and Mars, recklessness in expenditure, public disapprobation, and an unfavorable and sudden ending to life.

Venus in Trine to Saturn, and Moon in Sextile to Jupiter domestic relations of the happiest description, and the wife a great help.

For ourselves, we frankly doubt if any man can foretell the future of Mr. Lloyd George. No one knows what he will say or do to-morrow. We know what phrases he will use, but we do not know on what side he will use them, or what he will mean by them. All we know is that Mr. Herbert Fisher will say ditto.

Let us, then, return to safer fields of prophecy. What, really, is going to happen in 1921? We think we know. Human beings will behave like bewildered sheep. They will be chiefly notable for their lack of moral courage. Good men will apologize for the deeds of bad men, and bad men will do very much as they please. Cruel and selfish faces will be seen in every railway carriage and in every omnibus, but readers of the respectable press will refuse to believe that there are any cruel people outside Germany and Russia. Not one, but all of the Ten Commandments will be broken, and turkeys will be eaten on Christmas Day. Men will die of disease, violence, famine, and old age, and others will be born to take their place. Intellectuals will be pretentious mules solemnly trying to look like Derby winners. There will be a considerable amount of lying, injustice, and self-righteousness. Dogs will be fairly decent, but some of them will bite. Above all, the human conscience will survive. It will survive. It will continue to be the old still, small voice we know as still and as small as it is possible to be without disappearing into silence and nothingness. And some of us will get a certain amusement out of it all, and will prefer life rather than death. We shall also go

on puzzling ourselves as to what under the sun it all means. Not even a murderer will be without a friend or a pet dog or cat or bird. That is what 1921 will be like. That, at least, is as certain as the time of the high tide at Aberdeen on the 24th of January.

[The Manchester Guardian] A PARIS QUAYSIDE

BY PHILIP CARR

My window looks out across the Seine. In the street below is the little rivulet of clear water in each gutter which is so characteristic of Paris preparing for the day. Schoolboys with bare knees, wearing black cotton pinafores and leather belts and woolen mufflers, each carrying his little 'serviette' or portfolio, or more rarely his satchel, are hurrying across the bridge. It is not nine o'clock, but Paris has been well astir for an hour or more. The motor-omnibus has just passed, packed full to its standing-room platform at the back with business men on their way to work. Moored to this side of the river is what looks like a large houseboat, and over the little wooden gangway to its door are crossing hatless washerwomen- no working woman in Paris troubles about headgear, and the seedy black bonnet and cloth cap are mercifully unknown. The large bundles of clothes that they carry will be washed in the Seine, and taken home to be dried and ironed.

On the far bank is a low, sloping quay, to which barges are moored, taking in or discharging their cargoes. Above it is the road, and to the parapet, which is shaded by the trees along the pavement edge, are clamped the curious zinc-covered boxes which will be opened later, before the luncheon hour, to display the extraordinary

collection of old books for which the quays are famous. Beyond the road is a broken line of roofs, of varying heights but covering never less than four stories, the roofs of the real old Paris, sharply pitched, with tall dormers, each roof individual, as each façade is individual although all the façades, with their larger window-space and painted shutters, present a more smiling aspect than the small sash windows of a London house front.

The whole district is reeking with history. It was from the narrow streets beneath these roofs that oozed and tumbled the mob which again and again has made the Hotel de Ville, over there on the left, the centre of revolution. Nothing is left of the building which was burned down by the Commune, with its memories of Gambetta in 1870, of Lamartine in 1848, and of many centuries before. But the rest of the quarter is all old, and the fact that some of the streets have been given new names has fortunately not destroyed the niche with its statue of a headless figure at my corner, nor the old characters of the inscription of the 'Rue de la Femme sans Teste,' by which I like to know it. How many, by the way, of the rich travelers who stay at the Hotel Crillon, in the Place de la Concorde, know that the corner of that building still bears the old painted title 'Place Louis XVI'? Paris is full of such traces of history. Even the official 'Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité,' showing large on its public buildings, is not so deeply graven as to have effaced all traces of imperial and even of earlier royal declarations of authority.

