| Show CURRENT TOPICS IN EUROPE the cunard steamer bochnia Both nia which left liverpool on january 1890 carried among her passengers one that deserves laore than a passing notice this person is miss mims amy fowler a native liveoa of combe down near bath england who is going self exiled to undertake one of the works of devotion of whit h even the stories of martyrdom contain any record the world has looked with wonder and astonishment at afie self sacrifice of father damien who in the glory of his youth dedicated his bis life to the cause of suffering humanity and lived and toiled and died while striving to alleviate thesus the sufferings feri felings jugs of the poor lepers on the island of molokai miss fowler has volu volunteered uttered to become his s successor u but from the moment she bete sety foot on anthe the leper island she will be know n only as sister rose gertrude when one rc reflects on the awful is isolation of such a life the repulsiveness of its daily as the horror of its scenes and the personal risk it involves one begins to appreciate something of the sublime faith and immeasurable kelf elf sacrifice which have prompted a refined api ad deli cately nurtured young woman to voluntarily cast her lot amid such surroundings miss fowler does not seem to be more than twenty two years of age and theris something interesting in this young fresh and beautiful girl with large eyes of deepest blue and a fair rosy complexion in every movement of her little figure activity and energy are expressed notwithstanding the occasional dreaminess which comes like a thin veil over the fair features HS though she was looking into the beyond and saw things that others did not see in reply to those who questioned her she said 1 t I have studied medicine in paris riot not to take a medical degree but to become becom an efficient sick nurse I 1 have also been at the pasteur institute where here I 1 have learned much that I 1 hope will be of great use to me it has always been my wish to devote my life to the good of others I 1 shall have the entire charge of the hospital and where it is necessary I 1 will change the old order of nursing I 1 SM am taking out a number of articles for beautifying the hospital and I 1 intend to sing to the patients to cheer them as well as I 1 can and later on when I 1 have saved enough of my salary I 1 shall buy a piano and brighten their lives with music 11 truly a strange picture this A fair engli E girl on the island where perpetu summer reigns singing with a voice the very tones of which are melody surrounded by those half savage hawaiians Hawaii ans afflicted with the most loathsome disease the example of damiens life has no doubt had its influence upon miss fowler as well as upon many others she will follow in his footsteps with w iab that noble devotion which is often characteristic of women among the great cities ot or europe there are many more prominent than the little city of bedford yet there or near there iu in the month of september 1726 was born one of the world a greatest benefactors john howard who afterwards became known as the great prison reformer the story of his life work is more romantic than the fabled adventures of mediaeval media eval knights scarcely a dungeon in the great capitals of europe that he did not visit and from their dark and loathsome depths he be rescued thousands whose names are not me tinned in the history of men before emperors kings and potentates he plead the cause of suffering humanity and the hearts of tyrants were often touched by his sympathetic eloquence wilo who has bas not dot shuddered at the horrors borrom of the bastile in the dungeons of which no ray of sunshine ever penetrated whose walls were ever dripping with filth and alive with vermin vermill well the bastile was only a fair specimen of the loathsome prisons that existed in nearly every capital of europe during the first half of the eighteenth century at this distance of time and moving in another atmosphere of thought we can scarcely realize the condition of prisons when john howard commenced his work the story of cruelty and outrage and wrong which he published in 1777 kindled a flame of indignation which swept through the land and aroused the attention of the idlers on the of january 1790 john howard died at cherson a little village in southern russia while attending the sick A bull hundred dred years later january the people of bedford have commemorated his bis memory and started the work of erecting a monument those who have visited the cathedral of st paul in london will remember how strange it seemed to see a cathedral dedicated to the worship of the meek and lowly nazarene and yet used principally as the burial of the slayers of men it is well when society holds in remembrance her benefactors also it is every way fitt flitting ting that howanis s statue should stand by the side of that other gra great tt citizen of bedford john bauyan the immortal tinker the author of the pilgrims progress but while we recognize the claims of these moral and intellectual heroes upon us we should not forget that there are others who atthe at the preheat time are tolling toiling with every power of mind and body for the benefit of their fellow aaen maen the overloading of vessels is an evil of the first magnitude for a commercial country like great britain during the last three years six thousand eight hundred and five persons have perished in missing vessels alone this does not dot include the many hundreds who have perished dished wb where r the vessels are known to have been wrecked of the six hundred and thirty one vessels that sailed out upon the broad ocean and been heard beard of no more it has been