picking them off by hand, whilst dustings of lime or sprinklings of limewater will be found of service in keeping off slugs, etc. The earliest crop of Celery where successional crops are grown may be earthed up as high as the plants will allow, taking care not to bury the heart. Late crops can be left to be earthed up all at once. About the middle of the month, as we have directed in former papers, is a good time to begin the propagation of geraniums and suchlike bedding plants. In the herbaceous borders the plants should now be looked to, and all those done flowering can be increased by parting the roots. Then all biennials that are ready for planting out should be placed at once in the quarters where they are meant to grow and bloom. Treated so now, they will get established before winter sets in. Pansies may now be propagated in light sandy soil, in a shady, cool corner or under hand-lights, shading on sunny days till the cuttings are struck. Roses require now frequent attention, whether in pots or planted out. Those which are grafted must be carefully denuded of all suckers as they from time to time develop. These should not be merely shortened back, but cut clean off. Examine those you may have lately budded and cut all shoots off the stocks, as these only rob the scion of its due share of the sap; but until the bud or scion is fairly attached and beginning to push, leave a shoot on the stock above the scion to draw the sap up to it, until it catches; but as soon as the bud or buds develop a shoot or shoots, stop all other growths on the stock at once, and as soon as you are satisfied that your bud has a good hold on to the stock, remove the ties, so as to give it free play to swell and grow. W. ELDER.

THE Socialist press is evincing considerable activity, and To-Day' is showing improvement under its new editor.

AMONG the various progressive non-Socialist journals The Present Day has also taken a new start, the most notable article in its July issue being "Mr. Gladstone and Home Rule: a Radical's Protest", by John RobertIt contains also an abstract of a paper read at the London Dialectical Society, by Charlotte M. Wilson, on "The Principles and Aims of Anarchists". The Westminster Review for July contains an article on "The Socialist Movement" from the pen of Annie Besant.

son.

THE pamphleteering of the month has been almost exclusively Hibernian, attacks and defences of Ireland following each other with giddy rapidity. Mr. Healy, M.P., has said "A Word for Ireland" effectively in 163 pages; it is the most terse indictment of English rule that has yet been published. As a counterblast has been issued a pamphlet, theatrically cased in black and red-lettered, entitled "The Repeal of the Union Conspiracy", by a writer (of course, anonymous) who pretends to be a Fenian.

2

1 W. Reeves, 185, Fleet Street, E.C. J. Heywood, Paternoster Buildings, E.C. 3 Trübner and Co., Ludgate Hill. E.C.

Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son, 50, O'Connell Street. London: W. Ridgway, 169, Piccadilly, W.

The members of the Fabian Society assert that the system of production for profit instead of production for use ensures the comfort and happiness of the few at the expense of the sufferings of the many, and that society must

be reconstructed in such a manner as will secure the general welfare and happiness.

ΑΙΜ.

The aim of the Society is to help forward the reconstruction of the Social System in accordance with the highest moral possibilities.

METHODS.

The holding of meetings for discussion, reading of papers and reports. The delegation of members to attend meetings on social questions, debates at workmen's clubs, etc. The publication of tracts and pamphlets, pointing out the evils and immorality of the present system and advocating a policy of reconstruction. The appointment of members to put forward the views of the Society in lectures and addresses.

The Fabian Society collects and diffuses information on social questions; its objects are educational as well as militant. It seeks recruits from all ranks of society, believing that not only those who suffer from the present system, but also many who personally benefit by it, recognise its evils and will welcome a remedy.

The Fabian Society looks for the reconstruction of the social system in the emancipation of all natural and accumulated wealth from the control of individuals or classes, by placing such wealth in the hands of the Community for the general benefit. The Fabian Society further endeavors to help forward the regeneration and evolution of Society, and insists that only a general high sense of duty and the subordination of individualistic aims to the general good can bring about true justice and true liberty, and ensure the true dignity of Man.

BRANCHES.

Fabian Societies may be formed in any town or district by not less than ten persons, each such society prefixing to the name "Fabian Society" the name of its town or district, and using only such localised title in all publications and notices. Each such Fabian Society shall fix its own rate of subscription, shall have complete control over its own funds, and shall make its own rules; subject to the proviso that no rule shall be made which conflicts with the basis and aim of the central Society. It shall appoint one of its members as Corresponding Secretary, and communicate the name and address of the member so chosen to the Executive of the Fabian Society, thus providing facilities for intercommunication, for the circulation of literature, and for the exchange of lecturers.

All information may be obtained from the Secretary, Mr. Edward Pease, 150, Portsdown Road, London, N.W. The Society meets on the first and third Fridays of every month.

The first monthly meeting was held at South Place Chapel, on July 2nd, and William Morris, of the Socialist League, read a most interesting paper on the "Aims of Art." Walter Crane presided, and two or three artists, Stepniak, and several members of the Society took part in the discussion that followed. The second monthly meeting was held at 19, Avenue Road; a committee was appointed to consider the organisation of branch metropolitan societies, and at the conclusion of the business Belfort Bax read a paper on Universal History considered from a Socialistic standpoint". The essay proved to be a most thoughtful and exhaustive one, tracing the changes through which Society has passed.

The next meeting of the Fabian Society will be held on Friday, September 17th.

ENGLAND.

Some more correspondence has reached me about the unemployed among the engineers, and the matter may be concluded by the following letter from T. Mann, whose original statement quoted in Our Corner for May gave rise to the discussion.

