stand the allusion, and his companion con- | tinued, "Capital sport, but the best men get a cropper sometimes." "Ah, well!" replied Captain Verschoyle, bent on remaining ignorant; "there's not much fear of me, I'm an old hand." "I'll tell you what, Charlie" but he was interrupted by the man opening the door and saying to Captain Verschoyle, "If you please, sir, there's a gentleman in the library as wishes to see you; he told me to say Josiah Crewdson." Mr. Egerton gave a long whistle. "I'll be your second, Charlie, if he's come in a blood-thirsty spirit," he said; "or if he only wants a peaceable fight, tell him I'll have a round with him while you're getting your wind, for I fear the little chap's more than a match for you." But Captain Verschoyle paid no attention to this sally, he only sat for an instant frowning, and then meditatively asked, "Now what can he want with me?" COMMENSALISM IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. UNDER this title a very interesting paper was read some time ago in the Académie des Sciences de Belgique by M. P. J. van Beneden, which we have not hitherto had an opportunity of noticing. It is well known to even the most careless observer that various animals are frequently found associated together. In some instances the smaller and often more active animal feeds upon the other, and is then termed a parasite; and this may either live on the surface or in the interior, but in either case at the expense of its host. In other instances, however, instead of forming a true parasite, the smaller animal may simply take advantage of the activity of the larger animal to which it attaches itself in order to obtain food, that it would be otherwise unable to acquire, and which is occasionally identical with that of its host. In such cases, instead of preying upon the latter, it simply dines at the same table with him; the two animals furnish together an example of commensalism. When the back of a whale is coated with Coronulae or Diademata, it cannot truly be said to be covered with parasites. These crustaceans only require from their colossal neighbour a lodging, or more accurately, a vehicle. They do not in any way draw nourishment from him, but effect the capture of their own appropriate food, in which they are merely assisted by the motion of the whale. Commensals may be divided into two classes; the free, or those which can detach themselves at will, and the fixed. The free commensals are the most numerous, and various examples of them may be adduced. First, a pretty little fish named Donzella, or Fierasfer, which lives in the inside of the Holothuria, and is of elongated ribbon-like form. M v. Beneden states that one of his friends, M. Semper, has in the Philippines seen Holothuriæ, in whose interior were so many different kinds of animals as to present no distant resemblance to an hotel, with a table d'hôte. In the Indian seas, again, is a fish termed the Oxibeles lombricoides, which lives inside a star-fish (Asterias discoidea), and consumes a part of the food swallowed by the latter. A siluroid fish of Brazil, of the genus Platystoma, lodges in its mouth several small fishes that were for a long time considered to be young silures, which were protected here as the young of the Marsupials are in the pouch of their mother; but it has lately been shown by Prof. Reinhardt that they are full-grown fish of a different species, and he has named them Stegophilus insidiosus. M. Bleeker has discovered a crab (Cymothca) living in the mouth of a fish, the Stromataeus niger. In the Chinese Sea Dr. Collingwood met with a large Anemone, two feet in diameter, in the interior of which a small fish swam about. Another interesting example of a free commensal is met with in the Pinnotheres, or small crabs about the size of a young spider, which live in the cavity of the bivalve Modiola and Avicula, whilst the Ostracothera similarly inhabits the Tridacna. On the other hand, in Cochliolepsis parasites we have an example of a gasteropod living as a free commensal on the body of an Anrelid Ocoetes lupina. Another small crab (Fabia chinensis) lives in the lower part of the intestine of an Echinus (Euriechinus imbecillus). The habits of the Hermit crab are well known, how it seeks out certain gasteropod shells, and conceals in them its feeble caudal extremity; but it is not so generally known that it is almost always accompanied by a commensal in the form of a little Annelid, whilst the surface of the protecting shell is often covered with Hydractinia, which to some extent at least are indebted to the crab for their sustenance. Other crabs inhabit tunicate animals, as the Phronimus sedentarius, which swims in the interior of the Salpa. The elegant gasteropod Phylliroe bucephalus has for a commensal a remarkable polype, the nature of which was long misunderstood, but which is now known to be the Polype Mnestra parasites. Lastly, the beautiful sponge (Euplectella aspergillum) of the Philippine Isles, contains in its cavity no less than