types of occurrence. A thunderstorm occurs one day in some part of the country; probably there will be thunderstorms in other parts the next day, even though there may be no meteorological conditions pointing specially to such a probability. After a dry period, again, "the weather sometimes seems unable to rain even under barometric conditions which are apparently most favorable for it," while rain may sometimes fall, without any recognizable reason, in the central region of an anticyclone, for instance. But Dr. Shaw is undismayed at these irregularities. He has been responsible for the forecasts of the weather issued by the Meteorological Office for the past eleven years, and his experience leads him to an engaging optimism. "Doubtless an explanation will be forthcoming in due course," he remarks, and we may leave it at that. He will, perhaps, also be able at some time in the future to discover some physical theory for the development of electricity in a thunderstorm. At present he knows of no explanation which can be applied to the different types of storms of which we have experience. How is it, he asks, that "when Nature is in the mood" every rain-shower is a thunderstorm, while on other occasions a prolonged period of hot weather may pass quietly away without a single peal of thunder? We may guess at the reason, but nobody knows it.

What we do seem to have learnt lately is something more about the behavior of frost. Here, apparently, progress takes place somewhat on the lines of medical science; we discover what is apparently a good reason one day and find a better reason the next. For instance, it is not so long ago that we were told that the cause of plants being damaged in spring frosts was not so much the freezing of the plant-cells as the rapid thawing of them in the sun's rays. Now, it seems there is a

new theory; in spring there is no sugar in the plant's tissues. A plant can weather a winter because during the cold it develops its starch into sugar, which resists frost, but when the warmer weather comes the sugar is reconverted into starch, which renders the plant defenceless. Ought we to keep our delicate plants colder than the spring temperatures, then, in order to save them? Another doctrine, which, though it is not equally subversive of the beliefs of yesterday, explains what to some gardeners may hitherto have seemed difficult of explanation, is Dr. Shaw's summing-up of what he describes as "well-established conclusions" as to the behavior of frost in situations differing as to height. When the sun goes down on an evening which will probably turn to frost, the earth and the grass and plants on it lose heat and become colder than the air; they consequently cover themselves with dew or hoar-frost. But in turn "they cool the air next to them, and the cooled air in its turn trickles like water downhill to the valleys." So that the plants on the tops of the hills become surrounded by a new stratum of air which is comparatively warm, while the cooled air goes on trickling away from them. This cooled air, finding its way downhill, collects in hollows on the hillside and in the valley at the bottom; the coldest air always gravitates lowest. Consequently the plants on the top of the hill escape damage, while those in the hollows and in the valley are frozen in icy pools of air. You get, then, the seemingly contradictory conclusion that plants in the "exposed" situation are likely to be undamaged by frosts which will kill plants that lie in the "shelter" of the valley. That is no doubt a fact which the countryman or gardener who has had personal experience of frost in hilly country well appreciates, even though he may not be equally ready

The chief railway station in Peking must be one of the most fascinating of all the curious places in the world. Its red façade rises within a stone's throw of the gray mass and painted armaments of the principal gate of the city. A few yards away bare-headed men squat in the dust of ages, selling nuts or fruit or mysterious ornaments, just as things have been sold there for centuries. The ears of the new-comer are not freed from the rattle of luggage trolleys before they receive the sound of carts of medieval design rumbling over mediæval stones.

During several days of the past autumn this station has formed the stage of scenes of that rare kind in which the hastened march of history may be said to become momentarily visible. The stir of revolution manifested itself here as nowhere else in the capital. Here bands of fugitives assembled in those days, including victims from almost every class of citizen. Many thousands fled by South-bound trains within the space of several days-and many hundreds of these, probably, had hoped never to mount the "fire-carts" of the West. Among the strange and moving visions which haunt termini this spectacle of weird irony is unique.

The third-class carriages head the train. A long while before the moment of departure they are crowded so that another human being could by no safe means be squeezed in. Children are heaped one above another till positively there is room for no more children. Men, climbing up between the carriages, cling to any hook or bar or other projection that offers. The vans overflow with packages of goods precious or endeared by some unimaginable charm of familiarity; there are chattels of the most astonishing variety, exquisite treasures of porcelain

and scented wood, too hastily wrapped up, and huge shabby wicker chairs, worth very little money, but prized no doubt in virtue of the European style, which is fashionable. A striking thing is the stillness that reigns, not a ceremonial or sullen silence, but the vague indifferent calm of flocks and herds when they are dumb at their going in or coming out. Even the children are silent. The eyes of old men look fixedly, and with no apparent emotion to the front. Here and there the head of a young girl leans from a window, the yellow star of a silk flower fixed in her sleek black hair. The expression on all faces is as utterly detached as ever. Yet few of these people hope to see their homes again. Further down the train are first-class carriages. The merchants and gentry sit huddled in their furs, some motionless, some apathetically gazing at newspapers. There are curious little faces of Manchu grandees, thin and pallid, with dry wrinkled skin, and small callous eyes staring through thick-rimmed spectacles. They recall the crabbed faces of Dutch worthies of the stay-at-home and counting-house type, as etched by Old Masters. All these people, too, have an air of complete indifference to the present and all things to come. But surely some among them are sensible of the ironies of their situation? The journals they have bought to wile away this very painful quarter-of-an-hour have for years been preparing the way for the present crisis. The very instruments of flight, the cars stamped with labels in a foreign tongue, must be a galling reminder of the steelthrust of the West lying right at the heart of Peking. The metals run parallel to the city wall; between the platform and the base of the rampart there are only a few shivering trees

and crimson flowers of autumn; there is a little pale sunlight on the battlements.

