The vexed question has set in with great vigor in the coal country. Some very “heathenish and filthy” people, called Hungarians, have come in and are competing with low wages. They use no soap, and save all the cost of cleanliness. The question we refer to is whether American labor is to keep its high level of decency, comfort and education. It is noticeable that the Chinese are rapidly climbing to that level. Perhaps these Hungarians will.
Russia finds it increasingly difficult to live in the same house with modern civilization. Count Ignatief killed five newspapers during a year when he was Minister of the Interior. Count Tolstoi has killed nine in two years. Nihilist plots have made some sympathy for Russia; but the fatal disease of that country is despotism.
Our medical colleges, in some sections if not everywhere, need an improvement in the standard of requirements. A story is told of a western one at whose examinations a student answered correctly only three out of twenty-five questions, and was affably informed that his examination was “entirely satisfactory.” It is intimated, too, that the questions were very easy.
Dr. James A. H. Murray, the editor of the new English Dictionary, is a hard worked teacher in a non-conformist school in the suburbs of London. His good work on the first part of the dictionary, recently published, has attracted attention, and it is said that Oxford will give him a good place, and that Mr. Gladstone will add a government pension. The British eye is very quick to detect rare merit.
The British press is dealing severely with this country for tolerating dynamite conspirators. But up to this date no proof is furnished that there is any dynamite conspiracy here. Some indolent gentlemen in New York raise money for use against England and profess to be at the bottom of the dynamite business. But it is plain enough that they would not boast of it if they were really guilty, and that they collect the money for their own use. “Liberating Ireland” by taking up collections is an easy mode of gaining a livelihood.