adventurers; and it was then that the Sultan's proclivity for things European first manifested itself in a manner to attract the attention of the outer world, and at the same time to become a source of scandal and offence to his own people. There began that flood of orders for English thoroughbreds, bicycles, automobiles, photographic material, mechanical toys, steam and electrical engines of all sorts, cabs, carriages, narrow-gauge tramways, etc., etc., which, after the court had installed itself at Fez, rose higher and higher, until the apparition of the Pretender, Bon Hamara, among the tribes in the neighborhood of Fez, compelled the Sultan to put a check on his European inclinations.

The pro-European policy, or rather pro-European drift, of the young Sultan, and the internal disturbances of Morocco occasioned thereby, are largely due to the influence of two men, ElMehedi-el-Menebhi (now in disgrace) and Kaid Sir Harry Maclean. Kaid Maclean, formerly an officer in the English garrison at Gibraltar, held for many years the post of military instructor at the Moorish court. This personage, though not much in evidence during the reign of Moulai Hassan, acquired from the beginning of the new reign a considerable influence over his successor. He gradually became the confidential friend and adviser of the young Sultan, his master of ceremonies when Europeans were to be introduced at court, and a sort of political, commercial, and financial agent for the government. El-Mehedi-elMenebhi, who was for some time a common soldier in the service of the old vizier, Ahmed Ben Mousa, who exercised what was practically a regency during the first six years of the present reign, was assigned the portfolio of War in 1900, and rapidly became the favorite minister of Moulai Abd-el-Aziz. When Moorish embassies were to be sent to several European capitals in 1901, Menebhi was chosen to head the mission to London, and with him was sent Kaid Maclean. Their negotiations in London were apparently of a nature highly satisfactory to the British government. Upon Menebhi was conferred the Order of St. Michael and St. George, and Kaid Maclean (henceforth Sir Harry Maclean) was created a baronet. It was after the return of this mission to Morocco that the attempt of the Sultan to introduce radical reforms into the administration of his government, combined with his notorious taste for European amusements and the society of Europeans, caused the smouldering

sentiment of protest and revolt among his people to manifest itself in the rebellion of Bon Hamara.

This rebellion, which has now dragged on for more than two years, has only once seriously threatened the existence of the Sultan and his government (December, 1902). Some of the tribes of Blad-el-Makhzen have profited by the occasion to exact arms and money from the government as the price of their loyalty. They have naturally not failed to seize the opportunity to settle old scores between tribe and tribe, and to recommence a system of intermittent brigandage along the caravan routes. In the kidnapping of Messrs. Perdicaris and Varley, we have seen how that intelligent and enterprising individual, Raisouli, even succeeded in making a tool of the American and British Governments to serve his purpose in extorting money and other concessions from the Sultan. But the tribes have so little cohesion among themselves, and so little desire for anything beyond the satisfaction of their immediate local interests, that anything in the nature of a general and concerted movement on their part (except in the case where the imperial government is strong enough to force it on them) is not to be expected. The only thing that could, and would, produce such a movement would be the invasion of Morocco by a Christian foe.

The expenses of the war, added to those incurred to satisfy the vagaries of the Sultan and the covetousness of his viziers, have forced the government to contract further debts, principally with the French, thus strengthening the hands of France in her dealings with Morocco. At the same time, the eyes of the Sultan have been opened to the danger of attempting to force the latest methods of European administration upon a people hitherto living under the patriarchal system of Koranic law; this would be a pouring of new wine into old bottles with a vengeance, which could only result in disappointment and disaster.

El-Menebhi has been made a scapegoat for the disasters that have fallen upon the government since the "modern" policy was inaugurated. Whatever his faults may be, he is at least not lacking in courage and presence of mind, and it is very doubtful whether his successors will act with any more wisdom and judgment than he.

The Koran is the basis of Moorish law. The Moorish code makes no distinction between civil and criminal law.

