then with the Stonewall Jackson and Riujo and old wooden vessels, all used for training purposes. In that year the first ship especially built for them in England-a broadside central battery ship of 3700 tons, designed by Sir E. Reed-was launched at Poplar, and she was soon followed by several small but powerfully armed ironclads. In 1895, when the war with China broke out, Japan did not yet possess a single battleship, but she had a powerful fleet of fast and heavily armed cruisers, and it was with these that she won the great naval battle of Yalu, though fighting against armoured battleships. The events of that war are too recent and too fresh in memory to call for description now. Throughout it the Japanese navy played a brilliant part. The successful night attacks in torpedo-boats on the Chinese fleet anchored in the harbour and under the forts of Wei Hai Wei, in the bitter piercing cold of mid-winter, were exploits carried out with a degree of skill, courage, and endurance of which any maritime nation in the world might be proud, and resulted in the capture or destruction of the entire Chinese fleet. The ships took an active part in the subsequent capture of the forts, both at Wei Hai Wei and Port Arthur, interchanging with them a heavy fire, while the siege inland was being carried out by the army. For its services the navy had its reward in the unqualified recognition by the people that it was pre-eminently the national force of the future for Japan, and that no sacrifice could be grudged that was necessary for its expansion and continued maintenance on a high plane of efficiency.

The expansion since 1895 has been such as to give Japan a fleet that is now in offensive and defensive armament, in steaming capacity, both in speed and distance, and in homogeneousness, equal to any in the world of the same size. It comprises seven battleships, ranging in tonnage from 12,000 to 15,000, seven armoured and fourteen protected cruisers of an aggregate tonnage of 116,000, together with a large torpedo flotilla, every single ship being of the most modern type of naval constructive science.

The dockyard at Yokosuka has been already referred to. There are now two other fully equipped Imperial dockyards. The first is situated near Hiroshima, on the Inland Sea, where the principal naval college now is, and the second at Sasebo, a port approached by narrow winding channels, on the west coast of the Southern Island of Kiusiu. All three dockyards are so strongly fortified as to be impregnable to attack from the sea. Yokosuka lies inside the Gulf of Tokio, the narrow entrance to which is defended by heavy batteries mounted both on the surrounding hills and in forts built in the Gulf, and the entrances to the Inland Sea, also all narrow passages, are defended in the same way. Even, therefore, if Japan should at any time lose command of the sea, her ships can lie and be repaired with perfect security in her arsenals, while the facilities

for shelter and concealment afforded by her many harbours and islands would enable her torpedo-boats to render the task of a blockading squadron anything but light. Recent events in Northern China have suggested the advisability of a fourth dockyard at Maizuru, a port on the west coast of the main island, almost directly facing Port Arthur, and it is now well advanced towards completion. No battleship has yet been built in Japan. Yokosuka has, however, turned out cruisers of over 4000 tons, and it may be safely stated that, short of building a battleship, there is no work connected with the complete equipment of a vessel of war that cannot be satisfactorily accomplished in the Imperial dockyards, while several merchant steamers of large capacity, admirably suited for transport purposes, have been successfully built in the great private dockyard at Nagasaki. There is to be no resting on the oars in the future. Provision is now being made for an expenditure on naval expansion during the ten years 1903-13 of 10 millions sterling, over 6 millions of which are apportioned to shipbuilding, three to armaments, and nearly one to dockyards.

In the naval review held by the Emperor in April last, twentyeight ships of war, thirteen destroyers, and twenty-three torpedoboats were ranged in four lines before his Majesty, constituting, together with such typical representatives of the British Navy as the battleship Glory and the first-class cruiser Blenheim, and representatives of the fleets of Germany, Russia, France, Italy, and the United States, by far the greatest naval display ever held in Far Eastern waters. The Emperor, as he steamed slowly round the whole fleet, in the Asama, one of his finest armoured cruisers, of nearly 10,000 tons, with a speed of twenty-one knots, might well view the scene with feelings of unqualified pride in the people over whom he rules, who in less than thirty years have created from nothing so powerful and efficient a guarantee for the national safety. And the English officers who were so fortunate as to be present might with no less pride regard the ally with whom it may some day be their lot to be ranged in line of battle, well knowing as they do that the personnel of the Japanese fleet is in no respect unworthy of its magnificent ships. The facts of history teach them the undoubted bravery of that personnel, from the highest to the lowest, and their experience of Japanese ships in commission has shown them that, in earnest attention to duty and all its varied details, in zeal and ability, in the capacity of apprehension of all the principles of their profession, both officers and men are not behind themselves. Their pride will not be lessened by the thought that it was the example and history of England that sowed the first seeds of Japan's naval ambition, that it was English officers who brought those seeds to maturity, and that it is in England that the finest and most powerful ships of the Japanese navy have been built. The alliance

between England and Japan is one of the best safeguards for the peace of the world in the present condition of Far Eastern politics. England owes to Japan a debt of gratitude for the promised assistance, should occasion call for it, of a fighting force which, added to her own, should make both irresistible; Japan, on the other hand, owes a still greater debt to England for having provided her with that force and given the best help in making her what she now is, a formidable naval power.

