In the present unsettled state of the labor question this novel of the crushed Russian reformer has a most vital interest. It ought to come to every poor working girl like a breath from heaven, like an inspiration. There is no reason why Viéra Pavlovna's industrial experiment, which is no chimerical dream, should not be put into practice in every town where the English language is spoken. Are not the signs as certain as fate, that co-operation is to be the great system of the future? and how reasonably it is presented in "A Vital Question"! Then there will be no more strikes for eight hours of work, no more quarrels between employers and the employed, for the employed will be themselves their own employers. As regards the still more vital question upon which the book touches, it is evident what the author teaches, and with what a master hand! The present marriage system is in many instances a failure; witness the proportion of divorces to marriages in every state, not only in this country, but in countries where divorce is allowed, and the immorality everywhere. How is it to be stopped? not by free love; but by education and the joining of those who were meant to be joined. Marriage is a fact, and how is it to be purified and made sacred? Tchernuishevsky offers his theory of its practical solution, not in the philosophically absurd and weak conduct of Lopukhóf, which, perhaps, was unavoidable in a country like Russia, but in the suggestions of Rakhmétof, which, however, are only to be realized when people have attained a higher state of morality and education than is to be found, except among a very few, in whom the animal nature is absolutely tamed. Cases have been known where man and wife, growing apart by natural development, have again established love through what we call Christian grace; how many such cases are there? It takes a miracle to mix oil and water. This is a question which forces itself home to every man and woman, "What is to be done about it?" Whatever may be thought about
