phial, the purest efficacy and extraction of ished. A libel, in the majority of cases, | is more a moral than a material offence. Is there any greater harm in writing and publishing a libel than in writing and publishing a work calculated irretrievably to injure the minds of those who read it? Is not this both a moral and a material offence? Nor is it only one person whose interests are prejudiced; it is the morale of a whole community which is destroyed. The disease once fairly afoot holds its ground, and carries on its mental destruction unarrested for years for a lifetime. Yet anything like a suppression of the trash which at present is the repast on which our boys, and our poorer boys in particular, feast their minds, would doubt less be regarded as an attempt to revive the censorship of the press. What, how-pleasures and yet abstain, and yet distin ever, is an action for libel? It is neither more nor less than a very modified form of the old censorial protection, only it is a protection against personal spite, and not against seditious or inconvenient political manifestoes. Moreover, what was the object of Lord Campbell's act of 1857, if not to make it unlawful for any one to publish the nauseous matter here spoken of? No greater hardship would attach to a suppression of this kind than attaches to the veto placed by the lord chamberlain on dramas which he considers unsuitable for the English stage. It is no argument to say that it would be impossible to tell where the line ought to be drawn, and that it would not always be feasible to arrest the baneful and give the beneficent a clear field on which to display its humanizing energy. It is not necessary that the suppression should be uncompromisingly severe. All that is necessary is that some check should be placed upon the veiled incentive to crime which many boys' journals now supply. No one would wish to dispute to day the advantage which civilization has derived from the liberty of the press. Every passage in Milton's " Areopagitica" has been more than justified. But Milton's enthusiasm in the cause of freedom of discussion did not blind him to the fact that the blessing might not be unalloyed. "I deny not," he wrote, "but that it is of the greatest concernment in the Church and Commonwealth to have an eye how books bemean themselves as well as men, and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors; for books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are. In them is preserved, as in a guish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true, wayfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and seeks her adversary." Of course Milton is here referring to men and women, but his remarks are suggestive in discussing the merits of the juvenile literature of the nineteenth century. Every word of his plea constitutes an argument in favor of rearing children in purity. To stand uncontaminated in the midst of vice undeniably is the highest form of virtue. But for the young undis. ciplined mind to resist assimilation would be impossible. A child accustomed to read of nothing but burglaries, and bushranging, and murder, cannot fail to develop many ferocious traits. Unless the mind is ballasted with worthy principle, it will be borne helplessly away by an atmo sphere of iniquity. We do not want the sons and daughters of Britain to grow up like hothouse plants; rather let their hearts acquire the proverbial stoutness of their native oak. But even the oak is none the worse for the fostering care of the horticulturist, and if we can secure the strength of the oak with the sweetness of the grape, the result will repay any amount of trouble. A child need not become a milksop because he has been taught to admire and observe that which is good. It is the God-fearing courage of a Gordon which his reading should engender, not the ignoble daring of a Ned Kelly. To compulsorily educate the children of the working classes, whilst allowing them to digest fiction as served up by the majority of their magazines, is to sharpen their wits to the inception and comprehension of the criminal motives and doings of the "heroes" whom they are taught to admire. Only the most jealous regard to a boy's or girl's mental food will give him the moral armor capable of protecting him against the insidious encroachments of depravity. never be forgotten that the plan adopted by many, of endeavoring to force works of an obtrusively preachy kind upon boys, frequently defeats its own end, and impels them, by the sheer unpalatableness of the fiction, to an opposite and dangerous extreme. G. SALMON. From The English Illustrated Magazine. I. This truth was recognized by Pelham's friend when he urged the necessity of teaching children to make use of fiction without perverting it to their prejudice, just as we have shown them how to use a knife without cutting their fingers. "Education," said Vincent, "must give common sense, and common sense is all that is necessary to distinguish between good and evil, whether in books or life." Do not put fiction into the hands of a child COLONEL SIR THOMAS WOOLRYCH, with no principle to guide him. "First K.C.B. (retired list), was a soldier of the fortify his intellect by reason, and you old school, much attached to pipeclay and may then please his fancy with fiction. purchase, and with a low opinion of com. Do not excite his fancy with love and petitive examinations, the first six books glory till you can instruct his judgment as of Euclid, the local military centres, the to what love and glory are. Teach him, territorial titles of regiments, the latest in short, to reflect before you permit him regulation pattern in half-dress buttons, full indulgence to imagine." Ordinary and most other