craftsman, a skill they regarded as magic. The Celts were the aristocratic rulers of old Wales, it is the prowess of Celtic heroes and the fair beauty of Celtic women that are described by the earliest poets of Iberian blood. After the Celts came a race like them in many things, but uglier and less gifted. This Teutonic wave came along the great northern plain, and it reached our islands from the point at which the plain reaches the western sea, at the neck of the Jutland peninsula. This great migration did not cease for many centuries. It had begun before the birth of Christ, the Roman tried in vain to stem it, and its force was not spent before one half of Wales was conquered by the Norman knights it had brought into Gaul. Iberian, Celt, Teuton, we are not any one of these, we are all of them. Our characteristics might be traced to one or the other of these,-genius and vice to the Iberian, strength and pride to the Celt, honesty and wilfulness to the Teuton. our conclusions would probably be all wrong, for the elements are changed by intermixture. Besides, the existence of the elements themselves is largely a matter of inference. But But there is one question of supreme importance concerning the difference between them. It is this, had they all reached the marriage stage, or "the patriarchal stage," the patriarchal stage," as it is called. Some say that the story of human development begins with marriage, others say that marriage itself is the crown of a long course of development out of a horde existence. This much is certain, there are nations among whom the marriage tie is so weak that it is impossible to find it, nations whose institutions do not presuppose the existence of the family at all. Whether this is a relic of a stage previous to the family stage, or whether it is a falling away from it, must be left to be discussed by the supporters of Maine and Morgan respectively. But when we find, in the Welsh laws, a community whose privileges are based on marriage existing side by side with a community with no family privileges, we naturally ask,-Do we not find here the Iberian and the Celt not yet assimilated? We shall be tempted to go further and ask,-Did the Celt come as the apostle of the severe sanctity of marriage and is the sullying of it due in a measure to the presence of the more sensuous Iberian? The migration did not cease when the forests and the marshes of the north ceased to pour their barbarians into the Roman lands. The first Angles and Saxons hardly entered into modern Wales in the first days of conquest. But they came gradually, and were followed by those who had largely intermingled with Celtic people, the Flemings and Norsemen who have formed so important a part of the inhabitants of our southern coast. Later on, the towns of Wales were practically garrisons of Englishmen,— centres of civilization and of oppression, selling their wares under the shadow of the king's castles and by charters granted by the king. by the king. It is this that explains, for example, why Owen Glendower could not carry his golden dragon into Carnarvon, and why so much English is spoken at Carmarthen to-day. In our own day, the migration from east to west is going on as rapidly as ever, though not attended with slaughter as before. The discovery of the coal and iron of Monmouth and Glamorgan has brought into Wales thousands of men who are by this time an integral part of the Welsh people. The continuity of the Welsh people is not that of Snowdon, it is that of the Severn. Not only do people come, they go. They look upon our mountains as their home, they go and are lost among other nations. It is thus that we were able to give French literature a Renan and English art a Burne Jones. To the great towns of England Welsh emigration has been unbroken for centuries, Welshmen now flock to Liverpool and Manchester as they once flocked to Worcester and Chester. America they are among the most esteemed citizens, and the history of the United States can not be told without giving prominence to many of the sons of the mountains of Wales. In The last comers are, for a while, the most prominent element in the history of the people. Then they die off and gradually lose their prominence and power. To take an instance where there can be no mistake, it is wonderful how soon most of the families of those who signed Magna Carta became extinct. The first comer is the most acclimatized, and has the best chance of surviving. The key to the history of modern times is the gradual and peaceful upheaval of the lower classes. Governing classes are gradually disappearing. The old fashioned justice, combining hunting with dispensing justice to those who dared hunt on their own account, no longer reigns supreme. The priest, who could once curse the world and lock the gates of heaven, has no longer a monopoly of the explanation of truth and superstition. The conqueror is being gradually divested of the last power and of the last show of power he has so long held. The answer to the question “Who are the Welsh people" is no idle or useless It explains the growth of representation which has been the characteristic answer. of the last four centuries; it explains the cry for local government that will be, possibly, the characteristic of four centuries to come. Old Wales was feudal. It was under an aristocracy of princes. The reason is that the various classes were not assimilated; the religion of the time said that men must keep their stations, and exercise patience; there was no means of taking the castles or of piercing the steel which gave one class the power of ruling over another. New Wales is becoming democratic. The perfection of gunpowder will probably make war so horrible before long that men will put an end to it. The spread of education will make every man his own priest. The people will become self-governing, and