three free commensals of the Crabtribe, namely, the Pinnot heres, Palemon, and one of the Isopoda. In regard to the fixed commensals, the most interesting are the Cirripedes, which in the form of tubicinella, diad ema, or coronula, are found attached to whales, dolphins, sharks, and chelonia. Various genera of polypes and sponges are familiar as constituting fixed commensals. Academy. From The Pall Mall Gazette. OFFICIOUS people can never leave things alone. No one can possess his soul in peace, or go his own way unhindered of them. They stand at the cross-roads of all men's lives, pointing out to them the path they ought to take; and, whether in religious faith or in house-furnishing, the choice of a wife or the pattern of a boot, have their word to say, their advice to give, and their fingers to dip, whatever may be the pie that is making. Illness is one of their strong points, and if they hear that you are indisposed, whether slightly or gravely, they rush off to proffer advice, which you do not want and will not accept, and which probably would turn out a mistake if you did accept. Your disinfectant is not equal to theirs, and they have brought you the name and address of the chemist where you can get theirs. Your nurse does not know her business; let them send for one of their own choosing to-night. Your medical man says you are suffering from a certain form of illness. Well, of course he ought to know; but to the officious it seems much like something else; or, if they do not go quite so far, they inquire, with the air of knowing all about it, whether he had not ordered such and such things to be done; and, if you say no, they urge you to have their own medical man without delay, as they are so sure yours is making a mistake. And so on, till they have worried you into a fever, when they take their leave, and bewail your obstinacy to the next comer. . . . . undertake to do your business, and nine times out of ten they do it wrong. If even they have your permission, and you are about to give accurate directions, they do not wait to hear all you have to say, but go off half-charged, and have fired their shot before they know what they had to hit. If intimately associated with them, they reduce you to the state of an imbecile, with no will of your own, no individuality, no independent action-just a mannikin, to be moved according to the will of your officious friend the wire-puller. If you are asked a question they answer for you, and they make arrangements in which you are the principal person concerned, to save you the trouble of deciding for yourself. If you are tired, they mount guard against your door, and defend you from the presence of your dearest friends whom you specially wish to see; they buy what you do not want, because they thought suchand-such things "looked like you;" they commit you to engagements you never dreamed of undertaking; and send you teachers, tradespeople, workers of all kinds, with an assurance that you are certain to employ them. If they know that you are invited by a common friend, they bustle over to his house, and take it on themselves to inform him of your peculiar habits and tastes, and you, who are shy and sensitive, and hate to be singular or to give trouble, are made to appear in a character of all others most distressing to you, because your officious friend chose to betray your little weaknesses and parade your predilections as necessities. On a journey or Old maids, they are great in the manage- a drive they smother you with supernument of children, and you may make up merary wraps, and go shivering for their your mind to much advice on the best own share. If you have arranged to acmethods of feeding, instructing, and dis- company them on an expedition they judge ciplining your rising family, if you number unasked as to the fitness of the weather an officious spinster among your friends. for you; and either go off without you They do not often err on the side of ten- because it was not the right kind of a day derness, being generally of a decidedly for you, or break up the party on your Spartan way of thinking; but sometimes account and in their character of watchthey start off on a crusade of spoiling, and dog guarding your interests. If you deinterfere with you because of your harsh- cide on going, supposing the possibility of ness, though on the other hand they will decision is still left you, they deluge you rebuke, and even punish, your little ones with their advice, and hamper you with if they feel called upon to testify in that their help before you start; giving your form; and they will tell you what they coachman private instructions as to which have done quite complacently, and think way he is to go, so that you shall have this they have deserved your gratitude. Being view or avoid that hill, as they think best for the most part people of an overflowing for your pleasure and well-being. Indeed, energy, without sufficient occupation, and as a general characteristic, they interfere afflicted with untiring