with life, especially with life that for one reason or another has not been prosperous or very happy. It is difficult to read the book without mental reference to the author's fame as an actress, and it is almost impossible not to feel that, had she chosen letters, she would have been equalBesides sympathy, ly famous as a writer. she has a clear vision, both for character and for causes, and, in spite of a leaning towards the sentimental view, she holds her emotions pretty well in hand. We have many better writers than Clara Morris, but few of them have written better tales. A Century of Science, and Other Essays. By The Agreeable and profitable reading is assured in any book by Mr. Fiske. The fourteen essays composing this latest volume may not make quite so stimulating a draught as some of his other writings, but what they lack in this they make up in their sparkling flow of information and refreshing good sense. The longest and, perhaps, the most interesting, is a eulogy of the historian Parkman, exhibiting the impressive picture of his life and labors. The two next in order of length are, with one exception, the slenderest in matter. One of these, an account of "Some Cranks and their Crotchets," makes one laugh a little, but the most irresistible things in it are quoted from De Morgan's incomparable 'Budget of Paradoxes.' other is a refutation, neat as a proposition in Euclid, of the theory that Bacon wrote Shakspere. It is only a pity that the object of attack does not offer sufficient resistance to allow of much strength being put forth against it. Less courteous is a brief insesThree of sion upon the Rev. Joseph Cook. the remaining essays deal largely with the In an account of author's reminiscences. "Cambridge as a Village and as a City," it is the ancient history that is the most curious. There is little about the aspect of the modern village before its incorporation in 1846, since Mr. Fiske did not see it until fourteen years after that event, when its sweet childish ruralness had given place to an ungraceThere ful hobbledehoy suburbanity. two obituary notices of the author's friends, Edward Augustus Freeman and Edward L. Youmans, the latter of autobiographical, as well as other, interest. In a discussion of the arbitration treaty we note that as lately as 1897 Mr. Fiske dreamed that our proud and successful rejection of a standing army might stand as an example that Europe So it is must, in course of time, emulate. that each step toward knowledge of ourselves consists in the dissipation of some illusion. are The author evidently attaches considerable importance to his paper on "The Part Played by Infancy in the Evolution of Man," and in his intimate dedicatory epistle to Prof. Thomas Sergeant Perry he properly reclaims for himself the title to the authorship of the theory that the prolonged period of infancy of men is the cause of the persistence of family relations and so of human society. The objection that man's infancy is not, in fact, particularly prolonged seems never to have received from Mr. Fiske an adequate reply. An essay on "The Scope and Purport of Evolution" is a protest against the assumption that that doctrine is unfavorable to be Here Mr. Now men The strongest of the papers is that which gives its title to the book. This is intended to show that the nineteenth century has been intellectually the greatest of all ages, that the idea of evolution is the greatest product of this greatest age, and that Herbert Spencer is the greatest exponent of this greatest of ideas. Most readers will be ready enough to agree that the trick of inquiring concerning each generic phenomenon how it came about or could have come about, is, on the whole, the most cunning lesson that the nineteenth-century animal has learned. Many among our reading millions innocently suppose that Herbert Spencer invented evolutionary philosophy. They do not realize that what probably first magnetized the youthful Aristotle from a student of medicine into a student of the cosmos was the influence of the strong current of evolutionary thought that had been set up in his environment by Democritusthought that must have seemed as novel and as scientific to him as that of Spencer first seemed to the youthful Fiske, albeit there is reason to suspect that it was even then ancient lore. Aristotle, by the way, though he always retained a high opinion of Democritus, did not persist in such unparalleled devotion and faith of discipleship as Fiske retains for Spencer. Some of Mr. Fiske's readers, however, while willing to accord a good measure of applause to Spencer's early discernment of how much slow growth might bring about, will nevertheless remark two circumstances which will limit their admiration of him. The first is, that his 'Psychology' and 'First Principles' were not the earliest expressions of evolutionary philosophy, nor even of evolutionary philosophy of a quasi-scientific cast, for the nebular hypothesis, which to any thinking man carries