The streets in front of me are peaceful enough to-day. If ever again a mob takes possession of Paris, it is from farther East- though not much farther East that it will come. This morning the windows are wide

open. Carpets are shaken and hung over the rail. Women with their hair protected from dust by white napkins are busy sweeping and waxing and polishing their floors. In the middle of the river is a dredging machine, and from it is descending a diver, in full grotesque helmet and accoutrements, to examine the bed of the stream. The event is sufficiently dramatic to collect a crowd, but it would hardly need as much as this to do this, for in Paris, as in London, there are always people who have time to stop hurrying in order to watch somebody else at work. The housewife, on her way to buy the day's provisions, carrying her string bag and concealing her sketchy morning toilet under an overcoat closely buttoned at the neck; the workmen in very baggy trousers, which are so cut as to give the impression of being perilously near coming down at the waist; the bank messenger in a cocked hat and nickel buttons, suggesting at least a major general; the midinette on her way to deliver a large cardboard box from the dressmaker, wearing the smartest of shoes and silk stockings, but, again, no hat—such are a few of the figures who join the little group. Over on the quay are cart horses, backing and plunging under loads of rubble, which they are tipping into the barges, or straining under other loads which they are dragging up the stiff slope, or merely standing still, with infinite patience, after being cuffed over the head and jagged at the mouth, and as often as not kicked in the belly (for patience with animals is not one of the French virtues.) The cart horse is perhaps, of all animals, he who causes the deepest wonder at the life force which makes him accept his slavery rather than lie down and die. Does he think of it, as he stands there, waiting to make the next effort?

On Sunday mornings the quay presents quite another picture. There is no work going on. The only animals to be seen are dogs, and they are all of them very happy and making a tremendous noise about it. Far more poor men keep dogs in Paris than in London. Nobody worries much about breed, and the varieties are peculiar. Sunday mornings they come out on to the quays, and as that is probably the only time that they get out at all they make the most of it. Theirs is almost the only sign of activity. There are loungers dangling their legs over the parapet; other loungers leaning against it and reading the paper; a pair of lovers strolling along under the wall; a desolate young man looking at the river, who occasionally picks up a stone and limply throws it in. Along the road above hurries a family party on its way to the station to spend the day in the country, and behind them, with a walk which shows a proper sense of his importance, is a non-commissioned officer of the Gardes Municipaux, with all his medals on his chest the military, including officers, always wear their medals on Sundays.

Two boys of about fourteen wander

down from the road on to the quay. They are smoking cigarettes to mark their independence, but that by no means exhausts their vitality nor satisfies their thirst for drama. They are quite out of sympathy with the lounging spirit of the morning. Rest has no appeal to them. They begin by a competition of high jumps from the parapet to the quay below. That soon palls. They ferret about among the rubbish on the deserted barges. One of them has an idea. He drags out a filthy roll of carpet and spreads it on the quay. Both boys take off their threadbare coats and stand against each other in belted trousers, and shirt collarless and none too clean. They advance to the carpet and ceremoniously shake hands. Then they solemnly fight for ten minutes - real blows, good and true. They shake hands, put on their coats, and go off, arm in arm. The few loungers on the parapet have hardly looked up from their papers. There has been no audience. But the sense of drama is satisfied. The future may hold the reputation of a Carpentier for either of them. So on Sunday mornings, as in the week, the life force finds its expression on the quay.

MR. CARDEN has made a notable contibution* to the voluminous literature connected with Edwin Drood, for which he is entitled to the warm gratitude of all students of the subject, whatever views they may happen to possess regarding the plot of the story and its solution. He has evidently scrutinized the manuscript with meticulous care, and has successfully deciphered many interesting passages which, for various reasons, had been deleted by Dickens. It is probably now possible to say that everything emanating directly or indirectly from Dickens in connection with the story is known. Mr. Carden has, however, gone considerably further than this, in that with vivid imagination and not a little literary skill he has sketched out a solution of the story upon entirely novel and highly interesting lines. Starting from the hint given by Forster that the originality of the story was to have been a review of the murderer's career told by himself as if not he, but some other man, were the tempted, Mr. Carden has constructed, largely from Dickens's own materials, a series of episodes, in which he very skilfully propounds his own solution of some of the problems in which the fragment abounds.

Whatever opinion may be entertained as to the success of his efforts, no doubt can be felt that he has stated his case forcibly and ingeniously, and the novelty of his method, combined with his considerable literary skill,

*The Murder of Edwin Drood: recounted by John Jasper. Being an attempted Solution of the Mystery based on Dickens's Manuscript and Memoranda, by Percy T. Carden. With an Introduction by B. W. Matz. Illustrated. London: Cecil Palmer. New York: G. P. Putnam Sons.

render his book both interesting and exciting. It may safely be said that henceforward it will be as indispensable to all students of the subject as the well-known works of Dr. H. Jackson, Mr. J. Cuming Walters, and Sir W. R. Nicoll.

