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    T l i e IN a tio n . [Vol. 66, No. 1704good-government clubs, or others, in ,great city, attended by the bulk of thvoters continuously for any lengthen-ed period. They will read your papers,and give you their adhesion, but theywill not leave their homes to listen tothe harangues of the somewhat duipersons who are apt to be the principalspeak ers at such places. Therefore, webelieve the committee of the Union is

    wise in confining its organization to twogood committees, and as many districassociations as naturally come into ex-istence, but we wish we could see whya man should "enroll" or sign "declara-tions" in order to join the associationThe declaration will not bind him tovote the committee's ticket, and if thisticket is ever to win, not one in twentyof those who vote for It wiil ever havegone to a meeting or signed any pledge.

    All our reform organizations shuddera little over the idea of "raising a stan-dard to which the wise and honest canrepair," to use Washington's phrase, andtrusting simply to goodness to bring thegood men to its support. They musthave a ponderous machine, needing awhole army of "work ers" to keep Itgoing, before they can make nomina-tions, and the machine is so trouble-some that little by little the workingdrops into the hands of a few, whoattend to it for want of any honest call-ing. The Low movement is a strikingillustration of the readiness of the com-munity for something new in the modeof selecting candidates. I t indicatedclearly the line on which any organiza-tion which is to be successful in NewYork must trave l. The object i t mustaim at is the selection of candidates soplainly good that people will vote forthem without putting down their namesanywhere, or interrupting their dailyoccupations. Reformers must rememberthat government was never meant to bean absorbin g occupation. It Is a humanconvenience, like clothes or tools. Wehave made it very much what travellingby stage was said to be in parts of theSouth before the war. You paid highfor a seat and then started on the jour-ney on foot, carrying a fence-rail toprise the coach out of the mud when itgot stuck.

    THE ANOLO FRENCH IMBROGLIO.

    It Is not easy to understand the pro-ceedings of the Fren ch in Africa. Thereare two opinions about them current inEngland. One is that the French Min-istry desires to keep a foreign questiongoing, without bringing on a crisis, inorder, if possible, to divert public atten-tion from internal troubles, in relianceon two thingsLord Salisbury's timid-ity and the Queen's reluctance to haveher closing years troubled by a greatwar. The other Is tha t the French real-ly wish to fight the most unpopular Pow-er In Europe, and the one with which

    complications would be least likely tobring them Into collision with the onlyPower they realiy dreadthat is, Germany. Germany would probably witnessan Anglo-French confiict with pleasure,and could be relied on now, as she couldnot have been even ten years ago, tokeep her hands off.

    There are evidently two currents ofopinion, too, in the British cabinet. LordSalisbury, as always, shrinks from war;but the Chancellor of the Exchequer isevidently full of fight, and so is Mr.Chamberlain, within whose jurisdic-tion the French trouble clearly comes.Chamberlain has during the past twentyyears produced a great many projectswhich have come to nothing. He prob-ably never was so popular as during theshort period when there seemed somelikelihood of trouble with Paul Krugerand with Germany. At one tim e i tseemed likely he would be able to pa-rade Paul in triumph, fairly tamed amisubjugated, through London streets; but

    Paul was too shrewd for him, and wouldnot come, and produced those dreadfultelegrams. The subsequent African in-quiry did not turn out well either. No-thing was proved against Mr. Chamber-lain, but nothing was proved for him,and his certificate of character forRhodes did not give satisfaction to mor-alists. The scheme of subsidies to theWest India sugar men, also, does notplease British taxpayers. They mayhave to submit to it, but no one willwin popu larity by it. As a specimenof the way to "improve neglected -tates," i t does no t seem, worthy of as

    clever a man as Mr. Chamberlain..Under these circumstances the Colo-

    nial Secretary would, of course, be gladof anything which would again makethe Colonial Office the centre of excite-ment and intelligence, as in the oldKruger days, and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, as a Gloucester squire of th eolden time, probably inherits a strongdisinclination to "stand any nonsense"rom Frenchmen. The French have

    not been lucky in their colonial wars.This fight for colonies was begun in In-dia more than a century ago, and wascontinued as a fight for America, andin both cases with unfortunate results.The flght for Africa would probably endin the same way. Upon the m erits ofthe African dispute i t i s not easy topass, so uncertain are boundaries in awiiderness, and so vague a thing is a"sphe re of influence." Each Power isirobably ready to take and keep what-ver the other is willing to yield, butn any resort to force, the French wouldprobably be promptly cut off from alluccor by the British maritime supe-iority, if any thin g can be confidentlysserted about the future of naval war-

    fare.