along with it a general doctrine of biological evolution, was given to the world by Kant in the year 1755. The second circumstance is, that Spencer is really not an evolutionist of a thorough-going kind, since he explicitly proclaims that, in his opinion, evolution is only one of two alternating processes, evolution and dissolution (the yéveσis and peopá of Democritus), which he places on a par, while he further makes both those processes alike mere consequences of an eternal law that never came about at all, the "law of the persistence of force"; and against any attempt to drive investigation into the origin of that, he sets up a warn ing notice of no thoroughfare. That Spencer saw and felt some truths before almost anybody else, nobody can deny; but how far his writings have really influenced the deeper thinkers of the century, which seems to be the true point in question, is something Mr. Fiske still leaves in doubt. One brilliant disciple the Synthetic Philosophy can boast; but, after him, we can call to mind only men whom it were flattery to call mediocrities in philosophy, In short, the nineteenth century has brought us all to agree that nearly everything is to be accounted for by evolution; but the question as to how evolution is itself to be accounted for, or what rank it is to take among the uniformities of nature or the categories of philosophy, looks to-day less like finding a speedy settlement than it did soon after the publication of the 'Origin of Species.' Point and Pillow Lace: A Short Account of The compiler of 'Point and Pillow Lace' has very efficiently grappled with the task she set herself, and has produced a valuable guide to lovers of lace, excellently well illustrated by magnified photographs of each particular kind and of all details connected with her subject. A. M. S. was incited to undertake this manual by the extreme difficulty of identifying any particular piece in the more exhaustive 'History of Lace' of Mrs. Palliser and other well-known experts, to whose studies she acknowledges her obligation in the production of this work. The earliest pictorial record of lace is supposed to be in a picture of Quentin Matsys in the Church of St. Peter at Louvain of 1495. In England lace seems not to have come into use on frills and ruffs before Queen Elizabeth's reign. In the portraits of Mary Tudor in the National Portrait Gal- The great lace-making centres were Ve nice, Brussels, and Alençon. Although each had distinctive methods and styles of design and production, fashion often controlled the demand for certain kinds of lace to such an extent that it is not always easy, even for an adept, to judge certain speci mens. Our authoress assures us that Spanish point and the so-called Greek lace and Point de Raguse are all of Venetian provenance, just as Point d'Angleterre is essentially from Brussels, notwithstanding its name. Venetian lace-workers brought to Alençon by Colbert under Louis XIV. taught their art in France with splendid results, since in time the French surpassed the skill of their masters, and for a century the lace produced at Alençon was by royal decree called Point de France. We have not space to follow our authoress through her series from mediæval drawn work or punto tirato to the humble machine-made lace of Nottingham. Her book will be useful especially to collectors who need knowledge and advice in the purchase of examples of the art. We have a cheaper and revised edition of Ernest Lefébure's interesting history of 'Embroidery and Lace,' in which he demonstrates the important part woman's work has taken in decoration in the world's history, in the hope of inciting the new woman to devote her energies to these humbler walks of art. The additions include a more complete list and illustrations of different kinds of Irish lace, a further illustration of Greek embroidery (p. 46), and several emendations of the text. We observe, however, in a footnote (p. 240), for which Mr. Cole is responsible, that Ragusa is described as having been "one of the principal Adriatic ports belonging to the Venetian Republic." The Republic of Ragusa was always independent of Venice, while open to Venetian trade and influence. Its independence was terminated by French occupation under a treaty in the Napoleonic wars. The illustrations which profusely intersperse the text, though poor in execution, are very useful, and well chosen to give an idea of the historic pieces of embroidery described. Mr. Townsend's little manual, with a preface by Walter Crane, is intended as a practical guide to students of the beautiful art of embroidery. It treats of design as well as of the diversity of methods, and abounds in examples of all kinds of embroidery, from ancient times down to our own. The illustrations are, unfortunately, of a cheap character, which falsify the values of the colors represented, and therefore fail to be as instructive as they should. The diagrams of stitches at the end are very intelligible, and will be