confounded new-fangled persons may interpret these words as, radical fallal and trumpery in general. "Start your son or daughter in the right Sir Thomas believed as firmly in the wispath, and so give him or her a chance of dom of our ancestors as he distrusted the arriving at a point where the sloughs and wisdom of our nearest descendants, now quagmires of literature are powerless to just attaining to years of maturity and inhurt, however ominous they may seem." discretion. Especially had he a marked The responsibility rests with parents, and dislike for this nasty, modern, shopkeepthe object of clergymen and visitors to the ing habit of leaving all your loose money poor generally should be to induce the lying idly at your banker's, and paying mothers and fathers of our future working everybody with a dirty little bit of crummen and women to give a special eye to pled paper, instead of pulling out a handthe fiction devoured by their children. ful of gold, magnificently, from your trou"Were I a father," wrote Addison, after sers pocket, and flinging the sovereigns watching the effect of a ghost-story on boldly down before you upon the counter some young people, "I should take a par- like an officer and a gentleman. Why ticular care to preserve my children from should you let one of these bloated, overthese little horrors of imagination, which fed, lazy banker fellows grew rich out of they are apt to contract when they are borrowing your money from you for nothyoung and are unable to throw off when ing, without so much as a thank you, and they are in years." How often does a lending it out again to some other poor father undertake to acquaint himself with devil of a tradesman (probably in difficul the books and journals read by his sons? ties) at seven per cent. on short discount? Fiction ought to constitute the mental No, no; that was not the way Sir Thomas diversion of a son or daughter, just as it Woolrych had been accustomed to live constitutes the mental diversion of a when he was an ensign (sub Heutenant mother or father. But if parents are to they positively call it nowadays) at Ahstart a literary inquisition, the judgment mednuggur in the north-west provinces. pronounced on any particular book or In those days, my dear sir, a man drew journal, to be of use, must be sound. his monthly screw by pay-warrant, took One respectable father withheld the Boys' the rupees in solid cash, locked them up Own Paper from his son because he was carefully in the desk in his bungalow, acquainted with the infamous character of helped himself liberally to them while they another boys' journal of nearly the same lasted, and gave 1OU's for any little trifle title. Such a mistake does more than of cards or horses he might happen to prevent the spread of really wholesome have let himself in for meanwhile with and instructive matter. It leads to dis- his brother officers. IOU's are of course trust of the paternal verdict, and conse- a gentlemanly and recognized form of quent disobedience. Finally, it must monetary engagement, but for bankers' cheques Sir Thomas positively felt little less than contempt and loathing. Nevertheless, in his comfortable villa in the park at Cheltenham (called Futtey poor Lodge, after that famous engagement during the Mutiny which gave the colonel his regiment and his K.C.B.-ship) he stood one evening looking curiously at his big davenport, and muttered to himself with more than one most military oath, Hanged if I don't think I shall positively be compelled to patronize these banker fellows after all. Somebody must have been helping himself again to some of my sovereigns." 66 evening meal in a blue tie and a morning cutaway, there is no drawing a line until you finally find him an advanced republican and an accomplice of those dreadful War Office people who are bent upon allowing the services to go to the devil. If Colonel Sir Thomas Woolrych, K.C.B., had for a single night been guilty of such abominable laxity, the whole fabric of society would have tottered to its base, and gods and footmen would have felt instinctively that it was all up with the British constitution. 66 Harry," Sir Thomas said, as soon as they sat down to dinner together, "are you going out anywhere this evening, my boy? Sir Thomas was not by nature a suspicious man he was too frank and openhearted himself to think ill easily of others Harry looked up a little surlily, and - but he couldn't avoid feeling certain answered after a moment's hesitation, that somebody had been tampering unjus." Why, yes, uncle, I thought I thought tifiably with the contents of his davenport. of going round and having a game of bil He counted the rows of sovereigns over liards with Tom Whitmarsh." once more, very carefully; then he checked the number taken out by the entry in his pocket-book; and then he leaned back in his chair with a puzzled look, took a meditative puff or two at the stump of his cigar, and blew out the smoke in a long curl that left a sort of pout upon his heavily moustached lip as soon as he had finished. Not a doubt in the world about it somebody must have helped himself again to a dozen sovereigns. It was a hateful thing to put a watch upon your servants and dependents, but Sir Thomas felt he must really do it. He reckoned up the long rows a third time with military precision, entered the particulars once more most accurately in his pocket-book, sighed a deep sigh of regret at the distasteful occupation, and locked up the davenport once more with the air of a man who resigns himself unwillingly to a most unpleasant duty. Then he threw away the tag end of the smokedout cigar, and went up slowly to dress for dinner. Sir Thomas's household consisted entirely of himself and his nephew Harry, for