strength and activity, not a little with your servants all round; they are up and about everywhere, prying out all you wish concealed, and doing everything you want left alone. On their own account, and unasked by you, they if they are women, rebuking the maids for their feminine vanities in dress, and the men for their fondness for beer; if of the domestic sort, oppressing them with recipes for furniture polish and plate powder, and rules for doing their work differently from their present methods, which serve only to afflict their souls and bewilder their minds, and to make them uncertain in all they do. They understand all about everything. If they go into your garden they nip off your first buds to strengthen the plant, and in their zeal for ridding you of dead leaves and seeding flowers, tear off your best blossoming branches with them.. Women who are persecuted by officious friends in society find "company manners and the serenity demanded by their caste difficult to compass. The officious male friend jumps up on the smallest provocation and hovers about, insisting on doing everything for his victim that she does not want done at all, or that she wants some one else to do, and succeeds in making her life a burden to her for the time being. He spills the wine or coffee in his struggle to hold her glass or cup; cannons against her in his endeavour to wrest from her the light chair she is dragging after her, with a pretty affectation of carrying burdens that she knows becomes her; insists on giving her a footstool which makes her seat uncomfortable, and over which she trips when she gets up; and takes her down to supper or her carriage before any one else can offer, when she is praying in her heart for some other man half-way across the room and coming towards her now to perform that pleasant office some other man to whom she has a tender word to say, and from whom she hopes to hear one yet more tender. In a word, he makes himself a nuisance, and spoils the poor creature's whole pleasure by his officiousness, when he meant only to do her a service. But this is just the way with your officious people; they always mean to do well, only they never manage to succeed. From The Spectator. THE HOHENZOLLERNS AND THE REVOLUTION. CORRESPONDENTS from Versailles agree in declaring that the German chiefs, the six or seven men who are directing the movements and determining the policy of the new military power, feel a certain "uneasiness" at the arrival of Garibaldi in France. Of course they, as regular soldiers, despise the great partisan, and even question his right to fight for Francethough he is by law a Frenchman of the department of Nice, and bears a regular French commission - and as Conservatives detest the most convinced of Republicans; but still they confess an uneasiness, and they are right. Garibaldi represents perfectly the two grand dangers to which the Hohenzollerns, by pushing their demands too far, are exposing both the dynasty and the future of Germany. They are bringing upon themselves a new and grave evil, one which may yet undo all they have achieved for themselves, — the permanent, sleepless, unquenchable hostility of the cosmopolitan Revolution; the deadly enmity of a party which, in every country except England, means to make itself felt and feared; which is unable to swerve, though it sometimes suspends its ultimate object, and which, though feeble to accomplish anything of itself, brings up masses of power to the support of every enemy of its foes. Hitherto the Revolution has not been bitter against the Hohenzollerns, has regarded them rather as persons useful to control or destroy the Romanoffs, the Hapsburgs, the Bonapartes, and the Temporal Power. Once, at least, during recent years-during the war of 1866 - Red feeling has been decidedly with Prussia, Sadowa being regarded as a terrible blow to their deadliest enemy of all, obscurantist, absolutist Austria. Even up to the fall of Sedan, that opinion was not hostile, for the Emperor Napoleon was felt to be the strongest and most immovable of all barriers to the supremacy of their ideas. From the day of the "déchéance," however, all was changed. Austria is liberalized and "Darwinian," the Bonapartes in exile, the Temporal Power abolished, the Italian Government submissive, and the full volume of the Red hatred has begun to concentrate itself upon the aggrandized, self-willed, force-believing, aristocratic German monarchy. That hatred is deepened every day by the historic sympathy of all true Reds for France, the home of the Revolution, by the danger of the one capital which has been for two generations immovably Republican, and by the unwarrantable and unwise insults which the German chiefs, and more especially Count Bismarck, daily pour out upon the " gentlemen of the pavement," the "elect of the rabble," the "gang of lawyers," who are trying to save at once liberty and France; and that hatred signifies much. It means that in every country of Europe, for years, perhaps for generations