its works, that the place must be taken by regular approaches and a prolonged siege. It is to be the Sebastopol of the war, but with a difference. It is held by troops who will fight harder after the breach has been made and the outworks stormed, than they fought during the approaches,—who will hold every street and every house while they can pull a trigger. And the besiegers will be threatened on every side by strong and vigorous armies, against whom they must vindicate their occupation of every foot of ground between their intrenchments and the Danube, to say nothing of resisting efforts to raise the siege of Plevna or reinforce its garrison. The Russians seem to be fully aware of the difficulties of the task they have undertaken. They have laid their plans to fortify Sistova, Tirnova, Nicopolis and other points, and, if the worst should come, are prepared to fall back upon Nicopolis, where they will make a stand until they are able to resume the offensive. But the very fact that such a programme has been adopted, shows that they have lost confidence in themselves, and therefore will not go much further during this campaign.

THE death of Thiers, had it occurred ten years ago would have been regarded chiefly as an event in the world of letters. Men would have discussed the merits of his two great histories, and remarked the singular fatality by which the most determined opponent of the Second Empire was made to contribute to its prestige by his brilliant apotheosis of the first Napoleon. And the friends of the National policy in finance would have deplored the loss of the orator, who from first to last denounced the wretched compact secretly concocted between Manchester Liberals and the tools of the French despot, in order to force a high-spirited but enslaved nation into the surrender of its industrial independence. But his sudden death in the present circumstances, when, by the unanimous consent of all classes of Republicans and the express nomination of his only rival, he stood before the people as the next President of France, is a misfortune of no ordinary magnitude. Not all the wretched plotting of Orleanists and Buonapartists has done so much for their cause. Not all the differences of opinion among the Republican majority is so threatening to their unity of action and their consequent triumph at the polls.

M. Thiers was not an ideal statesman. Though in the main a staunch friend of free government, he had a weakness for vigorous

measures of restraint and repression. Both by his conduct in office. under Louis Philippe, and by his reasons for leaving it, he showed himself to be subject to that restlessness, which is very often characteristic of men of small stature. He must be doing something, and if possible, something rigorous and emphatic. There was no repose in his nature. His conduct in the repression of the Paris Communists at the close of the war was the most unhappy instance of this weakness. To make the punishment seem as sweeping and loom as large as the, offence, the innocent and the guilty were swept away under one common condemnation, and the very slightest evidence of complicity with the insurrectionists was treated as damnatory. But France loved this man, and forgave him many sins for the sake of the great and true love he bore to her. That popular in stinct, which discerns a worthy man in spite of defects of temperament and faults of conduct, singled him out for honor. He left a great record of patriotic acts; the author of the Protest against the ordinances of 1830, lived to pay the Five Milliards and thus to liberate France from the German army of guarantee. He was one of the last of the statesmen who were prominent in Continental politics before the great cataclysm of 1848, and no revolution in public affairs could keep him from being before the public eye, either as a present or a possible leader. The second Empire was barren of great names and great capacities; it raised up no one who would eclipse the reputation of this octogenarian-no one who could rival him in the command of popular regard.

THE French Ministry are doing their utmost to make the Republicans of all shades of opinion rally around M. Gambetta as the successor to the place left vacant by the death of M. Thiers. By their almost unprovoked prosecution of him for "insulting the President," and his condemnation to fine, imprisonment, and politcal disqualification, they have roused in his behalf all the sympathies of the better half of human nature. Those Republicans who differ widely from M. Gambetta, and who regard him as an unsafe leader, may still continue, in spite of their indignation at this ill treatment, to reject his leadership. But the prosecution certainly increases his chances of being accepted as the coming President, and extends the range of his influence. The true motive of the prosecution is a matter of conjecture. It is generally assumed that

the mere purpose to punish the alleged offence cannot have induced a body of such unscrupulous politicians as the De Broglie Cabinet have shown themselves, to take so much trouble and run so many risks. Some think the real object was to provoke a Republican outbreak, and thus justify the re-establishment of military government. They say the De Broglie Ministry feel the rope round their necks, and fight like men in a despair. Their only chance is to provoke their enemies into unwise and hasty action; and the prosecution of M. Gambetta was selected as the best means of doing it. But we think that these wise calculators forget that it is a soldier and not a politician that presides over the French Cabinet-a soldier who wishes to rule France in the style of a drill sergeant, and who is as sensitive to criticism as a petted child. The Ministry owe everything to Marshal MacMahon, and they have to repay him by making any sacrifice that he demands. They must do any foolish thing he proposes, unless they can, in a gentle and roundabout way, convince him of its folly. The things of that sort which they have done already, surpass enumeration: the prosecution of M. Gambetta because the Marshal felt "insulted" by a telling criticism on his actions, is but the last and most foolish in the series.