Stated in barest outline, Mr. Carden's theory is that Jasper murdered Edwin at a spot in the path in the immediate proximity of the steps leading into the burial ground; that the corpse was hidden in the sarcophagus of Edwin's father, Mrs. Sapsea's monument being used as a receptacle or halfway house for the lime and spade which Jasper 'borrowed' from Durdles' yard; that learning from Bazzard of the existence of the ring, and determining to recover it in order to secrete it in Neville's chambers and thus convict him of the crime, he repaired secretly to the sarcophagus, only to find himself confronted by Helena disguised in her brother's clothes. After a murderous attack upon her he fled into the cathedral tower, pursued by Neville, Datchery (who is Tartar plus a wig), Crisparkle, Lobley, and Durdles. Neville is thrown over the tower and killed, and Jasper attempts to escape by climbing down to the leads of the roof, but by means of ropes brought from the belfry, Tartar, Lobley, and Crisparkle follow him, and he is overpowered, thrown into jail, and finally executed, after having written his confession in the manner hinted at by Dickens.

While there is nothing impossible about this theory, either as a whole or in its details, it nevertheless does not carry complete conviction in the sense

that the reader feels constrained to say 'Yes, that is undoubtedly what Dickens meant, and he can have meant no other.' There is no illuminating flash, no brilliant discovery, similar to the identification of Datchery with Helena; rather is it a somewhat hazardous logical inference drawn from a certain number of facts and various unsupported and hypothetical assumptions. Of course, that is not to say that Mr. Carden's theory is definitely erroneous, but merely that, notwithstanding his great ingenuity, he has not succeeded in establishing it upon an unassailable basis.

The test of any theory is its complete concordance with all the known data; if any single fact proves to be irreconcilable, then the theory is unsound. Now, we are told by Dickens himself that he had 'a very curious and new idea for his new story; not a communicable idea, or the interest of the book would be gone, but a very strong one, though difficult to work.' Neither as a whole, nor in any of its elements, does the plot, as Mr. Carden expounds it, correspond to Dickens's clear and definite statement. There is no incommunicable fact, the disclosure of which would rob the story of its interest; there is no very curious and new idea, no very strong one, difficult to work.

Again, in Dickens's 'Plans' we find the following notes: 'Edwin disappears. THE MYSTERY. DONE ALREADY.' The words 'done already' can apparently only refer to 'the mystery,' and their obvious meaning is that the mystery, whatever it was, had, at the time the note was made, already been woven into the story. It is, perhaps, an arguable proposition that Edwin's disappearance constituted the mystery, but on the one hand, the apposition of 'Edwin disappears' to 'the mystery' renders this interpretation highly improbable, and, on the other hand, it is

difficult to conceive how the murder of Edwin can have been regarded by Dickens as incommunicable, or very strong, or difficult to work.

Further, although Mr. Carden recognizes that Jasper's search for the ring leads to his detection and capture, the use which he makes of it is hardly proportionate to Dickens's solemn and impressive utterance, that among the mighty store of wonderful chains that are for ever forging in the vast ironworks of time and circumstance, there was one chain forged in the moment of that small conclusion, riveted to the foundations of heaven and earth, and gifted with invincible force to hold and drag. That the ring was the 'clue' which was to fasten the crime of the murder upon the murderer seems incontrovertible, and that Jasper 'devoted' himself to the murderer's destruction is also certain, because the reader is definitely made acquainted with this fact by the production to Crisparkle of Jasper's diary, in which he had ostensibly been manufacturing evidence for his own exculpation. It is only when the interdependence of all these facts is realized that their value is fully appreciated, and in this connection nothing can be more to the point than Sir W. R. Nicoll's pronouncement: 'You may be able at an early stage to introduce facts which contain the ultimate solution of your problem, and yet appear important enough to be stated for their own sake; the solution of the problem, or rather the materials of the solution, should be given, and yet the reader should be unable to detect the full significance of the preliminary statement till the complete clearing arrives.'

Mr. Carden confidently contends that Datchery was Tartar in disguise, and that, whereas Rosa fled to London on Monday, and on Tuesday Tartar promised to communicate daily with