Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1898-11-29
Literary.


In the Engineering Magazine for
November, '.The Chinese, and Re-
cent Industrial Progress in China"
Gle by J. S. Fearon and Z. p. Allen
authorities Gone of them English one
American) whose long residence in
China and intimate familiarity with
all the conditions, racial and politi-
cal as well as natural and economic,
give them a rare insight into the pos
sibilities of the country and the best
means of realizing them. A subject
which is of supreme Importance to the
engineering world gains both interest
and value when the writer's speak
with such knowledge, and their expo
sition of the Anglo-Saxon interest in
maintaining the integrity of the en-
pire is especially striking.
Much interest has been excited in
America by the Geographic accounts
of Hooley's apparently wholesale pur-
chase of British noblemen for use as
decoy ducks to his various stock
schemes; and his connection with the
highest political officials of the en-
pire. Theron G. Crawford, who has
been in England for the Cosmopoli-
tan, takes up the subject in the No
vember issue of that magazine, and
under the title of "Hooley and His
Guinea-Pigs, gives a connected story
of the derivation of Hooley and his
rise to the control of millions through
unlimited cheek, and the OpPortune
willingness of distinguished British
aristocrats to lend their names for
financial consideration to any sort OF a
shady transaction.
One naturally expects an elderly
man to treat even a present condition
reminiscently, and it is therefore not
surprising that w. ID. Howells, who
is now contributing a series of papers
on the nature of American literary
criticism to Literature, should begin
by saving that there seems to be no
such men now writing American crit
icism as there were u generation ago,
when Charles Eliot Norton and Lowell
were writing for the North American
Review, Bret Harte for the Overland
Review, and the graceful essays OF
George William Curtis, in the Easy
Chair of Harper's Magazine, were
begun.
The account books of All Souls col
lege, Oxford, are in an excellent state
of preservation, and from them we
are enabled to get a correct idea OF
the wages paid about a. ID. 143S.
Carpenters and sawyers got cd day;
daubers, Sd; stone biggers and labour-
ers, AID; masons and joiners, Sd; a
master carpenter, IS I'd week, en-
joying also a 1.-THE from each lobOur-
er employed under him, a custom
CO. IN, ay-t Of
and which the engineers there are try
carver received As Sd a week, with
bed and board, as he generally came
from a distance. In those halcyon
days horse cost the modest sum OF
fS.-J. W. Parry, in the Engineering
Magazine for Decemb Der.
The stage does more than almost
else to restore ones faith in
the better side of human nature.
After an hour or two with pessimistic
philosopher, who will have it that the
race is far gone in degeneracy, there is
more bracing TO ones OPTIC
mism, says Ha.rper's Bazaar, than
an evening at one of the theatres of
the cheaper class. How the audience
goes in, heart and soul and boot-heels,
for the brave and honest hero! And
what contumely of Kisses falls to the
share of the villain, There is no
winking at immortality, no sympathy
with evil, even when IL is successful.
Without a doubt the gallery would
firmly decline to 90 home if the play
did not end with the triumph of vir-
tue. This is somewhat amusing, per-
haps, but seems to show that, in an
abstract question, the sympathies of
the people are on the right side
Three notable serials begin in the
December mum. of McClure's Mag
azine. Sta - the first of Rudyard
kiplinp's series of stories of English
school boy life. is as hearty and
a tale of school boy inge-
nuity and adventure As one could
wish to read, and, while complete in
itself, leaves the appetite keen for
more of the same sort The first of
Miss Tarbell's articles on the Later
Life of Lincoln" is an even more dis
beginning than the first of
Mr.. Kipling's stories Lincoln aP-
pears in the fall sanity and tender
hess of his superb character, in her
account of his actions, utterances
md bearing during the perplexing
period bet 3een his first election and
his first inauguration as president
Finally, we ha We the first of n series
If papers by Capt Mahan on The
Var on the Sea and Its Lessons