to come, a party fanatically brave and determined, with high popularity among the masses, sure of occasional glimpses of power, with more than half the Press of Europe in its even means, to the nation which King William has struck down. hands, with an influence which is almost predominant among the Latin races, will for years postpone all smaller ends to the Again, the Revolution and this is the destruction of the Prussian monarchy and second reason why there is such uneasiness system of rule; that the never-ending hail in Versailles-is now trying whether it of agitations and sarcasms, insurrections can, as in 1793, organize popular war; and diatribes, intrigues and songs which whether, that is, the strongest reason for has beaten down the Papacy, will hencefor- the Prussian system, with its rigidity and ward rain upon the Hohenzollerns. It is its royalism, namely, its invincibility in not a lame Nizzard who has declared war war, does or does not exist. The theory upon the new Emperor, but every Red of the German chiefs is that no nation can in France, Russia, Italy, Poland, Spain, be permanently safe unless organized on a Switzerland, Ireland, and even though far-seeing, rigid, and more or less oppresthat matters little - in Great Britain. sive but scientific military system, having Germany is strong enough to defy all if it for permanent pivot a King reigning by pleases; but in Germany itself the Reds right other than popular election. If this will find, when the war is once over, pow-theory is unsound, if France, after a terrific erful levers. There are points of weak- overthrow, with no king, no army, no ness in that mighty structure in which the leader of genius, no organization, and no wedges can be inserted. The scheme of time, can improvise by mere energy and policy which almost forbids commissions to patriotism a force sufficient to check the plebeians is enough when the nation is an victors, the raison d'être of the Hohenzolarmy to breed an insurrection. The South lerns and their system will have disapGermans are Democrats at heart, and the peared. A defeat of the German Army by South Germans are stepping to their places the Army of Paris will be the most terrible in the Federation. No Catholic out of the blow the principle of monarchy ever reRhenish provinces - where perpetual dan-ceived, and a successful rising in the provger has erased religious differences-loves inces will be scarcely less disastrous. It or can love cordially the stern Protestant will prove by the most conspicuous of inHouse, with its fixed dogma that the State stances, by an explosion which all men is above all, even Heaven, -that, for ex- must hear, that monarchy is needless to ample, to quote a recent fact, a Catholic military strength; that popular leaders, officer who refuses a duel shall be broke, elected and trusted by a patriotic people, even though he pleads that he refused can rapidly form efficient armies under the only for the sake of his salvation. Above most unfavourable circumstances; that a all, the Reds have the lever of the tremen- popular army may be an effective army; dous question known variously as the that a fortiori a Swiss organization would Rights of labour, Lassallism, Schulze-Delit- completely protect any country to which it scherei, a dozen names, but under them all is applied. In other words, it would prove implying revolt against the sternly regular past all doubt or quibble that RepubliPrussian support of individualism. A canism is not necessarily weak or monstrike in North Germany is a crime, and archy necessarily strong. That lesson therefore a workman is a potential insur- taught to Germany, explained, analyzed, gent. Safe from the external foe, with and pondered on as it would be by new millions of democratic and Catholic German professors, orators, and soldiers, subjects, with a question to settle in which would in the end be fatal to the monarchy he is sure to arouse the fanaticism of whole now holding its Belshazzar feast up there classes, with his people armed and full of in Versailles, with all mankind save the the pride of victory, the Emperor of Ger- Revolution at its feet. This is the experimany, were he wise, would do well to ment which the General of the Revolushrink from an internecine quarrel with tion is trying, and in which, in spite of all the power which never loses an opportu- hostile circumstances, he may yet succeed. nity, and never rejects an ally, which, us- We doubt if there is a Tory in Great ing now one weapon and now another- Britain who, as he read Garibaldi's innow an assassin like Orsini, now a King structions to the Francs-tireurs — publike Victor Emanuel, now a partisan like lished in the Daily News, did not perceive, Garibaldi, and again a trooper like Prim-as by a revelation, that this was not an has within twenty years helped to batter "inspired idiot or second Masaniello; but down all the Bourbon thrones, the Holy a millitary genius of a new type, and of the Chair, the Austrian sway in Italy, and the