The military temperament does not take kindly to criticism, except from a superior; and when a soldier has worked his way to the top, he has no intention of taking any more of it. A greater general than MacMahon could not endure the presence of Madame De Stael in Paris; and the associates of the great Frederick had to remember the thickness of the soles of his boots, as a reason for not pushing a logical triumph too far. Even General Grant, with all his experience of Republican freedom, rather resented the liberty taken by those who discussed himself and his policy with freedom, and gave us reason enough for seeking a President among those who are not soldiers by profession. Marshal MacMahon resents M. Gambetta's speech, as he would a similar utterance from one of his military subordinates. He calls a meeting of the Cabinet, and not a single minister dares to stay away, or to vote for discretion and common sense. And half the world stands wondering what De Broglie and Fourtou mean by proceedings which are to Fourtou and De Broglie nothing but a hard necessity.

By the death of Brigham Young another is added to the list of

those problematical characters, upon whose merits the world takes some time to make up its mind. This man, who made Mormonism the success it has become, who built up an anti-Christian and despotic empire on the soil of a free Christian nation, and who successfully resisted all the disintegrating forces brought in recent years to bear upon it was he an honest enthusiast, or a hypocrite, or a mixture of the two? Certain it is that he was not, like Mohammed and perhaps Cromwell, a man who started well and honestly in the championship of a good cause, but became spoiled more or less by success. His conduct was all of a piece. He neither improved nor deteriorated throughout his long career as President of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints. And while a man of more than ordinary capacity, he was not characterized by that transcendent capacity, that "something daimonic," which enables men of the highest order to fascinate and subdue. He was a tower of strength in the sect, and for years back nothing better pleased a Mormon than to be told how well the President was looking to-day. But while his loss will be severely felt, it is the loss only of the executive hand and not of the intellectual head of Mormondom. The author of the book of Mormon, the first President Smith, and Elder Orson Pratt, especially the last, are the men who made the Church of the Latter-Day Saints what it is. Except in his audacious transfer of his followers from the Mississippi Valley to the borders of the Salt Lake, Young did no more than walk in the road traced for him by others. Even the introduction of Polygamy, with which Young is charged by the Reformed Mormons, was Joseph Smith's doing. The "revelation" was given through Smith, and the practice commenced before the sect was driven from Nauvoo. It is this practice above all others which stamps the "Church" as un-Christian, not merely in doctrine, as is alleged against some nominally Christian sects, but in the essentials of ethical principle. Young was fully conscious of his rejection of the ethical standard of Christianity, else he never would have made the famous speech about non-resistance: "If any man smite me on the right cheek, I will turn to him the other also; and if he hits that, I'll give him

"

As to the effect of his death upon his party, nothing can be safely predicted until his successor has been chosen, and has given some evidence of his ability or his weakness. It will need, and for years it has needed, some strong hand to keep the Mormons loyal

to the church and its creed. It is true that the missionary efforts of the Christian churches have produced but little impression upon it, but the new-fangled theories of the Spiritualists have got a foothold, and have shaken many in their faith. If the nature of the coming choice is foreshadowed by the appointment of John Taylor to fill the place pro tempore, then the new President will be at least. as earnest and as vigorous as his predecessor, for Taylor is one of the narrowest and most bigoted of the Mormon leaders, and although a very poor man, stands high in the esteem of the faithful because of his rigidity and ultraism.

THE civil service reform of the present administration reminds one of the famous description of our political platforms. "They open like a broad boulevard, shaded by rows of stately trees, but dwindle first to a common road, then to a foot-path, and at last to a squirrel track, and run up a tree." All the fine and spacious openings of promise seem to have dwindled merely to a notion that appointments should be made with care, that the best man should get the place, unless there is some strong political reason for giving it to the second best, and that pressure should be brought to bear to see that officials do their duty. If this is to be all, and we see no promise of more, then the root of the evil will be left untouched. The power and the motive to sweep into idleness the collective experience of the civil service at every change of the administration, has not been touched. The motive to be dishonest in office, to make the best of the brief opportunity to steal, will remain the same. The offices, for lack of permanence in their tenure, and of a pension system for the superannuated, will be of necessity paid at a rate quite needless if the service were well organized. Even the bad precedent of appointments for political reasons has not been laid aside. The recent appointment of Collector Thomas of Baltimore was made, we are told, in order to harmonize the conflicting elements of the Republican party of that State. And to balance all this, we have an order which all but disfranchises thirty-seven thousand American voters, requiring them to vote merely as units, and forbidding them to enter any organization whose design it is to influence the opinions and votes of their fellow citizens!

The truth seems to be that no person in the Cabinet, and least of all Mr. Carl Schurz, seems to have any clear conception of the