Up to date, the "pénétration pacifique" of the French into Morocco amounts to the following: A French company has obtained a contract from the Sultan to build the new customhouse at Tangier. The Sultan has assigned sixty per cent. of all customs dues to the payment of his French debts. A French official has been delegated to each one of the open ports to receive the sums due. The Sultan has been forced into contracting new debts in France. A swarm of French adventurers of all sorts, many of them from the French colonies in North Africa, and among them a fair sprinkling of bona-fide settlers with money to invest, lured by the picture held out to them in the French press of a new and rich colony for French colonization, an El Dorado ready waiting to be developed by French enterprise and industry, has poured into Tangier and some of the other coast towns. They have found the cost of living in these towns higher than at home, and the price of real estate as high or higher. They have found that, even where land can be purchased outside of the towns (and the Moorish officials do all they can to prevent its purchase by Europeans), the present insecure state of the country, likely to be prolonged indefinitely, makes the occupation and exploitation of such land absolutely out of the question. Many of these people have already left Morocco in disgust, and not a few have had to ask financial assistance of the French consul in order to return to their homes.

One word more about the Moors. As to the cultured Moors and those whom contact with Europe and Europeans have rendered capable of forming an intelligent opinion in the matter, they seem to think that, in the face of many troubles, internal and external, Morocco will continue to maintain her integrity, in spite of all Christians in general, and of the French in particular. And, as for the great mass of the people, they cherish deep in their hearts that maxim which has always been the solace of the Moor in hours of doubt and disaster: "Din ennebi irghleb," "the faith of the Prophet shall be victorious at the last."

PHILIP FRANCIS BAYARD.

POVERTY: SOME SUGGESTED REMEDIES.

BY G. P. BRETT.

IN Mr. Robert Hunter's remarkable study of Poverty, which has just been published, is given an array of figures which are appalling on account of the distress and suffering to which they call attention; but Mr. Hunter's book, while convincing in its figures, is even more so in its verbal descriptions of the want and destitution which prevail wherever population gathers itself together in towns and cities. It is not, perhaps, a new condition which Mr. Hunter brings to our notice, although the increase in poverty and want is growing much faster, in proportion, than the population of our larger cities; but it has never before, I believe, been so adequately set forth or in a form which is so convincing and interesting, even though it may startle those of us who believe that, in the boundless prosperity of our great country, none may starve or suffer except through fault of their own.

Mr. Hunter would define poverty, as I gather from his pages, as a condition or disease under which the sufferer is underfed, underclothed, and badly housed,-which last term in city life would mean living in an overcrowded tenement, with all the evils, that have been so often described by Mr. Jacob Riis and others, which accompany such overcrowding; and he finds more than ten million individuals in the United States (or something less than one-seventh of the population) in this state of poverty, some throughout the whole year, and some only during a certain part of it. Mr. Hunter's figures, too, include, as I understand it, those who lack only a few of the necessaries of life, as well as those who are in the direst distress; but all in this vast army, in the most prosperous of all the nations of the earth, suffer hunger, feel the pinch of winter's cold without sufficient clothing, and are without any shelter that may properly be termed a home.

While Mr. Hunter's book is chiefly an account, and a most interesting one, of the conditions of poverty throughout the country, he does not, I gather, hope or look for any great improvement in these conditions during the existence of our present methods of economic distribution, except as such improvement may result from the individual or combined efforts on the part of the charitable workers, which, as has been too often proved, may not seldom be said to extend and foster the evils which they are intended to cure.

The aim of this article is not to discuss Mr. Hunter's very able book, for which task indeed the present writer's equipment is insufficient, but to endeavor to point out some facts in our modern life, of which able and constructive minds might take advantage with the result of banishing much of the want and hunger to which Mr. Hunter calls our attention.

Mr. Hunter estimates that in the city of New York not less than fourteen per cent., nor perhaps more than twenty-five per cent., of the entire population (the exact figures being difficult to obtain), suffer from poverty, and that a very large percentage of this poverty-stricken class suffer in the direst way from want and hunger. Yet within a hundred miles of the great city lie hundreds of abandoned farms, thousands of acres of unproductive land, much of which affords excellent pasturage and will grow excellent hay, and much will grow corn and other produce on a small scale. Not only is this true, but, within the confines of the territory that I have named, there are allowed to go to waste each year thousands of bushels of apples, garden-stuff, and other produce, much of it being left ungarnered to rot on the land, which would, at any rate, if of no great commercial value, tend to ameliorate the distress to which Mr. Hunter calls our attention, if it could be placed within the reach of the distressed classes.

These waste acres, these abandoned farms to which I have referred, can be easily found by any one who seeks them; and a very short experiment will prove them capable of producing crops, not adequate, perhaps, in comparison with the crops that may be grown on the Iowa and Indiana bottom-lands, but crops that will compare favorably with those of many other sections of our country.

It must be borne in mind, however, that the part of the counVOL. CLXXX.-NO. 579.

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