found useful to beginners. Our author says but little that is really of practical use as to design; he justly warns his readers to avoid certain well-known pitfalls, such as representing flowers in a naturalistic manner and forcing light and shade; he advises on what lines nature should be studied by seeking to express the characteristics of the plant, flower, or fruit designed, its growth, the way the leaves spring from the stem, its buds in different stages of development. He insists on being truthful to facts, but on their being treated decoratively. His views are unquestionably correct, and he seems to have sought them at excellent sources, judging by the list of books he quotes as having helped him for this work. The difficulty of producing a good design remains, however, unsolved, and the examples of modern work among the illustrations show how very far we are from understanding decoration, and how in less enlightened times, before so much was thought and written on art problems, personal taste and the natural desire to embellish objects of daily life produced a far more attractive result. The panel of Pomona, which serves as frontispiece, designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris and very inadequately represented here, is the only remarkable modern piece of work in the volume. We have always understood that the Royal School of Art Needlework excelled rather in its execution of work than in its designs. A General Survey of American Literature. By Mary Fisher. Chicago: McClurg & Co. The author of this comely and well-printed book complains of Walt Whitman (p. 363) that "He is like a little second-hand country shop that calls itself the 'World's Bargain Store' and has the earth for its sign." It evidently does not occur to her that this description is not wholly inappropriate to her own book, the comprehensiveness of whose title is curiously in contrast with the mediocrity of its execution. This would perhaps be scarcely worth saying, were it not that it illustrates a serious peril of our widespread public-school system, namely, the constant multiplication of text-books proceeding from teachers who are themselves of crude and untrained mind. This book, which is a sample of many, is honest, sincere, courageous; but it is on the other hand immature, unequal, and goes little behind the ordinary sources of daily knowledge. It has plainly undergone little revision, and makes mistakes which any common encyclopædia would have corrected-as, for instance, where it repeatedly spells Charles Brockden Brown's family name Browne (pp. 13, 17, 18, 138, 383), or says of James Russell Lowell that "The city of Lowell, Massachusetts, was named after one of his ancestors, and another was the founder of the Lowell Institute, Boston" (p. 312), although as a matter of fact it was his uncle whose name was given to the city, and his cousin who founded the Institute; the former event occurring when Lowell was a baby and the other after he had left college. So the Quinquennial Catalogue of Harvard University would have shown the writer that Jones Very, the poet, was never tutor in Greek at the Harvard Divinity School, but in the college itself; nor did he ever study theology in that school (p. 127). So her severest charges against Margaret Fuller (p. 139), that she did not recognize Wordsworth as a "new star," and that she "left no memorable word" about Goethe, are easily disposed of by her own published letter (Memoirs i., 167), in which she says of Wordsworth, in 1836, "I find my insight of this sublime poet perpetually deepening," and that passage in which Prof. Hedge, then unquestionably the best German scholar in America, says of her critique on Goethe, "As far as it goes, it is one of the best criticisms extant of Goethe" (Memoirs i., 96). These are misstatements more serious than the misspelling of a man's name, and in regard to Charles Brockden Brown himself a little more knowledge of the literary history of the period would have shown the author that his novels, while still hampered by the ghost of Mrs. Radcliffe, really laid the foundation for modern American realism in their description of Philadelphia society and manners, of the roving Indian, the newly arrived French musician, the gray cougar amidst his limestone caves. His novels had a distinct influence on the Godwin and Shelley circle in England, and Mrs. Shelley, in her novel of 'The Last Man,' founds her description of an epidemic on "the masterly delineations of the author of 'Henry Mervyn.'" There are no doubt many other school text-books of no more value than this. If we select this for criticism, it is because it is one of the latest and most ambitious, both in preface and in title. A book calling itself 'A General Survey of American Literature' which does not mention Harriet Beecher Stowe, even in its index, or quote a line of Emerson's poetry, must be regarded as self-condemned in advance. Botanizing: A Guide to Field Collecting and Herbarium Work. By William