    Nobody seems able to foresee how theext naval war will go. If we rely on

    ngenuity of construction and thickness

    of armor, we are told that a single shotmay dislocate the elaborate machineryof the costliest ship-of-war and makeher comparatively helpless in the handsof the best of sailors. If we rely on sea-manship, we are told that the result of anaval flght does not depend any longeron seamanship, but on manoeuvring, andthat all sailors can do is to watch andwait until engineers bring them into a

    good position to get a shot at the enemy.So there may be said to be as yet noauthorities on naval warfare. The pastfurnishes no lessons about It. Whatseems most likely to the unprofessionaleye, is that there will be a great deal of"going to the bottom," and that thePower which has most ships i s mostlikely to be the victor at sea. But theold Napoleonic scheme of throwing alarge force on the English shores mightto-day be revived by a Power in com-mand of a large land force, with chancesin its favor such as Napoleon never had.At the same time it must he remember-

    ed that warlike and fond of war as theFrench are, not since Rocroi have theFrench arms enjoyed any considerablesuccess, except under a n Italian ofgenius. Under Louis XIV., even, theywere treated to a great deal of what thelate Gen. Kearney called "beautifulflghting," yet his wars left France un-successful and impov erished. His suc-cessor was, as a military man, unfortu-nate, except at Fontenoy; and after theRevolution, wherever Napoleon was ab-sent from the scene, even his veteransbegan to give ground.

    In any event, war would probably be

    the end of the republic, if victorious.What would happen if i t were beaten,the boldest prophet might well shrinkrom predictin g. The foundations of no

    permanent regime have yet been laid inFrance. The revolutionary spirit hasbeen compelled to confine its expressiono shouting and "manifesting," and all

    prospect of a constitutional monarchymay be said to have finally disappeared.But the republic of the future, a re -public in which the government will beloved and respected, as well as put upwith, can hardly be said to have been'ounded as yet.

    THE MAKING OP TH OXFORD DIC-TIONARY.

    LONDON, February 1898.One of the m ost inte resting excursions

    :aken by the American Librarians who at-tended the International Conference held InLondon In July last, was, unquestionably,that made to the city of Oxford. Th ere,oamlng among the antidue colleges andheir delightful surroundings, those pilgrims rom th e New W orld could get a n Idea ofbe oldness of Old England such as no other:own in Eng land could afford. One of tbeentertainments given to the visitors was aeception by Mr. Byron Nicholson, the Li-

    brarian of the Bodleian. At this gath er-Ing an observer would have noticed a num-b f th i it g d d f

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    Feb. 24, 1898] The I S ^ a t i o n 145mature and vlgorotis appearance, with along head and a massive forehead, whosoeyes sparkled with Intellectual light, as heheld forth to his listeners upon a subjecttha t evidently Interested them greatly. Thisstriking personality was Dr. James A. H.Murray, editor of the Oxford Dictionary.When the knot of listeners dispersed, theywere promised by Dr. Murray that he wouldshow them, on the day following, the Scrip-torium, where the work of making the Dic-tionary Is being caTried on. Accordingly,about fifty librarians put in an appearanceat the Scriptorium next day, instead of onlyfifteen, as Dr. and Mrs. Murray had expect-ed. They had the pleasure of seeing. In hishome life, the man who Is the architect of avast literary pile that will last as long aathe English language has a literature of Itsown. At the same time they found in Mrs.Murraya granddaughter of Ruthven, oneof the pioneers of geologynot only a win-some hostess, but also an example of thehelpful wife of a British savant.

    Tbe late Archbishop Trench of Dublinwas an eminent philologist. His Instructivelittle volume upon 'The Study of Words'would of itself have given him a reputation.When Dr. Trench was as yet Dean of West-minster, he read two papers to the Philo-logical Society On Some Deficiencies inour English Dictionaries. The Dean saidIt was the business of tbe dictionary mak-er to collect and arrange al l the words ofa language. He pointed out tbat obsoletewords were omitted from dictionaries, whilethere was no history given of existing words.As there was no institution in Great Bri-tain analogous to the Academy In France,Dr. Trench urged upon the Philological So-ciety that it should take the steps necessa-ry to supply such deficiencies. His own Ideawas, that tbe best way of doing tbat wouldbe by publishing a supplement to existingdictionaries. The Society adopted the sug-gestion, and it was decided tbat a supple-ment should be compiled. To carry tbis in-to effect an unregistered words comm itteewas appointed, consisting of Dean Trench,Herbert Coleridge, Dr. Furnlvall, HenslelgbWedgwood, and Professor Maiden. The twolatter were responsible for etymology. Tbethree former took the literary and bistorlcalBide. Their commission was to form a col-lection of word3 hitherto unregistered in thedictionaries of Jobnson and Richardson. Se-venty-six persons undertook to read variousbooks. In furtberance of the objects of tbecomm ittee. Among the best known of thesewere Dowden, Ligbtfoot, Lubbock, Lusbing-

    ton. Lord Lyttelton, Perowne, and Rossettl.During the first seven y ears abo ut 1,600works were read.