proved in two hundred and ninety one cases that the loss has been due to overloading in all these cases no one has beer punished nearly men in the full activity of life have thus gone down to a watery grave nearly fourteen thousand widows and orphans have mourned the untimely fate of these husbands and fathers the better class of society biety demands that this needless sacrifice ot of human lives shall cease and the cruel inhuman greed of these shipping merchants shall be summarily dealt with for many years mr samuel one of the members of parliament has been indefatigable in denouncing this wrong pamphlet after pamphlet he has published and numerous addresses given in all the principal shi aping towns of great britain A bill is bow now pending bedfor earlia arlia merit ment that will provide severe punishment for those who are guilty of overloading vessels all honor to the persevering efforts of mr plim soil and to lothe the grand old man mr gladstone who has seconded his efforts mav their shadows never grow less at this present time there seems to be increased activity in the irish agitation although mr balfour declares that the policy of coercion Is ie a success and that there is 18 a perfect freedom of the press in ireland still it cannot be denied that within the past two or three weeks several proprietors and editors of newspapers have been sent to prison as common criminals for the terrible crime of publishing items of news not favorable to the administration of mr balfour no editorial comment was needed no expression of sympathy on the part of the proprietor editor or sub editor was required the mayor of wexford happens to his misfortune to be the proprietor of a paper called the wexford people that th at paper Itis i beerts erts an ordinary item of the news of the day which item did not reflect credit on the executors of the low law and therefore mr balfour would rather have had that article suppressed the consequence is that the mayor is thrown into the prison of dublin castle mr mchugh the editor of the sago champion has just been condemned to six months imprisonment for publishing an item of news which was vas fearlessly published by the english papers mr ocon acon nor sub editor of the Lei lenster nater leader gets two months for a similar crime there are those in E england who claim that this balg of juanice jufe tice is only increasing the strength of the liberal party and hastening the triumph of mr Glad gladstone stones policy the russian alget et for 1890 has hag just been publik aw and attention has been attracted to ane extraordinary amount that russia expects to expend upon her forts forte and nd military equipments during the coming year ninety millions of dollars is the amount the czar requires in his firm resolution to maintain peace it is somewhat remarkable that while the gove government rii of russia is persecuting jews it is also to the jewish banking house bouse of rothschild that russia is indebted for the negotiation of her loans the amount of interest the that t russia pays to the ol of paris is more than fifteen million dollars annually meanwhile jerusalem the capital of the jewish nation bation the much loved city of the Rothschild sis is arising from the ruin of the ages the immigrants during the past three years have numbered fully twenty thousand it is now estimated that more than half the inhabitants of the city are jews and the same may be said of the ru rural ral districts this to is in great part due to the efforts of the Rothe childs it is a remarkable illustration in the providence pro violence of god that has so cruelly persecuted the jews is also the power that is most dependent upon them and further it is the wealth of russia that is pleat ly aiding the gathering of that ancient people the social development of russia is meanwhile progressing more rapidly than the western nations of europe seem to apprehend mr charles edward turner the professor of english in the university of st petersburg has just completed a work on the modern novelties of russia which throws a flood of light on russian affairs the thoughts and senti sentiments mentis of that mighty people can only be understood through her poets and romancers the journalists are obliged to choose their subjects with great cir tion or some fine giorni morning they will find themselves escarte escorted da by soldiers and on their way ay to siberia the novelists on the other hand dealing in fable have a somewhat freer hand band it is a peculiarity culi arity of russian literature that it deals but little with their own past history no russian scott has arisen to tell in glowing words the adventures of her medi ceval seval knights fifty y ars ago her poets mostly sang of italian and turkish themes but one fine day they awoke to realize that the most stirring of subjects was to be found in their own national life to gogol belongs the merit of this great change his first work dead souls depicted the miseries of the russian peasantry in such a way that it has been styled the russian uncle tons cabin 1 I 21 within six years there was a splendid outburst of almost inspired writing on this great theme and the czar Aex aexander aDder 11 II was moved to complete oom the emancipation of the serfs goncharoff took up the theme from the side of the masters and showed that the serf owner in his indolence his sensuality an and J his want of ideas is only one degree less pitiable than the serf Bazaroff and tolstoi are the names of the men who have labored most for the benefit of young russia especially those that are fresh from the schools of science the claw class from which russian despotism has the most to dread J H WARD WAR euwel january 1890 |