Whitman Bailey, A.M., Professor of Botany in Brown University. Providence: Preston & Rounds Co. 1899. This is an honest and successful attempt to attract amateurs to the delightful study of plants in forests, fields, and waters. The endeavor is made to show the casual as well as the expert collector that, by the employment of a few simple appliances and by the exercise of a certain amount of patience, it is possible to accumulate at small cost in spring and summer a wealth of material for fascinating investigation during the winter months (which here extend from November through April). Prof. Bailey believes with Charles Darwin, that "if you catch quite a beginner and want to give him a taste of botany," you must "tell him to make a perfect list of some little field or wood." The taste of botany acquired in this manner speedily becomes a taste for botany, and yields the refreshment to the tired brain of the worker in other fields that was so often curative in the cases of John Stuart Mill, John Ruskin, and a host of other busiest thinkers. Of late there has been a feeling in some circles that botany consists largely in the acquisition of materials for the exercise of what is known as nomenclature-a device for attaching personal names to helpless plants; and it has been further felt that, if the supply of personal names to be commemorated should outrun the supply of plants, it would be necessary to reshuffle the cards and name the species all over again. Fortunately, there has been a very large number of students who have preferred to look upon plants not so much as things to be named as things to be studied, and there have been many diligent observers who have taken up the task of asking all sorts of searching questions of the plants themselves, such as: How did you happen to settle here? Who were your ancestors? Are your relations to your neighbors at present agreeable? What are you good for? and, Where do you think of going next? The answers to such questions are given by the plants, sometimes rather vaguely, and oftentimes very clearly. The amount of information which has been acquired in this way concerning the structure, the habits, the uses, the diseases, and the probable origin of plants, is now rea Augier et Sandeau's Le Gendre de M. Poirier. (Symington.) 12mo. Boards.. $.30 Beers' English Romanticism-XVIII. Century. 2.00 12mo..... * Buck and Woodbridge's Expository Writing. 12mo. Buck's Argumentative Writing. 12mo.... 1.00 * Canfield's French Lyrics. (Over 230 selected poems in French.) 16mo. * * 12mo......... 12mo. .80 1.00 2.50 1.50 1.25 Dowson and Moore's Adrian Rome. A contemporary portrait. Eighteenth Century Letters. (Bimley Johnson.) SWIFT, ADDISON, and STEELE, (Poole.) I vol. With VOCAB. 16mo.. 16mo.... ** France's Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard. (Wright.) 16mo... * .80 Hancock's French Revolution and the English Poets. (Gates.) 12mo. 1.25 * 12mo... 1.20 [* .85 12mo * * 12mo. Kuhns' French Readings. For Beginners. With Vocabulary. 12mo... 1.50 1.20 * 3.00 * .70 3.00 8vo.... 4.00 16mo. * * .60 .60 12mo.. [1.25 Schiller: Thirty Years' War-Selections. (Palmer.) 16mo. Net books are marked*. Postage on them is 8 per cent. additional, and they are also suppliel from the Publishers' CHICAGO Branch, 378 Wabash Avenue. **=net, special. Boards. (Kuhns.) 12mo. The Wheat Problem. Based on remarks made in the Presidential Address to the British Association at Bristol in 1898; revised, with an answer to various critics, by Sir WILLIAM CROOKES, F.R.S., with two chapters on the future wheat supply of the United States, by Mr. C. WOOD DAVIS, of Peotone, Kansas, and the Hon. JOHN HYDE, Chief Statistician to the Department of Agriculture, Washington, 12mo. (Nearly ready.) This volume is an elaboration of the presidential address delivered by Sir William Crookes before the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In this address the author pointed out the serious peril awaiting wheat-eaters who contentedly pursue the present wasteful system of cultivation. Under the present conditions of wheat culture, scarcity of wheat is within an appreciable distance, as the wheat-growing lands all over the world are becoming exhausted, and it seems to the author that at some future time-and. in his oplnion, at no far distant time-no available wheat land will be left. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, London. JUST PUBLished. The River War; An Account of the Recovery of the Soudan. By WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL, author of "Savrola," "The Malakand Field Force," etc. Edited by Col. F. Rhodes, D. S. O. With 35 maps and 60 illustrations; and with photogravure portraits of Slatin Pasha, General Rundle, General Sir Archibald Hunter, General Wingate, Colonel Macdonald, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, and Lord Cromer. Two vols., medium 8vo, $10.00. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., 91-93 Fifth Ave., New York. 1.25 * 1.50 .25 DIFFERENCES By HERVEY WHITE. PRICE, $1.50. "The book is a powerful one and intensely John Wade is a creation in interesting. fiction. He is a splendid character in his simplicity and his truth. The plot is boldly simple and full of genuine tragedy. The mar riage has in it all the solemnity that attaches itself to the inevitable fatal catastrophe of a great drama, and leaves the reader tormented with all the perplexities to which it gives no answer."Commercial Advertiser. SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY, Boston. AUTOGRAPH LETTERS of Famous People BOUGHT and SOLD. WALTER R. BENJAMIN, 1125 Broadway, New York City. Send for Price List. NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JANUARY 11, 1900. The Week. significant of future political domination, Accordingly, Gen. Otis took the liberty, offer of President McKinley not to kill It was made evident in the first session of the Senate after the holiday recess that the Administration policy of secrecy and suppression regarding the course of affairs in the Philippines can no longer be pursued with impunity. When Mr. Pettigrew of South Dakota offered a resolution directing the Secretary of War to furnish the Senate information as to the circumstances under which the present war with the Filipinos began in February, 1899, four Republicans were promptly on their feet to ob-it-laughter and venom for that humane ject. Mr. Pettigrew is so little respected, and has such small influence in the Senate, that any protest from him against the smothering of the proposed inquiry would have counted for little. But it was a very different matter when that veteran Republican leader, Mr. Hoar of Massachusetts, denounced what he termed an "attempt to throttle Senators" in their efforts to obtain information concerning the "deplorable conditions" which have existed in the Philippines for some time past; and gave notice that, if there was to be an absolute suppression of all requests for information concerning the war with the Filipinos, he should object to the taking up of other matters during the morning hour when such resolutions are pending. This declaration of independence served its purpose, and forced Mr. Aldrich, who had led in the objections to the Pettigrew resolution, to disclaim any inten-world development. tion to suppress information. The policy of hush about the Philippines ought to have been applied to official documents before the attempt was made to. enforce it in the Senate. Gen. Otis's report, for example, throws a glaring light upon the blundering which led to the war with the Filipinos. When the President's illegal proclamation of' December a year ago reached him, he was thunderstruck-not at its illegality, but at its unwisdom. So what did he do but edit it! Here is his own account of the matter: "After fully considering the President's proclamation and the temper of the Tagalos with whom I was daily discussing political problems and the friendly intentions of the United States Government towards them, I concluded that there were certain words and expressions therein, such as 'sovereignty,' 'right of cession,' and those which directed immediate occupation, etc., which, though most admirably employed and tersely expressive of actual conditions, might be advantageously used by the Tagalo war party to incite widespread hostilities among the natives. The ignorant classes had been taught to believe that certain words, as 'sovereignty,' 'protection,' etc., had peculiar meaning disastrous to their welfare and As the only member of either branch of Congress who has been in the Philip. pines, Senator Beveridge of Indiana was sure of an attentive hearing when he rose on Tuesday to defend the Administration's policy. Mr. Beveridge came into prominence in his State as a "boy orator," and there has never been a more striking illustration of a man "inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity" than he now presents. For "spread-eagleism" the Senate chamber has never heard anything to equal that part of his speech in which he turns seer, and interprets the meaning of expansion as a policy in national and We have been waiting for the imperialist press to go into transports over Gov. Leary's order abolishing slavery in the island of Guam, but we have waited in vain. The reason, however, we can of his orders regulating agriculture and domestic life have a distinctly comic flavor. But this decree of his abolishing slavery, even in the mild form of peonage, is no joke. Nor is it a joke that the American people are now so humiliated by the existence of slavery under their jurisdiction in the Sulus that they cannot even applaud its abolition in Guam. Senator Foraker of Ohio is going to force consideration of another question which is only less important than our course in the Philippines. This is the relation that Porto Rico shall occupy to the United States. From the very nature of the case, no excuse for main taining the present military administration can