| Show AFFAIRS ABROAD I 1 r HE theatrical death of General I C Eoulanger was a r fitting end to a 1fl 4Ak theatrical life No 11 f 42 man has ever had n a better opportunity C11I r opportun-ity to satisfy 7 vaulting personal Z 44S ambition than he < 1 > > but his lack of decision de-cision suffered the ejjdr 6 10 critical moment the tide that leads on to fortune to pass him without availing himself of it and asa as-a result ho was politically stranded Had ho taken Advantage of the discontent that marked the last year of President Grevys administration in France that is Paris lie might have occupied tho position at hat that Napoleon IJI held before tho CUP d etat But his courage or his shrewdness failed him at the supreme moment mo-ment and from that time on bis fortune waned Disappointed disheartened forsaken for-saken and exiloJ he at last took his own Mo He who sought to climb the pinnacle of earthly fame could not bear the adver b tv of fate and if he must be forgotten he prercrred to be forgotten where the sneers aim taunts of men could not reach him Tbe alleged attempt upon the life of Emperor Em-peror Francis Joseph ot Austria at Reich eLer may have polItical significance if it has any The chronio feud between the L zecns and Germans in Bohemia was recently re-cently intensified by one of Premier Tajfes favorite expedients through which the Germans gained practical control ot the Atstran government to the discomfiture of the Slays and it may be possible that th monarchs visit to the Kronland of St Vcnceslaui inspired the act Still it is B 3 ngular that it should have been at nipted in a German district unless the Czechs chose it purposely to cast odium upon their national enemies Iha young Emperor of Germany has again reversed tho Bi marcl ian policy in two particulars One the abolition of the vexatious passport system in AlsaceLor raiac has met with unqualified approval 1 I he other allowing two banking houses in Berlin to open subscriptions to the Russian loan has been so widely condemned in Germany Ger-many that an official explanation had to beg be-g en To the foreigner both acts appear to be most commenoable By opening the captured cap-tured provinces freely Germany incurs not the slightest danger while relieving the people of those provinces of the feeling that they were to a certain extent a conquered race As Mr Harold Frederick says in the New York Times Of course there is every reason in the wci Id why Germany should have a peace fil disposition Having seized all she wants her dearest wish is to be allowed to regain in quiet enjoyment of it Like the player who ha wcn largely she is quite reajy to delare the game ended It is the loser who demands that the game shall continue Tue removal of the passport restrictions has elicited some cautiously civil words from the Parisian press and Liis apparently smoothed Lohengrins rocky path into French affection but nothing noth-ing can move France She still sits to use the Ftrry expression like a dog watching a hole in the ground Her gaze is never taken off those lost provinces The Russian Loan The affair of the Russian loan is more intricate and perhaps more important It is worth noitnsr that in this as in the matter mat-ter of Alsacian passports the present course of the German government is flatly and markedly opposed to Bism rcks policy ivble In office It was no who invented tjcse rigors for AlsaceLorraine It was his act publicly to warn German financiers against investing in Russian securities Doubtless there is underlying the motives a certain desire to accentuate in the public mind the completeness of Bisuuarck downfall but in the Russian matter there is tore than domestic politics It is easy enough to comprehend the Czars anxiety that this hugh new loan should not oe subscribed entirely in France What one doesnt see is a reason for Germanys Ger-manys sudden willingness to be associated with Franco in floating it Still less is it i apparent why at such a moment as this two Jewish banking concerns should come forward to help the St Petersburg treasury treas-ury out of an embarrassment There is indeed in-deed a very plausiole possiuility that the while thing has been devised to give the Gorman people an opportunity ot urinal mously and stoutly decining to subscribe This view is helped out by the outspoken comments of the Berlin papers 1 have never known them to to so united before on anything as they are now in urging Ge man investors to hold sternly aloof and refuse to advance a single penny It will certainly be the most effective and artistically artis-tically finished snub if the books for the Russian loan at SO and paying a trifle bet tor interest than the Prussian state loan are opened in Berlin and ignored by the public In another week we shall know whether this is what is intended CD A ScnilOfliclal View Berlin dispatch says The unanimity unanim-Ity of tho press protests against Germans asking apart of tbe new Russian loan ha convinced Chancellor Von Caprivi tbat it is incumbent on the government to answer the question heard everywhere from press frud bourse and the public whether the ni w departure in the German financial uoiicy towards Russia Impl od the annulment annul-ment of tho prohibition against the Reichsbank lending money on Russian se curi tics The jVbrth German Gazette the official organ publishes a communication In which it denies that the government is In any Tiiee departing from the path of political finance which it has trodden The GazeUc says further that no modification Is intended in-tended In the prohibition against the lleichsbanlc loaning money on Russian securities se-curities More detailed explanations are given by the Hamburger Correspandenz This paper absolutely denies that the government gov-ernment has assented to the issue of the loan in Germany The Mendelasohns made confidential in uiries of the foreign office as to the atti tUlle of the government