenal † says that a man could purchase in the country, and within twenty miles of Rome, the freehold of a good house and a small garden for the same sum as was required for the yearly rent of a dark chamber in the attics (sub tegulis) in Rome; from which we may conclude that a single room, at the top of a house, would let for something like £20 a year. It seems safe, therefore, to conclude that each of the five or six flats of an insula contained twenty people,

Tacitus, Ann., iii. 53. ↑ Juv., Satire, iii. 233.