the last vestige of a difference between castes will disappear. The Iberian is inevitably conquering his conquerors in the end. THE MAKING OF ROLLER LEATHER. THE Cambrian Leather Works, Wrexham, now employing about three hundred men, women, and boys, and having a large trade, not merely in Great Britain, but also in Russia, India, and America, have developed, during the last 120 years, out of a small country tannery into a manufactory of light leather of all sorts, and especially of what is called "roller leather," the production of which at Wrexham largely exceeds the total output of all other makers of roller leather in the United Kingdom. Mr. A. Seymour-Jones, one of the partners in the firm of Messrs. J. MeredithJones and Sons; the present proprietors of the Cambrian Leather Works, published in the autumn of 1893 an interesting little work on "Roller Leather," in which the development of the manufacture of that product and the leading part taken in connection with it by the author's own firm, and by the predecessors of that firm, are clearly traced. Roller leather is believed to have had its birth in the tannery on the site of which the Cambrian Leather Works now stand, and it is this specialty that has that has made Wrexham known to cotton spinners throughout the world. One of the necessities of the cotton spinner is to obtain a perfect covering for his steel rollers, which, being of varying sizes, and having varying rates of revolution, effect the attenuation of the thread before it is twisted. A first covering is provided by what is called "roller cloth," a special product of Lancashire. But outside this inner covering, which serves as a cushion, an outer covering is required, which must possess the several properties of elasticity, toughness, thinness, and extreme smoothness of surface. The only material which has been found in practice to fulfil this function with entire satisfaction is a special sort of leather. The skins of mountainbred sheep are the best adapted for the production of this le..ther, but the methods of treating them, so as to secure the results required, are so complex as to require great experience and unceasing attention, and to make it intelligible why the manufacture of roller leather is not merely a specialty, but almost a monopoly. But in these days of keen competition and high pressure, the manufacturer who is a little ahead of his fellows must strain every nerve to maintain the lead. Formerly tanning, although a chemical as well as a mechanical process, was invariably a matter of rule of thumb, or of traditional and varying custom. It was at the Cambrian Leather Works, Wrexham, that the first fully organised laboratory, in connection with a tannery, was established in Great Britain. The Leather Industries Laboratory at the Yorkshire College, Leeds, was not started until some months later, and was then inferior in point of equipment. It was desired, by setting up a laboratory in organic connection with the Cambrian Cambrian Leather Works, not merely to put all the details of the several processes on a scientific basis, to test regularly the THE PRECEDENCE. HE following anecdote relates to the contest for precedence between two Monmouth families,-Proger, of Wernddu, and Powel, of Perthyr,-claiming descent from the same ancestor, and which, though no blood was shed, was not less obstinate than that between the rival Houses of York and Lancaster. Mr. Proger, of Wernddu, had dined with a friend in Monmouth, and proposed riding home in the evening, but his friend objected on account of the lateness of the hour and the great probability of its raining before long, to which Mr. Proger replied, that "if it was late they would have moonlight, and should it come to rain, Perthyr is not far from the road, and my cousin Powel will, I am very sure, give us a night's lodging." They accordingly mounted their horses and set out, but were soon overtaken by a violent storm; and on arriving at Perthyr, they found all the family had retired to rest. Mr. Proger, however, called to his cousin Powel, who, opening his window and looking out, said, What in the name of wonder means all this disturbance? Who is there?" "It is only I, your cousin Proger, of Wernddu, who am come to your hospitable door for shelter from the storm, and trust you will be kind enough to give me and my friend a night's lodging." "What, is it you, cousin Wernddu? You and your friend shall be instantly admitted on one condition,-that you will allow, and never afterwards dispute, that I am the head of the family.” "No, sir, I never would admit that; WERE IT TO RAIN SWORDS AND DAGGERS, I would ride this night to Wernddu, rather than lower the consequence of my family. Come up, Bald, come up." - "Stay a moment, cousin Proger, have you not often confessed that the first Earl of Pembroke, of the Herbert family,was the youngest son of Perthyr, and will you set yourself above the Earls of Pembroke?" Châteaubriand mentions a lai of one of the early trouvères, in which the unfortunate Robert, Duke of Normandy, -or Robert Courthose, as he was called, is supposed, during his confinement in Cardiff Castle, to apostrophize an oak, an eagle, and the sea, from the window of his prison. I. "KING of the forests! lo! I see Thy form again, thou old oak tree; Whilst thou, in strength's unconquered pride, The autumn rain; thou canst not fear, The peasant's head to screen; Within thine arms the stockdove's nest, Ay! thou a ruler art, and free, II. "And thou, too, princely bird, whose flight He leaves the landscape, all too soon, Weighs down that soaring wing, "Fair stream, whose silent waters roll Or hush to sleep the band Of faithful ones, whose lances shine, Why rave I thus? Can the dead fight ? My love! my wife! the evening star My son! my son! oh! sacred word, Let not that cadence sweet be heard For haply by my Sybell's side, |