he had never been married, and he regarded all womenkind alike from afar off with a quaint, respectful, old-world chivalry; but he made a point of dressing scrupulously every day for dinner, even when alone, as a decorous formality due to himself, his servants, society, the military profession, and the convenances in general. If he and his nephew dined to gether they dressed for one another; if they dined separately they dressed all the same, for the sake of the institution. When a man once consents to eat his Sir Thomas cleared his throat and hemmed dubiously. "In that case," he said at last, after a short pause, "I think I'll go down to the club myself and have a rubber. Wilkins, the carriage at half past nine. I'm sorry, Harry, you're going out this evening." "Why so, uncle? It's only just round to the Whitmarshs', you know." Sir Thomas shut one eye and glanced with the other at the light through his glass of sherry, held up between finger and thumb critically and suspiciously. "A man may disapprove in toto of the present system of competitive examinations for the army," he said slowly; "for my part, I certainly do, and I make no secret of it; admitting a lot of butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers plump into the highest ranks of the service; no tone, no character, no position, no gentle. manly feeling; a great mistake a great mistake; I told them so at the time. 1 said to them, ‘Gentlemen, you are simply ruining the service.' But they took no notice of me; and what's the consequence? Competitive examination has been the ruin of the service, exactly as I told them. Began with that; then abolition of purchase; then local centres; then that abominable strap with the slip buckle there, there, Harry, upon my soul, my boy, I can't bear to think of it. But a man may be opposed, as I said, to the whole present system of competitive examination, and yet, while that system still unfortu nately continues to exist (that is to say, until a European war convinces all sensible people of the confounded folly of it), he may feel that his own young men, who are reading up for a direct commission, | literature. But still, I don't so much obought to be trying their hardest to get as ject to that, I say a sweet girl, certainly, much of this nonsensical humbug into Miss Milly-what I do object to is your their heads as possible during the time knocking about so much at billiard-rooms, just before their own examinations. Now, and so forth, with that young fellow WhitHarry, I'm afraid you're not reading quite marsh. Not a very nice young fellow, as hard as you ought to be doing. The or a good companion for you either, crammer's all very well in his way, of Harry. I'm afraid, I'm afraid, my boy, course, but depend upon it, the crammer he makes you spend a great deal too much by himself won't get you through. What's money." needed is private study." Harry turned his handsome dark eyes upon his uncle-a very dark, almost gipsy looking face altogether, Harry's and answered deprecatingly, “Well, sir, and don't I go in for private study? Didn't I read up Samson Agonistes' all by myself right through yesterday?" "I don't know what Samson Somethingor-other is," the old gentleman replied testily. "What the dickens has Samson Something-or-other got to do with the preparation of a military man, I should like to know, sir?" "It's the English literature book for the exam., you know," Harry answered with a quiet smile. "We've got to get it up, you see, with all the allusions and whatyoumaycallits, for direct commission. It's a sort of a play, I think I should call it, by John Milton." "I've never yet had to ask you to increase my allowance, sir," the young man answered haughtily, with a curious glance sideways at his uncle. "Wilkins," Sir Thomas put in, with a nod to the butler, "go down and bring up a bottle of the old Madeira. Harry, my boy, don't let us discuss questions of this sort before the servants. My boy, I've never kept you short of money in any way, I hope; and if I ever do, I trust you'll tell me of it, tell me of it immediately." Harry's dark cheeks burned bright for a moment, but he answered never a single word, and went on eating his dinner silently, with a very hang-dog look indeed upon his handsome features. II. AT half past nine Sir Thomas drove down to the club, and when he reached the door, dismissed the coachman. "I shall walk back, Morton," he said. "I shan't want you again this evening. Don't let them sit up for me. I mayn't be home till two in the morning." "Oh, it's the English literature, is it?" the old colonel went on, somewhat mollified. "In my time, Harry, we weren't expected to know anything about English literature. The Articles of War, and the Officer's Companion, By Authority, that was the kind of literature we used to be examined in. But nowadays they expect a soldier to be read up in Samson Something-or-other, do they really? Well, well, let them have their fad, let them have their fad, poor creatures. Still, Harry, I'm very much afraid you're wasting your time, and your money also. If I thought you only went to the Whitmarshs' to see Miss Milly, now, I shouldn't mind so much about it. Miss Milly is a very charming, sweet young creature, certainly - extremely pretty, too, extremely pretty -I don't deny it. You're young yet to go making yourself agreeable, my boy, to a pretty girl like that; you ought to wait for that sort of thing till you've got your majority, or at least, your company -athis mystery to the very bottom. young man reading for direct commission has no business to go stuffing his head cram full with love and nonsense. No, no; he should leave it all free for fortification, and the general instructions, and Samson Something-or-other, if