JOSEPH H. LONGFORD

(Late H. M. Consul at Nagasaki).

LION-HUNTERS AND LADY CARLISLE

THE monotony characteristic of human life has been the theme of the philosopher from Solomon downwards. To a careless or oversanguine observer, it may appear from time to time that a new factor has insinuated itself into the play; but look a little closer, and you will discover that it is nothing but an old acquaintance in a new dress. The general may discard his uniform and assume the clerical costume, or Judy may put on the attire of a lady of fashion, but the substantial material of the puppet-show remains the same. We must make the best of the old virtues, for there are no new ones to be had, and put up with the time-honoured failings, since they are not likely to be cured.

Among the defects which appear to be so inherent in human nature that they may be recognised as part of its inevitable equipment is the love of notoriety; or rather, to make use of the plural and more accurate term, of notorieties. If the failing must be numbered among the less attractive of our common infirmities, it must also be allowed that it admits of widely different degrees of culpability. To seek a man out because he enjoys a reputation for sanctity is obviously more excusable than to pay the like court to a distinguished sinner. The desire for the friendship of those eminent for wisdom or learning can scarcely be pronounced, on the face of it, blameworthy; and the devotee of a philosopher, however celebrated, may be inspired with a laudable thirst for knowledge. Pure love of literature might lead a man to cultivate the acquaintance of a poet who has achieved distinction, and a genuine wish for enlightenment has been known to bring a disciple to the feet of a popular preacher.

If, further it must be admitted that the refusal to worship at a shrine unless it be crowded is calculated to cast a doubt upon the genuineness of the incense, it is at least as true that for every man to maintain his right to canonise his own saint could scarcely fail to be productive of confusion in the celestial hierarchy; and though to bow the knee to a hero simply in consequence of his reputation is unquestionably to transfer the tribute from himself to his trumpeters, still enthusiasm is proverbially contagious, and there is no more reason to be ashamed of catching the infection than if it were

the measles. To go further, it cannot be denied that, were every one to be compelled to light his own fire with tinder and flint, not a few hearths would remain cold.

So long, therefore, as a man continues content with lending his voice to swell the aves of the crowd, there is little fault to be found with him. The pity of it begins when he conceives the ambition of establishing a personal relationship between himself and the object of his veneration. When this becomes the case he will do well to be wary. The longing to receive at your table a guest whose name is on the posters is liable to develop into a consuming fever; and convicted criminals are said to have been pestered with offers of marriage.

The beginnings of a malady which may reach such a perilous height must be heedfully watched. It is an ominous symptom to insist upon letting a successful author know that you appreciate his work; the desire to congratulate a stranger should be viewed with suspicion; and the purity of compassion becomes tainted when you cannot refrain from telling a distinguished victim of misfortune that you are sorry for him.

If we have been tempted to look upon this inveterate love of, so to speak, second-hand celebrity as a special feature of the present day, a glance at history will quickly undeceive us. It can scarcely have been pure accident that fixed Cleopatra's affections on the notorieties of her day; and to come to later times, in a description to be found in a volume written by a contemporary of the Lady Carlisle who was so conspicuous a figure at the Court of Charles the First, one recognises a personality as familiar as a friend, or shall we say, an enemy?

The portrait is from the pen of Sir Toby Matthew, Court gossip and verse-maker, of whom Suckling makes caustic mention in his 'Session of the Poets':

Toby Matthew-(pox on him) how came he there ?—
Was whispering nothing in somebody's ear,
When he had the honour to be named in Court,

But, Sir, you may thank my Lady Carlisle for't.

From this it appears that it had been the picture of the great lady -not published till 1660, but handed about in manuscript long before-which had brought Sir Toby himself into notice; while it is further to be inferred that the portrait had given no offence to the subject of it. Had it indeed been painted with less appreciation than it is, Lady Carlisle is likely enough to have been one of the women-again common to all ages-who would rather be written about in any strain than not at all.

To quote the description itself:

She is of too high a mind and dignity [says Sir Toby], not only to seek, but almost to wish, the friendship of any creature. They whom she is pleased to