Within the city, in the long dusty streets and open spaces, little suggests the confusion and terror of a crisis. To the habitué the more frequented quarters may seem somewhat hushed and sparsely peopled; the stream of traffic runs somewhat thin, and the broughams which are the pride of the wellto-do are absent. Little groups of soldiers stand about at gateways and cross-roads, though the display of authority is far from overwhelming. The air is entirely free from the sinister gloom which broods over Western capitals at similar times of eruption. the Legation quarter there are no symptoms to be noted-except one, which is as quaint as it is significant. Many families of the wealthier native classes have sought refuge in the great European hotel, in front of which their carriages and blue Peking carts throng the way. And there they may be seen at the upper windows, small figures of Manchu ladies and children peeping between the lace curtains, patches of mulberry color and Mediterranean blue.

In

The recesses of Peking are still among the impenetrable places of the earth. Some years ago Pierre Loti's marvellous description of the inner city was given to the world in a book entitled "Les Derniers Jours de Pékin." It is there written that the mysteries of the Forbidden City vanished at the forcing of its gates, that foreign occupation destroyed the spell for ever. The red gates are now again fast barred, and it might seem that a sanctity dwells inside those geranium-hued walls that a material violation cannot dispel. There would appear to exist some spiritual virtue clinging to the arcana within, elusive and inviolable. The Saturday Review.

Walking beneath the walls in the quiet light of a November afternoon one can imagine that this belief of the inhabitants, if this is the belief they hold, is justified by their faith. Their imperturbable sangfroid, which is invaluable at the present time, may well be chiefly inspired by such a faith. The wondrous tranquillity of all that meets the eye is altogether in harmony with this impression. The imperial tiles shine freshly among the deepening colors of the sky. Grasses and little plants stand up from copings, as from English manor walls. Some white birds spread their milky flight across a yellow roof. In all China there is no serener spot than the approach to the Forbidden City, that little group of palaces on which all menaces are centred. The decline of the Manchu autocracy resembles the fading of a great flower whose petal-tips crinkle and perish while the centre remains fresh and bright. The seat of the Government is surrounded by an almost Arcadian calm, while outposts of its far-stretched greatness fall in sudden and complete ruin. It is said that through the worst alarms the Son of Heaven, in his dim and gilded seclusion, continued daily to study the reading and writing of the Chinese character. Those in positions of highest responsibility and greatest danger gave no sign of even considering the expediency of flight. The inner courts of the Forbidden City may be sheltering distracted counsels and nights of poignant suspense. All appearances show as quiet and bland a face as the yellow roofs, yellow like yellow broom, rising impassively against the blue. The sentries at ease, the lifeless water of the moat, the weeds sprouting from the walls, give an impression of calm as cold and listless as the evening frost.

H. Prideaux Brune.

But

If the occasion of laughter were the same in every man, the task of the philosopher who set out, as M. Bergson does, to discover "the basal element in the laughable" would be simpler. in the matter of the laughable, how evident it is that one man's meat is another's poison; who has not at one time or another known an evening's pleasure at the play to be poisoned by the laughter insistently misplaced (as it seemed to him) of some person or persons adjacent who, on their part, gave every sign of thriving might ily upon their own interpretation of the performance? One has seen the principal actress in Synge's semi-tragic masterpiece, The Playboy of the Western World, incommoded up to the fall of the final curtain, save when she has quelled the laughter by sheer magic of personality. One has known Hamlet's third-act neurasthenia to be regarded as the hugest of jokes, and the murder through the arras to go with a roar. On a quite recent occasion of the performance of Pelléas et Mélisande a section of the pit found it funny; but this was more readily excusable since, in addition to having a sneaking sympathy at certain moments of the action, one was aware that this part of the theatre was largely filled with persons who had paid their money in the expectation of a popular melodrama, for which at the last moment Maeterlinck's tragedy had been substituted. These instances, taken at haphazard, do but border, it may be said, on the subject of laughter: for this very reason they may serve to indicate its complex nature, and the questions they raise with regard to the motivation of laughter are in reality sufficiently profound. Why should some in the audience so over-stretch their legitimate "Laughter." By Henri Bergson. London: Macmillian. 8s. 6d. net.

laughter as to obscure the finer effects of tragedy in the play, to the annoyance of others in the audience? How is it that a first-rate actor should come to be thought comic when he plays Hamlet? What reason can be given that hardened playgoers who came to weep with Mr. Martin Harvey should remain to laugh at Mr. Martin Harvey? It will serve to indicate the limitations of M. Bergson's basal examination if we assert at the outset that his book provides a satisfactory answer to none of these haphazard but relevant questions.

Before proceeding to a statement of M. Bergson's theory of the Comic, let us take some occasion of laughter that is free from the evident complication, psychological and social, of those given above. Clearly what is wanted is some scene or situation at which we have all, and all equally, laughed. One cannot think of a better type-instance than that of the pragmatical Square holding forth at the dinner-table that "Pain is the most contemptible thing in the world"; and at that precise point, says Fielding, "he unfortunately bit his tongue." Everyone in reading Tom Jones must have laughed at that. What is there in the discomfiture of Square that is irresistibly and typically comic? M. Bergson's answer should be provided in the following pasage:

The comic is that side of a person which reveals his likeness to a thing, that aspect of human events which, through its peculiar inelasticity, conveys the impression of pure mechanism, of automatism, of movement without life. Consequently it expresses an individual or collective imperfection which calls for an immediate corrective. This corrective is laughter, a social gesture that singles out and represses a special kind of absent-mindedness in men and in events.

This passage is perhaps M. Bergson's