    Within about twelve months' time, someof the members of tbe committee, havingregard to the accumulation of materia ls,asked: Why not collect for a new dic-tionar y? The question was discussed bythe Society. Dr. Trench adhered to his ori-ginal proposal for a supplement, but tbeSociety decided to remodel the scheme, anda new dictionary was determined upon. Her-bert Coleridge was in 1858 elected as editor.Slips w ere issued, books were bought anddistributed among read ers, for the pro-posed work, and twenty-six sub-editors were

    appointed, one for eacb letter of the alpha-bet, Readings went on for years. Then, tbeAnds made by readers under tbe lettersA, B, and C were sent in to Herbert Cole-

    business. This ardent scbolar actually methis death through bis zeal for tbe cause. Amemorial of him Is preserved at tbe Scrip-torium. It is a small stand of pigeon-boles,the size of which proves how greatly Cole-ridge, like others, underestimated tbe gran-deur of tbe scheme proposed. Tbe stand Iscapable of bolding only about one-twentietbpart of tbe slips that will be used In tbecompilation of tbe Oxford Dictionary.

    Dr. Furnlvall now became sole editor ofthe proposed Dictionary . In furtberance ofthe work in hand, be promoted tbe estab-lishment of the Early English Text Society.Materials went on accumulating. Yearspassed, and readers asked, When is theDictionary to be begu n? Within tbe So-ciety itself tbe proposal waa made to bandover tbe collections to tbe British Museum,but the suggestion was not adopted. Thenpublishers were approached and invited toundertake the publication of tbe new dic-tionary as a commercial enterprise. To thelate Mr. Murray it was especially proposedthat he should publlsb a on ise dictionary.But although big publisbers set great storeupon the publication of a dictienary by tbeirfirms, the vastness of tbe projected diction-ary caused one and all to decline tbe under-takin g. In 1876 D r. Murray , wbo had Join-ed tbe Philological Society in 1867, and hadbecome an active member of tbat body, wasconsulted by tbe late Mr. MacmlUan, thewell-known publisber, with a view to hisbecoming Joint editor, with tbe late Mr.Ricbard Grant White, of an 'InternationalEnglish Dictionary.' The Idea had origi-nated with tbe Messrs. Harper of NewYork, wbo proposed to Mr. Macmillan tbatbe sbould adventure witb tbem in tbe un-dertaking. Messrs. Harper's proposals li-mited tbe size to that of Webster. WhenMr. Macmillan told Dr. Murray of tbis limi-tation, tbe latter said: Witbin tbe com-pass of Webster you cannot do better thanWebster has done. On Messrs. Harper be-ing informed of Dr. Murray's opinion, theyexpressed tbeir readiness to undertake tbepublication of a dictionary twice tbe sizeof tbat of Dr. Webster, but no further wouldthey venture. Dr. Fum ivall was then call-ed into consulta tion by Mr. Macmillan.Specimens were set up of tbe manner inwhich tbe new dictionary should be com-piled, on Dr. Mu rray's lines. These showedtbat tbe whole work would bulk outto four times the size of Webster's. Dr.Jack, a learned gentleman, a relative of tbeMacmillan family, then proposed the reduc-tion of Dr. Murray's scheme to tbe extentof one-fourth, so that the new dictiODarjrshould not exceed three times the size ofWebster's. In tbis arrangement Dr. Mur-ray concurred, but Messrs. Harper were notprepared to go so far, and tbe negotiationscame to an end.

    Tbe conservation of energy Is well Illus-trated by tbe proceedings tbat led up to tbeundertaking of tbe Oxford Dictionary. Thespecimens wbicb bad been prepared for theMacmillan-Harper project were submitted tothe members of tbe Philological Society, andmet witb bigh appreciation. Tbe interest soawakened led to an enthusiastic determ i-nation tbat every effort should be made topromote the production of the desired dic-

    tionary. Two publishers, in turn, were ap-proacbed, bift these, as others before, shiedat so vast a risk. Dr. Furnivall, wbosename must always be held in bigh honor

    tbe undertaking of the magnum opus nowdetermined to approach tbe studious uni-versities. Himself a Cambridge man, befirst applied to tbe Syndics of tbe Pitt Press.Tbat body duly considered tbe proposal, ex-pressed bigb approval of tbe grand scheme,but could only avow tbeir regret tbat wantof means disabled tbem from engaging init. To Oxford Dr. Furniv all tben turned.His application was carefully considered by

    tbe Delegates of tbe Clarendon Pressabody wbicb tben numbered among its mem