most singularly original force. That those Bonaparte dynasty in France, and is even regulations will be obeyed we are scarcely now lending new strength and spirit, and able to believe. They require an educated population, and the French are not edu- would only hoot. It is also quite possible cated; a population careless of military to exaggerate the evidences of official comexecutions, and the French dread them plicity, Asiatic rulers being much more unvery much. But that, if obeyed, they der the influence of opinion that we are would, at a hideous sacrifice of life and apt to suppose. They cannot afford to treasure, rid France of her invaders, we despise their soldiers, and their soldiers, have no doubt whatever, and can well un- unless mere mercenaries, share all the prejderstand how angrily Count Bismarck udices of the classes from which they are glances at the possibility, how harshly drawn. The tortures, too- and more German officers feel inclined to carry out especially the indecent tortures, which the terrorist rules intended to prevent usually accompany massacres in the East such war. Those terrorist rules may suc- disturb the Western imagination, which ceed, for human nature is weak; but they regards the wilful infliction of pain with a may also fail, for of all threats, the one loathing a Chinaman is incompetent even against which human nature rises up most to understand. Nevertheless, in this incourageously is war without quarter, and stance we think the evidence tends to show it is war without quarter which these exe- that the Anglo-Chinese are in the right, cutions of Francs-tireurs proclaim. "I am ane that the European community in to die if taken; then I will die fighting; "China stands in great danger of extirpaeven Hindoos are capable of that simple tion. The Chinese think that the French syllogism, and it is one which has at all are the soldier people of Europe, they times made insurgents formidable. If know that French power is broken, and they fail, the free war may give as severe a they imagine that the hour is arrived shake to the Hohenzollern system as the when foreign interference may safely be hostility of the Revolution is certain to do brought to a close. It is quite impossible to the Hohenzollern dynasty, and it is both that this country should tolerate or even these chances, pregnant with possibilities disregard a menace of that kind. Not of future overthrow, which the King and only would its realization lead to an immehis Minister are developing by continuing diate and most annoying war, but its exthe war. Had Jules Favre's offer been istence involves a danger which is too accepted, Germany would have retired al- often overlooked. Capitalists do not like most unwounded, arbitress of Europe, and to live under personal terror. The existby the consent of all men entirely in the ence of an infinitesimal extent of personal right. Were she to accept them now, she danger has for years past arrested the flow would retire with her future assured, her of English capital to Ireland, and the depower far beyond attack, her enemies in velopment of the trade with the interior France alone. If she protracts the war by of China is completely stopped by the risks demanding terms which Paris untaken can- which would attend its serious prosecution. not grant, she may obtain a Poland in the It is quite within the range of possibilities West to join hands with the Poland in the that the Chinese might render residence East; but she may also retire empty-in Shanghae and other ports so insecure, handed and sorely wounded, while she must retire knowing that henceforward between the Revolution and the Hohenzollern dynasty it is war to the death. From The Economist. OUR POSITION IN CHINA. or dangerous, or unpleasant, that the place. would cease to attract capital, and a trade of immense value, one which has scarcely begun but which already amounts to 20,000,000 a year, would be brought to a close. No country so dependent as our own upon Asiatic commerce could patiently endure such a loss; and we cannot but think that Government would do well to avoid it by precautions such as they have not yet employed. WE are inclined, upon the whole, to believe that the position of British subjects Those precautions we venture to suggest and British interests in China deserves the have not yet been very wise, yielding as most serious attention of Her Majesty's they do a minimum of safety at a maximum Government. It is, no doubt, quite possi- of expense. The present system is to stable to overrate the political importance of tion an armed vessel or two in each Treaty an Oriental massacre, which is as often due port, to threaten bombardment if Europeto fear as to any other cause, the insur-ans are menaced; and in the event of exgents seeing no alternative between re-traordinary danger, to send a few marines spect and murder. Asiatics in all coun- and Madras troops, just enough to excite tries are apt to kill where Europeans Chinese susceptibility, but not enough to |