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Show An International Women's Congress. The Hon. Ettore Socci, a member of the Italian parliament, through the pages of The Humanitarian asks if it would not be possible to hold an international interna-tional women's congress in Rome in 1895 in order to give prominence to the women's movement, which is spreading its ramifications throughout the world. He is an ardent advocate of the movement. move-ment. The emancipation and higher education of women, he declares, would not destroy in her the feeling of wife and mother, and still less would it undermine un-dermine family life. THE RUSSIAN AUTOCRAT. Will His Hatred of Germany Overcome His Horror oi War? The situation is strange, lurid and in a sense humiliating. Armed Europe waits upon the ultimate mandate of one man. "The heaven for height," says Solomon, "the earth fordepth, and the heart of j kings is -'ah33,T'h':-" Czar Alexander III has 1 1 I , jl oions a horror o! war a&Vf?, a hatred of Uermany. The problem is, Which passion in him shall conquer the other? Trammeled by no parliament, influenced neither by responsible re-sponsible ministers nor by personal favorites, fa-vorites, the big, lonely desjot is wrestling wres-tling out that problem single handed. It is an awful position. There is no real public opinion in Russia Rus-sia whose voice might ewaythe autocrat. auto-crat. He must fight out his own battle with himself. Probably no solution would better please him individually than a general disarmament, but that is hopeless. We must leave him to his wrestlings with himself. Meanwhile, at all events, there is a period of reasonably reasona-bly assured respite. Russia is never quite ready, and the millennium will probably surprise her in her chronio attitude at-titude of unreadiness. At present she is swapping not horses, but rifles. A year ago there was not a magazine rifle in the Russian army, and the great majority ma-jority of her Boldiers till armed with the improved "Berdan," aVery inferior in-ferior weapon both to the German and the Austrian rifle. But Russia retains still the warning memory of her fearful losses before Plevna Plev-na from the Remingtons, which America placed in the hands of the Turks, and with which her obsolete Krenkes could not cope. After much tedious experimenting, experi-menting, a year ago a definite selection was made of a weapon known as the "three ?'ne" rifle, and the production and issue of tuis firearm are being pushed forward with great energy. But you cannot order in 2,500,000 rifles as you can a bundle of toothpicks. I believe that about a third of the requisite quantity quan-tity is now delivered. It is absolutely impossible that the equipment can Jcompleteand ,x the weapou'w renin the pvesent ear. J t seems extremely improbable that this result can be attained before the spring of 1896. The opportunity for war I do not say the certainty of war will come when Russia shall have completed the equipment equip-ment of her hostB with the "three line" rifle.Archibald Forbes in North American Amer-ican Review. |