"In the May number of Our Corner there is a mistake as to what I said at the Fabian Society's meeting on the eight hours movement. The 14,000 unemployed 'engineers' includes all those skilled laborers in the engineering business, there being at that time about 4,000 society men out of work (besides sick and superannuated members), and non-society men being about 23 to one, with at least as large a proportion of unemployed, this would make the 14,000. Some readers of Our Corner belonging to the Amalgamated Society of Engineers have been complaining that I grossly exagerated; it's quite possible that I did'nt make myself sufficiently clear on the occasion. If you have a little space will you kindly give a brief explanation for the sake of those who have felt hurt over the matter."

Trade in England continues depressed, but more attention has been directed during the past month to the political than to the social and economical difficulties. A strike has occurred, among several others, at the copper works at Port Tennant, Swansea, against a 5 per cent. reduction. The Wrexham district is disturbed, a reduction of 5 per cent. in the miners' wages having been announced. A reduction of from 10 to 15 per cent. is asked from the miners in the Hamilton district. In the Motherwell district the men have struck against a reduction of 6d. a day. On the other hand, the Hamilton miners have succeeded in obtaining the reduction of hours for which they have been agitating for the last two years. The men at the Shropshire Iron Works, who have been on strike for twenty-two weeks, have returned to work, the wage-dispute having been settled by arbitration.

The accounts of the Mansion House Relief Fund have been made up, and a balance of £5,000 was found to be left. The returns from fifteen metropolitan districts showed that 44,541 families had been relieved. How much good such a fund does has been widely debated. Socialists know that it is justice, not charity, which is needed for the cure of poverty; and that distress will never be removed so long as the workers are first robbed of a large part of the value they create, and then disdainfully flung a fraction of it as charity.

A company has been started for erecting steel works near Leeds, with Bessemer plant and Siemens' furnaces, for the supply of the rolling mills of the district. Workers in and about Leeds rejoice at the prospect of employment, while others belonging to the districts which now supply the steel are correspondently depressed. Under our admirable competitive system the prosperity of one place means the adversity of another.

The persecution of the Socialists by the police is proceeding apace. The open-air meetings at Bell Street, Edgware Road, which have been held undisturbed for eighteen months, are now forbidden, and the speakers are summoned. Street preachers of all kinds may block up roads as they please; Socialists only are forbidden to use the streets for propaganda.

BELGIUM.

The Belgium workers, to the great annoyance of their masters, will not settle down and starve quietly. Strikes continue to spread, and the men are unreasonable enough to pretend that they cannot live comfortably on the less than half-a-crown a day they can earn by "honest toil".

The Vooruit continues to flourish despite the loss of its chief helper. Its membership extends to 2,300 families; it has a printing establishment with rotatory presses, a concert hall, a restaurant, a bakery, and a theatre. It is helping the men on strike with money and bread; and other associations are being started on the same model.

FRANCE.

The poverty of Paris may be well seen by a visit to the pawnbroking establishments-why are these called " my uncle in England, and "my aunt" in France? Between 1870 and 1884, 737,943,098 francs represent the pledges and the renewals made. In 1883 there were 307,319 persons who could not repay an average 10 francs apiece, and who paid interest to save their pledges from sale; these pledges were mostly clothes, linen, domestic furniture and utensils. The list of sales shows 1,755 mattresses, 40,045 garments, 27,464 sheets, 6,608 coverlets; how many poor folk went half bare to fill their stomachs ?

The employers at Lyons imported into the town from the north and Belgium a number of workmen to starve out the strikers; but when the intruders found that they were being used against their brother-workers, they made common cause with them and declined to work. May such solidarity spread. The result of it at Lyons was that the employers accepted the men's terms, and the strike is at an end.

Le chasse aux paysans has not quite disappeared in France. At Décazeville a man who was picking up some scraps of coal was shot by the nightwatcher. At Creusot four men were fishing in a reservoir belonging to the factories, and ran away when found out; the watchers fired revolvers at them, and one, a lad of nineteen, fell dead. This is carrying rights of property rather far; but no one seems to interfere with this capitalist amusement.

The prisoners concerned in the killing of Watrin, the Décazeville tyrant, were put on their trial at the end of June. Six, including two womenwere acquitted, four convicted. These were condemned to terms of imprisonment, the severest sentence being eight years of hard labor.

GERMANY.

Bismarck continues to sit on the safety-valve. Singer, a Socialist member of the Reichstag, has been expelled from Berlin, and the anti-Socialist laws are being used in a very harassing manner. Herr Max Jacoby, a member of the Progressive Party, has also been expelled, for letting a room for a Socialist meeting, and sixty-nine meetings have been forbidden. How long before the boiler bursts?

HOLLAND.

A kind of guerilla warfare is being kept up against the Socialists. Belderok has been arrested for posting placards "insulting to the king".

ITALY.

Seventeen thousand one hundred and sixty-one votes were given for laborcandidates in the late election. The election of Cipriani having been annulled, the Socialists busily employed themselves working for his reelection, and succeeded in re-electing him for two towns. Many Socialists have been arrested, and workmen's associations dissolved.

RUSSIA.

Thirty-three men were accused of attacking soldiers, destroying the office of the superintendant, and pillaging the warehouses, in connexion with a great strike of 18,000 workers, employed by Morozoff, Son & Co.