a. You will find
in the Old World much that is admirable, but what impressed me
most painfully was the poverty of the masses of the people. Why,
the people in Europe live on the poorest food, and mighty little
of it. I found that laborers in Glasgow work for 2s. 6d. a
day--sixty-two cents. I was charmed with Edinburgh, but when I
saw women drunk and fighting in her beautiful streets, the
modern Athens lost her charms. I cannot convey to you the
picture of the degradation and want throughout Great Britain,
caused by drink. I come back a stouter cold-water man than when
I went away. The drink evil is a horror. Speaking of wages, I
found girls in factories in Venice working with great skill for
from five to twelve cents a day, the most experienced getting
twelve cents a day, out of which they have to live, but how they
live is a wonder. Their chief diet is macaroni. Farm hands all
over Europe--women--earn twenty cents a day. Women do most of
the field work. I saw no improved machinery on the farms of the
continent. I have seen twenty women in one field at work--not a
man in sight. The plain people see no meat to eat once a week on
the continent. The condition of American wage-earners is
incomparably better than that of working people in Europe. It's
the difference between comfort and competence, and discomfort
and insufficient food and clothing.

"Perhaps the most contemptible people one meets abroad are the
Anglicized Americans--the man who apes, both in manners and
language, what he regards as the English aristocracy, affects to
believe everything in England perfect, and seems to be ashamed
to institute any favorable comparison between his country and
that."

EDUCATION IN FRANCE.--The Academy of Medicine has passed a resolution
demanding of the government changes in the hours of study for
children, larger play grounds, removal of schools to the country, and
daily teaching of gymnastics. These suggestions are urgently needed in
France, where children are subjected to a far more rigid and
enfeebling method than in America. The power of the church over
education is destroyed in France, and religious instruction is now
prohibited.

CANADA AND THE UNION.--Rev. W. H. Murray reports a strong feeling in
Canada for annexation. He says:

"A gentleman of great influence in this city, and of established