long be found in an island where there is no danger of outbreaks. A civil government of some sort must be established at an early day. Even the great temporizer in the White House admitted in his message to Congress last month that some legislation should be enacted at this session with reference to Porto Rico. Mr. Foraker on January 3 introduced a bill which would establish a form of government that would treat the island like one of our existing Territories. He proposes that the President shall appoint a Governor, a Supreme Court, seven heads of departments, and five native citizens, who, with the Governor and department heads, shall constitute the upper branch of the Legislature; that the lower house, consisting of thirty-five members, shall be elected by the citizens of the island; that the latter shall also elect a delegate to Congress, who shall have a seat but no vote-as has always been the rule with our Territories; and that the Constitution and laws of the United States, so far as the latter are locally applicable, shall be extended to Porto Rico, with the conse with free trade between Porto Rico and the United States proper. make a shrewd guess at. After defend-quent prohibition of export duties and We continue to receive circulars from the Planters' and Farmers' Association of Cuba, asking for assistance in procuring the repeal of the "Foraker amendment," which prohibits the granting of any charters or franchises in the island while it continues under our military government. In the last one so received we are reminded that every State in the American Union has upon its statutebook a law permitting franchises to be taken by persons needing them by simply filing a schedule with the names, purposes, and amount of capital stock of the incorporators. Yet Cuba, just emerging from centuries of Spanish oppression, cannot get a charter for a mortgage bank to lend her farmers the capi tal to rehabilitate their cane-fields. This is certainly a trying situation. If only financial considerations were taken account of, nothing could be said in favor of the Foraker amendment. But the political consideration is involved in the financial one. The Cuban papers which favor an independent government are strongly opposed to a repeal of the ley Foraker. La Discusión, for example, urgently insists that no charters should be granted in Cuba except by "a government or entity freely chosen by the Cuban people." If franchises are granted by the military commander, there will be a rush of the capitalist and speculating class to the United States authorities, and gradually the feeling of independence and the desire for it will be sapped, and the resistance to annexation will be lessened in both countries. The appointments of Gens. Young, MacArthur, and Ludlow to brigadiergeneralships in the regular army are the most interesting in years to army officers. Not since 1873, when George Crook was similarly promoted, have any officers below the rank of colonel in the regular army been given these coveted places. But Gens. MacArthur and Lud. low were not only lieutenant-colonels when advanced, but staff lieutenantcolonels as well, and it would be necessary to go back to civil-war times to find similar cases. For decades past, line officers alone have been deemed eligible for promotion to the line generalships, and a staff officer could hope to become a brigadier-general only by appointment as head of his own corps. That this departure from well-established tradition will create considerable illfeeling among the forty-two colonels of cavalry, artillery, and infantry of longer service who have been jumped, cannot be doubted. At the same time, no one will deny that these places have been bestowed upon men who have thoroughly earned them. thur and Young in the Philippines would have won similar, if not greater recognition, in any foreign service, while Gen. Ludlow's work in Havana has been of a far higher and better kind. It is an interesting and extraordinary fact that the last-named officer was nominated to and confirmed by the Senate for a brigadier-generalship which does not become vacant until January 21, on the retirement of Gen. Anderson. We do not recall another case where appointment was made to an office before it was vacated. The services of MacAr The greater part of the speech which Senator Aldrich made in reporting back the currency bill of the House with the finance committee's amendments will receive the hearty concurrence of all the advocates of sound money. There was little that could be called new in what he said, but the saying of it in the Senate by authority of one of its committees is so opposed to the custom of that body that it arrests attention at once. It is a stroke upon the clock of time signalizing that the United States is about to put the great question of the standard of value beyond further dispute, and address itself to other issues. Mr. Aldrich did well to expose the sham and pretence of those who profess to believe that