Minor Notices 179 scription of modern Mexico, the prosperous, hopeful, powerful nation which is attending so successfully to its own affairs in its own way. This Mexico of to-day was made by the French Intervention. Fifty years of unlicensed independence, liberty, freedom, or whatever it may be called, of petty politics and clever soldiering, of the rivalries and jealousies that always go with the absence of responsibility, had discredited Mexico as completely in the opinion of her own people as in that of the outside world. The national health required for its constitution a purging and a shock. The United States thought of stepping in to set things right ; France actually intervened. The result, however unpleasant to France, made Mexico a nation. Under Three F/a,i;s in Cuba ; A Personal AiCoiint of the Cuban In- surreetion and Spanish-American War, by George Clarke Musgrave. (Boston, Little, Brown and Co., pp. xvi., 366.) In the first two-thirds of this interesting volume, were names and dates omitted, one might imagine himself perusing the horrors of the Thirty Years' War, the ruthless devas- tations of Tilly and Wallenstein. Among our numerous war-books this one tells us most about the patriotic struggles of the Cubans prior to i8g8, and about the iniquities practised upon them by that impulsive Spanish cleaving to Cuba whose superlative expression was found in Weylerism. Mr. Musgrave had peculiar advantages. Sent by an English service journal, he landed in Cuba " a warm sympathizer with Spain"; he served with the revolutionists and studied them and their cause ; he repeatedly crossed the lines, underwent grievous danger and hardship, was wounded and imprisoned, was barely rescued from a spy's death and finally "deported to Spain," all prior to our declaration of war. Thus equipped, he gives us " a plain story of the sufferings and sacrifices of the Cubans for their freedom," and herein resides the chief value of the volume, intended for issue in 1898. To us Americans who have lived through a mighty war where humanity always triumphed, and where murder, rapine and arson did not follow in the path of armies, it is hard to believe that so much savagery could have been committed at our very doors during the past generation. Cuba was worked not to supply the Spanish treasury, but to enrich the officials temporarily in power there — in 1890 Pando told the Cortes of forty millions of dollars of recent defal- cations. That the native Cuban, a descendant of Old Castile, should object to so many low-born Spaniards coming to despoil him, was not unnatural ; but could any other of the civilized P^uropean nations have been guilty of such atrocities under the shadow of free America ? And yet international courtesies in either continent must be maintained under trying conditions. All this is now past ; let us look to it that our regime shall bear better fruit. The sketches of Cuban troops and commanders, of character and manners, are interesting. The later chapters, devoted to the war, are less fresh. The graceful compliment paid to " the stupendous tasks at Santiago" and " the amazing valor of American soldiers" makes one
