An English magazine writer on Egypt points out the difficulty which is encountered in all the public life of the Nile country—it is the habit of submission to personal despotic authority. The only system of government which is possible is the old, old one—for it has unfitted the people for any other. An enlightened despotism might give the country rest and prosperity. But western Europe, now master in Egypt, has outgrown the capacity to administer a despotism.
Professor Goldwin Smith has recently stated that Canada is becoming more French. The French not only gain in population faster than the English in what was once called New France, but they are spreading out into the Canadian New England. In Quebec there are only 7,000 British people. The Canadian Frenchmen are cultivating, he says, the relations to France with increasing zeal. The sober truth is, we believe, that the English in Canada never had a chance of salvation except through annexation to the United States. We were never anxious about that; but they ought to have been.
Smuggling is not altogether a lost art. It is said that it is practiced for a livelihood on the Maine coast with some success. The fishermen are said to be experts in the business. But it is not a large business, and our government does not lose much, nor does any one get rich by breaking the revenue laws.
Somebody says that a ranch in Texas has 25,000 more acres than the state of Rhode Island. But don’t infer that this country is going to be a land of large farms. We have always had some such farms; but the number of them is decreasing. They never pay, and no social distinction attaches to their proprietors.
In Boston, Easter morning, Dr. Withrow dwelt upon the overwhelming evidence of the fact of Christ’s resurrection. Rev. Minot J. Savage said, at the same hour in the same city, that we have not the slightest evidence that any Apostle ever saw Christ after he was crucified and buried. It seems that there is at least one theological difference of creed extant in our harmonious time. Mr. Savage might profitably read Paul’s testimony on this subject.