MR HERBERT SPENCER ON AMERICA.

Waikato Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1637, 2 January 1883, Page 2

MR HERBERT SPENCER ON AMERICA.

Mr Herbert Spexcer. who ia now on a, visit to the United States, has been' interviewed by the New l*oj"k correapon* dent of the Standard, and has expressed his opinion at great length on tho strength' and weaknesses, the present condition and future prospects of the transatlantic Republic. He ia, ,he says, profoundly impressed by the grandeur of its material civilisation, its huge buildings, its immense . stores and factories, its railways and other modes of locomotion ; but he considers that it resembles the Italian' Republics of the Middle, Ages too closely in its subservience tcTiudividuals. The individual who in America regulates the whole concern and dominates the ballot-box is the wirepuller or " tyoss." At the same time he sees on all; sides the signs of pohticul corruption arid insincerity. Education, he mournfully confesses, is no antidote to the bane, because the men who are responsible for the corruption — the bosses and the wire-pullers themselves — are educated men. The real cause of evil, explained the philosopher, whose distinction it is to have applied the doctrines of Darwinism to the phenomena of human society, is that the laws of evolution have been violated in America, and that its natural processes, which arc slow and safe, have been artificially outstripped. In other Words, the American Constitution, which, an Mr Spencer points out, m as in the first instance made, and did not grow, as, according to Mackintosh, constitutions ought, has shot ahead too fast and too far. The pliilo- * sophcr, however, will not allow that his confidence in Republican institutions is shaken, and he avows a belief or a hope that in America and all will come right in the future. The Republican form of Government, he declares, is the best and highest ever yet devised, but then it demands for its success the highest type of human character. Till that is developed, therefore, it must, according to him, be a poor look-out for .Republicanism, and on the whole Mr Spencer's panegyric upon an anti-monarchical system will &ecm to most people very like a gospel of despair.

Nagoya, the fourth largest city in the Japanese Empire— population 323,000 —has only one Protestant evangelist, ' A Massuiiiusetts law makes the owner of a house liable for treble a»y loss that may be sustained by gambling therein with his consent. A saloonkeeper of Lowell has just been compelled, to pay ISOOdol, the money going to a man who had lost only GOOdol in playing poker on the premises. , Sir Erasmus Wilson has presented to the Margate Royal Sea Bathing Infirmary a new wing of the infirmary, to be named the Erasmus Wing, which he has built at a cost of over £30,000. The wing includes two large day rooms and four dormitories, each to con tain sixteen beds, with a swimming bath capable of containing 15,000 gallons of sea water. Sciioojl. libraries are on the increase in France. In 1865 the number was only , 4833, and in 1874 16,648. There are now j 25,912. This does not include the teachers' ' libraries, which number 2348, with a.B aggregate of 500,000 volumes, Ix the interest of Catholic colonisation, 'Biahops Bpalcli«g and Fitzgerald are now in New Xork. The former states that 3000 families have been placed in Minnesota, making ten agricultural villages, with churches and schools. The is a colony of 400 families in (Sreeley county, Nebraska, and the society is now enlarging the colony in' Arkansas, between Fort Smith and Little Bock. Excavations in the Roman Forum, which are still goings forward^ are expected ere long to bring to' 'light the ancient tribune from which the . orators addressed the people. Remnants of friezes and columns that ;have recently been found ill theiorum'havetbeenset up on brick pedestals as fast as they came to light. Pieces of the old pavement have been fastened together by means of Venetian mdsaic cement.* " »*| <%'"'" X"i. HQinto-.gW&f f a become fashionable,' in.'sreneh seaports, «nw company repajrs on a bright morning to the oyster-bed, where the creatures are opening themselves- t to,, the sun. Each, chooses his oyster, arid puts a Napoleon " between the shells, and the fortunate gambler whoste oyster firiSt closes upon' i J the coin nets t the whole pool, ( , -**, r m | ", The method in which Japanese'Tiews- % are conducted' is oftens»!BiiiBiiigly : naive, A recent issue of Niehi Shbifbuji,— which, like; all its;nativo , , contemporories, not in columes, but in / squares — came .out^vith one; squareblank, the' empty space u*ing coyered a ftntn^er of, stralghtlineiiT. The edllpf afSlaTp gi3es fortneextiaodinaryapp^ranfc^.ofthc paper, Jtyg readers - tl^at^fie kst niomenthp^^^that>b,a^hej^id- ■