KNOWLEDGE AT A GLANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 103, 2 May 1891, Page 2

KNOWLEDGE AT A GLANCE.

THE STATESMAN'S YEAR BOOK,

Those giants of the publishing world, Messrs Macniillan, are evidently determined to keep up to the time which brought such books as " Hazell " into existonce. The thirst for information of the reliable nutshell type is characteristic of our day. Everyone is supposed to know tho outlines of everything in times when universal knowledge ie aspired to. But living at the pace we do, absorbed as mosb of us are in the cares of money-making, it is manifest that we cannob study all the complicated statistics and keep up with the bold tactics of statesmen, who with one stroke of tho pen add thousands of square mile 3to our Empire. But of course ib is necessary, especially on occasion, that wo should have a correct and concise knowledge of these little things. We are, therefore, glad to purchase tho work and thought of obhers. They pub before us in few words and lucid manner information and figures (the result of laborious toil), concerning all we wanb or oughb to know. Up till recently, however, tho manyheaded would have been unable to obtain information from this source, the books being so numerous and expensive. Macmillan's saw the wanb, and supplied it, so far as political and State information went, with the "Statesman's Year Book." Year by year this volume has been improved and enlarged, bub in this year or grace 1891 ib has taken a leap so far in advance of any other that it merits special notice. It is a small, fat, red book, oasily carried, and so well arranged that, as they say in advertisements, a child might use it.

The amount of useful information included in its 1,000 odd pages is Bimply stupendous, and ib would be quite impossible with the space at our disposal to give any adequate idea of the same. Every item is absolutely up bo dato, too.

The extent of our recent annexations in Africa up to January, '91, aro given with minutest particulars. Most people know absolutely nothing about tho eaid annexations, and even those who have followed African statesmanship, or rather bhe sbatesmanship securing Africa, up, have only tho vaguest ideas of the value and extent of the lands wo have so freely taken ' over — British Zambesi, or Nyassaland, Basutoland, British Easb Africa. All thesq are very rocenb or comparatively recenb acquisitions. Ruanda, a powerful Batu Sbate, for instance, who knew thab this was " a very fertile, heal bhy region, abounding ia rich minerals, hot springs, and valuable timber, which cover one of its mountains, Mfumbiro by name, and 10,000 feet high." The line of demarcation, as laid down by the Anglo-German Convention of Judy, 1890, intersects this district, assigning the northern part to Britain —including Mount Mfumbiro—and the southern to Germany, and the Statesman's Year 8,.0k for '91 is brimful of such information all piohily expressed and accompanied by figures and statistics that would delight a mathematician. Turn up for instance our own glorious country New Zealand. The Ballance Ministry ia given, the proportion of representation to population, heaps of particulars anentthe LegislasiveCounciland the noble House of Representatives. The statistics are most complete and the tables so arranged as to be comprehensive to the meanest capacity. Instruction, religion, population (including mosb interesting tabular sbabements of births, deaths and marriages), justice and crime, all are fully treated in a style thab is lucidity itself. And so ib is with eveiy country one has

ever heard of, and a surprising amount of places of whose existence many of us were not even aware of.