towards the issue In reply the foreign office informed the bankers that the present political situation afforded no occasion for the government to interfere in any form The chancellor did not design in the roply to convey the slightest slight-est ideaof approval The answer was prompted solely by the view that the government was not bound from considerations of foreign policy to take up a decided advisory position for or against German capitalists who took part in a foreign loan every time one was issued Bankers the reply declared are in most cases perfectly capable of acting upon their own judgment English Politics After an exceptionally long and eventless vacation Great Britain has taken a sudden and vehement plunge into politics Sir William Harcourt made the opening speech of the autumn campaign Friday night in Lancashire for John Morleys previous address ad-dress at Cambridge can hardly be called more than an academic overture and pet the pace for a lively and vigorous onslaught upon the whole Tory position The most noticeable thing in Harcourts oration was he way in which over and over again he praised Sir Henry James to the prejudice of his Unonist associates It is not in Har courts nature to waste kindly words on opponents hence it is a fair assumption that the defection of James is looked for or at least regarded as a possibility But long speeches would not in themselves elves avail to light up the whole English politic 1 sky with a fiery glow The real secret of the awakening is in the fact that the most momentous fight for a consti uency which the present government has lad to wage is now on in Manchester As foreshadowed last week the elevation of Sir James Fergusson as postmaster gen eral has made a vacancy in that home of Liberalism The Tory leader thought this was safe because the Liberals of the divi siou had no candidate ready but C P Scott editor of the Manchester Guardrail who was the former candidate promptly consented to come forward and the whole powerful Liberalism of the city is earnestly concentrated upon promoting his canvass There is something more than a fortnight before the election and prediction is now extremely hazardous but the contest already ready excites deep interest which will rise to fever heat by polling time Gladstones Speech Mr Gladstone is in Scotland just now the correspondent of the New York Tribune states a guest of the family home at Basque Kincardineshire On the eve of completing his eightysecond he starts off cheerily to catch the night mail for the north This visit to Scotland is a little expedition ex-pedition on the way to KewcastleonTyne where this week he will meet the delegates dele-gates of the Liberal party gathered from aU the ends of the kingdom and is expected to make a great speech He is in bounding health and is spoiling for a fight It is quite possible that lad Sir Andrew Clark persisted in the prohibiting of the New castle excursion Mr Gladstone would have broken out of bounds and made his way north The judicious doctor accordingly temporized and gave him permission to speak if he spared himself all extra exertion exer-tion and did not talk for more than an hour With these conditions Gladstone complies bv traveling all round Scotland to get to Northumberland and the delivery on his way of at lease one big speech The speech was made and appeared in THE ciniiALD yesterday and from the ovation Mr Gladstone received at its close It maybe may-be surmised to have made a deep impression im-pression upon the people Paniells Decline No success has so far resulted In the efforts made by Parnell to find money to start a new daily newspaper in Dublin This is regarded as an exhibition of unsuspected unsus-pected weakness on his past Parnell has always claimed to have an abundance of money behind him His inability in-ability to establish a daily organ is regarded as much of a confession of defeat as if he had lost two more elections The Dardanelles Incident The Dardanelles incident has died away and all is now opparently peaceful in that quarter Nevertheless it is evident that England and Russia are still watching each others movements carefully each afraid to trust the other too far The British fleet which recently went on a picnic to Mity lone has been sailing around Cyprus and paid another visit to Alexandria The fleet is said now to bo again on the way to the Dardanelles but no more picnicking is promised When the British sailors land again it is expected that they will be in I earnest The Sultan is going to make an effort to resuscitate his Iron clods that have not yet become useless from neglect and rust A dispatch from Vienna says that Russian troops are practicing forced night marches and other nocturnal man uvres across the River Pruth on the Roumanian frontier with the aid of electric lights The Roumanian government has become alarmed at these warlike demonstrations Consequently it is also concentrating troops on frontier and has sent a force of Rou I manian cavalry to Upper Moldavia The Chinese Troubles I English newspapers are reported to be very much unsettled in their references to I the Chinese trouble and in giving opinions I as to what should be done by the British t government However the feeling is j growing that something must be done It j is believed that if any further outbreaks occur England will send a number of light draft gunboats from those in use on the Irawaddy river ic Burmah which will be able to navigate the Yellow river and are sufficiently formidable to awe the inhabitants inhabi-tants of the treaty ports Besides this it is likely that in the case I of hostilities it will be found practicable to i i impress into the service light merchant I steamers equipping them with men and i guns These would really be more useful i under the peculiar conditions of Chinese waters than largo menofwar I Although the Chinese minister here has assured the foreign office that