the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 by the United States alone would have the effect of lifting the value of silver up to the level of gold. He characterized this belief as either dishonesty or insanity. He said that the passage of the bill before the Senate would not disable this country from joining in a future conference to promote international bimetallism. That is quite true, but it puts international bimetallism hors de combat just the same. There is no discernible movement in the world to call another such conference. All the movements are in the direction of the single gold standard. Russia has adopted that standard and has actually resumed specie payments. India, by declining the allurements of the Wolcott Commission, has ranged herself under the same standard. Austria, in spite of her political difficulties of recent years, has steadily pursued the course which she laid out for herself in 1893. And now the United States, which has not departed from the gold standard at any moment since specie payments were resumed in 1879, makes public declaration that "the standard unit of value shall, as now, be the dollar, and shall consist of 25.8 grains of gold nine-tenths fine." This is practically giving notice to the world that we have no further desire to join in conferences to bring about a change of standard. The bill to amend the Interstate Commerce law recently introduced by Senator Cullom, it is understood, was prepared in the office of the Interstate Commerce Commission. It has been submitted, in a more or less formal manner, at meetings of commercial associations, where commendatory votes have been obtained. Railroad managers do not appear to have participated in the preparation of it, although a comparison between its terms and those of the bill presented by the Commission last year shows that modifications have been made in certain features that were then especially criticised. The bill, as now presented, may be regarded as an official proposition, and it will doubtless be made the basis of any legislative action that may be had during the present session of Congress. It therefore should receive the utmost publicity and the most careful consideration, both in respect to its general scope and its details. The Interstate Commerce act, since its passage in 1887, has been amended in a few comparatively unimportant particulars. The bill now introduced proposes to rewrite eight sections of the act and to add two new sections. The changes proposed are important, affecting as they do the short-haul section, the publicity section, the punishment section, the commission-procedure sections, the enforcement section, and the annual-report section. The additions proposed provide for a national classification of freight and for rehearings by the Commission. The important fifth section, which prohibits pooling agreements, is not affected. No attempt is made to relieve the roads from the difficulties created by the interpretation which has been given to the anti-Trust law. Intimations, however, have been thrown out that a section authorizing pooling and other agreements may perhaps be added in committee, provided that the language of such amendment be guarded to the satisfaction of the Commission, and that the desires of the Commission as now formulated be not interfered with. The measure is entirely one-sided; it contains only regulative features. It does not in the least attempt to protect carriers in their rights, or to assist them in their efforts to transact the business of transportation in conformity with the requirements of the law. This course of procedure seems unfortunate, and likely to prevent, rather than to promote, the attainment of much-needed amendments of the law. It is not usual for a public body, in proposing a legislative mea sure, to ignore deliberately the interests of an important section of its constituents. In the present case this has been done, and it seems like asking a good deal to expect the roads to unite cordially in action to make the proposed reconstruction of the statute a practical success. Certainly this result cannot be arrived at unless the propositions of the Commission are all inherently just, and unless other necessary features are to be welcomed as proper to be incorporated in the bill. The announcement that a majority of the Senate committee on privileges and elections will make an adverse report upon Quay's claim to a seat by the appointment of the Governor of Pennsylvania is no surprise. All the members of that committee sat in the Senate when a somewhat similar question came up during the last Congress on an appointment by the Governor of Oregon (all but two of the nine having been on the committee then), and they stand now where they stood before. Mr. Hoar, the leader of the minority in the committee, has always been a stout defender of the Governor's power in the premises, and, of course, it is a question of principle with him. He is quite right in the indigna |