soldiers can't be made nowadays without English But as soon as the coachman had had full time to get back again in perfect safety, Sir Thomas walked straight down the club steps once more, and up the promenade, and all the way to Futteypoor Lodge. When he got there, he opened the door silently with his latch-key, shut it again without the slightest noise, and walked on tiptoe into the library. It was an awkward thing to do, certainly, but Sir Thomas was convinced in his own mind that he ought to do it. He wheeled an easy-chair into the recess by the window, in front of which the curtains were drawn, arranged the folds so that he could see easily into the room by the slit between them, and sat down patiently to explore Sir Thomas was extremely loth in his own mind to suspect anybody; and yet it was quite clear that some one or other must have taken the missing sovereigns. Twice over money had been abstracted. It couldn't have been cook, of that he felt certain; nor Wilkins either. Very re spectable woman, cook - very respectable | ing himself unperceived to the counted butler, Wilkins. Not Morton; oh dear sovereigns. ton. no, quite impossible, certainly not Mor- About half past eleven there was a sound Not the housemaid, nor the boy; of steps upon the garden walk, and Harry's obviously neither; well-conducted young voice could be heard audibly through the people, every one of them. But who the half-open window. The colonel caught dickens could it be, then? for certainly the very words against his will. Harry somebody had taken the money. The was talking with Tom Whitmarsh, who good old colonel felt in his heart that for had walked round to see him home; his the sake of everybody's peace of mind it voice was a little thick, as if with wine, was his bounden duty to discover the real and he seemed terribly excited (to judge culprit before saying a single word to any- by his accent) about something or other body about it. that had just happened. There was something very ridiculous, of course, not to say undignified and absurd, in the idea of an elderly field officer, late in her Majesty's service, sitting thus for hour after hour stealthily behind his own curtains, in the dark, as if he were a thief or a burglar, waiting to see whether anybody came to open his davenport. Sir Thomas grew decidedly wearied as he watched and waited, and but for his strong sense of the duty imposed upon him of tracking the guilty person, he would once or twice in the course of the evening have given up the quest from sheer disgust and annoyance at the absurdity of the position. But no; he must find out who had done it; so there he sat, as motionless as a cat watching a mouse-hole, with his eye turned always in the direction of the davenport, through the slight slit between the folded curtains. "Good-night, Tom," the young man was saying, with an outward show of carelessness barely concealing a great deal of underlying irritation. I'll pay you up what I lost to-morrow or the next day. You shall have your money, don't be afraid about it." "Oh, it's all right," Tom Whitmarsh's voice answered in an offhand fashion. "Pay me whenever you like, you know, Woolrych. It doesn't matter to me when you pay me, this year or next year, so long as I get it sooner or later." 66 Sir Thomas listened with a sinking heart. Play," he thought to himself. "Play, play, play, already! It was his father's curse, poor fellow, and I hope it won't be Harry's. It's some comfort to think, anyhow, that it's only billiards." "Well, good-night, Tom," Harry went on, ringing the bell as he spoke. "Good night, Harry. I hope next time the cards won't go so persistently against you." The cards! Phew! That was bad indeed. Sir Thomas started. He didn't object to a quiet after-dinner rubber on his own account, naturally; but this wasn't whist; oh, no; nothing of the sort. This was evidently serious playing. He drew a long breath, and felt he must talk very decidedly about the matter to Harry tomorrow morning. "Is my uncle home yet, Wilkins?" Ten o'clock struck upon the alarum on the mantelpiece - half past ten - eleven. Sir Thomas stretched his legs, yawned, and muttered audibly, "Confounded slow, really." Half past eleven. Sir Thomas went over noiselessly to the side table, where the decanters were standing, and helped himself to a brandy and seltzer, squeezing down the cork of the bottle carefully with his thumb, to prevent its popping, till all the gas had escaped piece meal. Then he crept back, still noiselessly, feeling more like a convicted thief himself than a knight commander of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath, and wondering when the deuce this pilfering lock breaker was going to begin his nightly depredations. Not till after Harry came back, most likely. The thief, whoever he or she was, would probably be afraid to Sir Thomas almost laughed outright. venture into the library while there was This was really too ridiculous. Suppose still a chance of Harry returning unex-after all the waiting Harry was to come pectedly and disturbing the whole procedure. But when once Harry had gone to bed, they would all have heard from Morton that Sir Thomas was going to be out late, and the thief would then doubtless seize so good an opportunity of help "No, sir; he said he wouldn't be back probably till two o'clock, and we wasn't to sit up for him." "All right, then. Give me a light for a minute in the library. I'll take a seltzer before I go up-stairs, just to steady me." over and discover him sitting there in the darkness by the window, what a pretty figure he would cut before him! And besides, the whole thing would have to come out then, and after all the thief would never be discovered and punished. The |