-dolls, we were about to write. It recalled
far-away Japan, where the daily life of the humbler classes presents
similar domestic tableaux. Japan is a land of babies, where the annual
crop is marvelously sure. In both instances, these youthful mothers, as
may naturally be supposed, grow old in appearance at a comparatively
early age. It requires no prophet to declare that premature maternity
entails premature old age.

We do not intend to convey the idea that ignorance and its natural
consequences do not prevail among the Maltese peasantry, when we say
that there is much of seeming comfort and contentment to be found among
them. As an average class, these children of the soil exhibit only too
clearly their want of culture and intelligence. The priests oppose all
efforts to improve them by schools. Education is virtually tabooed by
the church, it being held that devotion to the Roman Catholic religion
is all that is necessary for their spiritual or earthly welfare. Said a
famous English general: "Thinking bayonets are dangerous. What we
require in a soldier is a machine that knows just enough to obey
orders." So it is with the followers of the Roman Catholic faith; people
who can read and reason for themselves are "dangerous," so far as
putting trust in that bigoted creed is concerned. What the church
requires is machines which will obey orders, and yield up their
hard-earned wages to support the priesthood and the regal Romish palace
of the Pope at Rome. Any unprejudiced observant traveler in Spain,
Italy, Mexico, or South America will bear witness to the truth of this
statement. Not one twentieth of the inhabitants of this Maltese group
can read and write. In populous, overcrowded China, eight tenths of the
inhabitants can read and write, and yet the Western nations look upon
them as semi-barbarians.

Can any one indicate another people on the globe, eight tenths of whom
can read and write? Education is not only compulsory, but it is the only
stepping-stone to high preferment in the civil service of the
government. Our venal politicians would do well to profit by the example
of China.

It will be remembered in this connection that since the suppression of
the Pope's temporal power in Italy Malta has been looked upon as a
possible future residence for the head of the Romish church. An
influential section of the councils of the Vatican has favored the
idea, and it would seem to be well suited for the purpose. Were thi