THE NINETEENTH CENTURY A MONTHLY REVIEW EDITED BY JAMES KNOWLES VOL. XXX. JULY-DECEMBER 1891 NEW YORK LEONARD SCOTT PUBLICATION CO., 29 PARK ROW LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY, LIMITED PAGE of New South Wales) Boulton Galton Ameer Ali Ackworth GAMBLING AND THE LAW. By Sir James F. Stephen THE ARMY AS A PUBLIC DEPARTMENT. By Sir George Chesney WOODLANDS. By Sir Herbert Maxwell A FAIR TAXATION OF GROUND-RENTS. By Robert Hunter PASQUALE DE PAOLI: A STUDY. By Walter Frewin Lord THE POET OF THE KLEPHTS. By Rennell Rodd. THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA.' SIR JOHN MACDONALD ON IMPERIAL FEDERATION. By S. B. OUR DEALINGS WITH THE POOR. By Miss Octavia Hill THE NEXT PARLIAMENT. By Edward Dicey A WAR CORRESPONDENT'S REMINISCENCES. By Archibald Forbes THE FUTURE OF LANDSCAPE ART. By James Stanley Little THE CONFUSION WORSE CONFOUNDED' THE DRAMA OF THE MOMENT. By H. A. Kennedy THEODORE DE BANVILLE. By Rowland E. Prothero THE FRENCH IN TONQUIN. By Lord Lamington. THE SEAMY SIDE OF AUSTRALIA: A REPLY FROM COLONIES. By Howard Willoughby IDENTIFICATION BY FINGER-TIPS. (With a Plate.) By Francis FRONTIERS AND PROTECTORATES. By Sir Alfred C. Lyall ELECTORAL FACTS-No. 3. By W. E. Gladstone THE BRITISH IN EAST AFRICA. By the Marquis of Lorne THE LAST BIT OF NATURAL WOODLAND. By Auberon Herbert. FERDINAND LASSALLE. By Mrs. Arthur Kennard 2. AN AMERICAN VIEW. By Andrew Carnegie 509 Sorabji THE WISDOM OF GOMBO. By Edward Wakefield THE NAVAL POLICY OF FRANCE. BY G. Shaw Lefevre A BARDIC CHRONICLE. By Emily Lawless ANCIENT BELIEFS IN A FUTURE STATE. By W. E. Gladstone WOMEN AND THE GLOVE TRADE. By Miss Ada Heather-Bigg A RAILWAY JOURNEY WITH MR. PARNELL. By Lord Ribbles- THE NEW SCIENCE-PREVENTIVE MEDICINE. By Dr. Armand AT THE NEXT ELECTION. By H. H. Champion THE late action about baccarat has raised once more the questions whether gambling is wrong, and in what light it ought to be regarded by the law-questions on which the opinion of the world at large appears to be even worse informed than it usually is. These questions, indeed, are incapable of being solved without a greater grasp of moral principles than is at all common; for in order to solve them it is necessary to have distinct and reasonable notions both of morals. and of law, and of the relation between the two, and such knowledge is very rare. The question Is gambling wrong, and why? is continually asked by people who tacitly assume that every action or omission whatever is found in one of two schedules respectively headed 'right and wrong,' and that the question in all cases is in which of these the given act is specified. Of course no such schedule ever was attempted to be made, but the conception of it haunts the people's mind. A striking form of the kind of morality which it implies is to be found in the complaint that a man might keep both in letter and in spirit every one of the Ten Commandments, and yet be devoted to gambling and pass his time in the wanton indulgence of cruelty to animals. It might be said in the same spirit that only one form of falsehood is forbidden by a code which forbids bearing false witness against your neighbour, but permits false witness in his favour, and that the great duty of obeying lawful authority is at most obscurely and indirectly intimated by an injunction to honour one's father and mother. These criticisms upon such a document as the Ten Commandments throw little light upon the moral foundations of the horror of VOL. XXX-No. 173 B |