the disorders disor-ders in China will be speedily repressed I the foreign office views the situation there with anxiety and believes that a demonstration demon-stration with increased force will be prudent pru-dent and efficacious in preventing Chinese outrages on missionaries and other foreign residents The Paris correspondent of the Times says It has become known here that the governors gov-ernors of the Chinese provinces in which the riots occurred have distinctly declined to be held responsible therefor and have declared it impossible to pay indemnity The inference is that Chinas circular to the powers aims simply at delay in order to shirk indemnity and therefore not to beheld be-held to account by Europe Salisbury Is Waiting Lord Salisbury is delaying energetic action ac-tion however until he hears more from the British minister to China Sir John Walsham and from Sir Robert Hart the inspectorgeneral of customs in China The latter gentleman is said to possess more influence than any other foreign resident res-ident in China and ho has advised Lord Sallis bury to avoid a naval demonstration at the treaty ports and to trust to the promises of the Chinese ministers Ho believes that the Chinese are thoroughly thor-oughly amenable to judicious treatment He especially advises against doing anything any-thing that might weaken the power of the present dynasty and thus produce a chaotic condition of affairs in the empire He also advises that tho establishments of the missionary bodies shall bo 0jen to official Chinese inspection so that the prejudices of the people who persisist in believing that Europeans use the eyes and other portions por-tions of Chinese children in the manufacture manufac-ture of medicines may be met Foreign Fads It has rained only twice in twentynine years in Aden and then only enough to lay the dust It is estimated that the treasure lying idle in India in the shape of hoards of ornaments orna-ments amounts to 250000000 In Corea sheets ot paper pass for money one sheet brings one quart of rice or twenty sheets a piece of hemp cloth The accommodations of the Vatican maybe may-be imagined when the Pope put 2200 beds in it at the disposal of the French pilgrims free of charge Old French forts are being sold very cheap A French artist has bought the Fort du Guesclin for about 1100 They go from a few hundred to 51000 Less than a score of Russian scbolars it is asserted can translate Count rolstois dramatic languages directly from the original origi-nal into Euglish Bavarias demented King spends most of his time skinning potatoes Several other European sovereigns spend most of theirs trying to skin each other Queen Victorias gift to France will be a fine portrait of herself in gorgeous frame upon which will be blended the arms of England and France and other emblems of the Queens respect for the republic Trying to interview the Prince of Wales is as difficult a job as trying to pick a Yale lock with a toothpick He is not to be got at by the willing scribe and the American syndicate which offers 2500 for an interview inter-view with him neednt be in a hurry to buy a draft for the money Queen Christina of Spain is persistently carrying out to the intense disgust of her household the refo ms which the late Duke of Aosta when Kihg attempted to introduce in-troduce reforms by which tho viands and wines coming from the royal table are retained re-tained instead of becoming the perquisites of servants as was formerly the case The Duke of Cambridge is one of the best known old boys in London and there is hardly a soldier policeman or hackman in town who is not acquainted with the rosygilled and whitehaired twobottle old man who has never been over popular with the officers of the army because he would persist in being a fussy friend of the soldiers sol-diers The Princess Ludwig of Bavaria gave birth to her thirteenth child Twelve of her children are living The princess is the daughter of Duke Ferdinand of Mo dena and an archduchess of Austria She was born in 1S49 and was married In 1863 No other royal princess in Europe is the mother of so many chilaren as this popular Bavarian lady The presentation to the imperial family of Austria of a sackful of holy earth from the chapel of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives for the purpose of being placed in the coffin of the late Crown Prince Rudolph Ru-dolph recalls to mind the fact that everyone every-one of the royal families in Europe makes a special point of having water brought from the river Jordan for the purpose of royal and imperial christenings The future Empress Eugenie was just twenty six years o age when Napoleon III fell in love with her at a ball He had heard other magnificeut physique through the rumors of her appearance when dragged drag-ged in flowing draperies from a little lake into which she had fallen on her mothers estate in Mvaga From a pale thin shy girl she suddenly blossomed out into a daz zllng beauty Eugenie and Quean Victoria are warm personal friends now The number of converts to the Church of Rome has been more numerous in London Lon-don society this year than ever before Among other wellknown men who have taken this step are the son of Lord Nelson Lord St Gyres eldest son of the Earl of Iddeslelgn Mr Basil Lechmere son of Sir I Henry Lechmere Mr J Ussher a lineal descendant of the famous Archbishop Ussher Protestant primate of Ireland and Mr Algernon Bowrlng of the Queens household The ex King and Queen of Naples who have no children live moat ol the year at the hotel Vouillemont at Paris upon the fourth floor receiving no one save a few old adherents The exQueen devotes all her spare cash to her horses but both she and bar husband are very poor their name figuring frequently on the books of Atten borough the great pawnbroker in London who has disposed of almost every bit of their silver and gold plates as well as of her majeatys jewels |
