FRIDAY, JULY 15, 1887.

THE NUMBER OF ACCIDENTS which occurred on the 4th of July of the present year was very great. In Boston, twenty-seven individuals applied for surgical aid at the City Hospital, and nine beds are occupied by injured persons. At the Massachusetts General Hospital the number is nearly as great. In New York and in Brooklyn there were also very many casualties more. If a description could be given of all these injuries, the picture would be an appaling one. One of the saddest sights we have ever seen was that of a deaf-mute girl whose clothing took fire from a burning pack of fire-crackers which she carried in her pocket. Her back was so severely burned that she was compelled to lie upon her face in bed, and take her nourishment from a vessel while lying in this position. Three days after the receipt of the injury, she developed lockjaw, and died in twelve hours. It is to be hoped that the time is not far distant when the present barbarous method of celebrating Independence Day will be prohibited by law, and the prohibition enforced.

DR. SAMUEL SEXTON has contributed an article to the Medical Record on the subject of boxing the ears. He has upon

his records fifty-one cases in which the ear has been injured by blows of the open hand or fist. Of these, thirty-one were males, and twenty females. Of the males, thirteen had been boxed upon the right ear, thirteen upon the left, and three upon both ears. One was kicked by a companion upon the left ear while bathing, and the right ear of another was injured by having the head violently squeezed between the hands of another person. Of the females, fourteen were struck upon the left ear, and six upon the right. Five of the women were assaulted by their husbands. Of the entire number, eight were boxed in play, four by schoolteachers, two by parents, and one, a fervent lover, by his sweetheart. Several cases occurred among pugilists, and others were due to assaults and brawls. The nature of the injuries varied to a considerable degree. One had inflammation of the ear, with suspicion of intracranial trouble. He had had a running of the ear for twelve years, following a blow upon that organ. This patient subsequently died of brain disease. In another case the ear became inflamed, and the hearing was very much impaired. another, the patient was slapped by his father upon the left ear. Immediate pain and deafness followed, with a bloody discharge from the ear. It was three months before this case recovered. The dangers to which Dr. Sexton calls attention are so grave, that parents, teachers, and others should never punish those committed to their charge by boxing the ear.

DO WE WANT AN INTERNATIONAL

WITH ENGLAND?

In still

COPYRIGHT

THE agitation for an international copyright with England was at its topmost vigor just fifty years ago. It is going on to-day with precisely the same vigor, promoted by the same interest, buttressed by the same arguments, as at its beginning. But meantime the situation has changed. In 1837, when Henry Clay championed a bill for an Anglo-American international copyright in the Senate, all our publishing-houses printed English books without going through the form of asking anybody's permission. All of our magazines were cruisers,' using the matter they found in the English monthlies and quarterlies with despotic freedom; and the question, Who reads an American book?' was answered with practical unanimity by our own countrymen, 'Nobody.'

To-day we are on the eve of another congressional effort for a bill providing for an Anglo-American international copyright. But what is now the situation? Our publishing-houses publish English books as fast as (and often earlier than) they appear in Great Britain, either by purchasing advance sheets of the British publisher, or reprinting by license. And our magazines find plenty of suitable material offered them at home not only, but quite too much, and so rather discourage voluntary contributions at all, preferring to invite contributions from parties chosen by their editors. The exceptions to these propositions are insignificant; and, even were they larger, they would still be exceptions, from which nothing but the rule can be argued. The only difference between the agitation of to-day and the agitation of 1837 is, that to-day we are told that the reform is desired because American authors are suffering for it, and because the absence of an AngloAmerican copyright cheapens and discourages their work; and that it is therefore unpatriotic to further deny it.

Do we want any more books than we have already? What branch of science, or literature, or art, is suffering? From what quarter comes complaint of a dearth of books? Courts are established for the trial of controversies between man and man. Were there no litigation, there would be no courts. And yet one of the horn-book and capital maxims of court is, that it is to the interest of the public that there should be an end of litigation,' — a maxim which is interpreted to mean that compromises and quietings of actions between parties (statutes of limitation, or any discretion of a court tending to discontinuances of lawsuits) will always be encouraged. Are we not coming to the time when there will be some such a paraphrase of this maxim as that it is to the interest of literature that there shall be an end to books'? Certainly the groaning columns of our book-stores begin to bewilder us with their profusion of literary wares, and suggest a question as to how much of all this mass is, after all, literature. How much of it will be on these shelves a year, or even a month, from now, or will have been packed down in the cellars below, or turned over to the paper-stock men in the Ann Streets of our great centres?

If it should prove, for example, to be the fact that a couple of dozen men in the United States do all the writing for our American magazines, whose business would it be, except that of the public,— who buy those magazines or not, entirely as they please? Magazines are not edited, have not for the last ten years been edited, as of old, by voluntary contributions. The editor knows what his readers want, and writes to employ just what writers they want. He saves his reading of manuscripts, thus conserving his eyesight as well as his judgment. If some of our magazine-editors would Just once print some of the manuscript they do receive from voluntary correspondents, just as they receive them, with the orthography, etymology, syntax and prosody, punctuation, and so forth, precisely as their authors send them, I think our public would be convinced that the editors are right in the policy they pursue. And I do not suppose the magazine-purchasing public would very largely clamor for a second effort, on the editors' part, to 'recognize voluntary contributors.' Add to this the fact that a large percentage of the voluntary contributors to our magazines,- convinced that a conspiracy exists among all magazine-editors to reject their manuscript, get their blood up,' so to speak, and print at their own expense in pamphlet or book form, and we derive some idea of the causes which are at work to load down our booksellers' counters. It seems to me that the world of readers will be more apt to ask for a law which will restrict, rather than for one which will increase, the publishing of books; and that they would look less askance at the proposal for an Anglo-American copyright law if assured that it would curtail, rather than exaggerate, the present deluge of printed and published matter.

Another change in the situation since the early agitation for English

international copyright lies in the fact that the daily newspaper, which sells for a couple of coppers, is no longer merely a bulletin of the telegraphic news and market reports, but furnishes daily a volume of reading-matter with which the bookseller must compete sooner or later. Add to this (we can go on adding here for a long time yet) that the articles in the newspapers and the periodicals of more lasting value will surely be printed in book form; and, if not of permanent value, a very large percentage of them will arrive at the same disposition by reason of the collective pride of the authors ("By request of numerous friends who desire to see them in more permanent form," is the stereotype here), and the prospect for more books than we need soon becomes bewildering. And these books, too, are bound to be dilutions of other dilutions in combination; for the original atom which is to be added, at the best can be but small compared to the vast centuries of literature behind each successive book.

Now, in all this maze of things, the publisher is really in the same position as the editor of the magazine. He can bring out the untried manuscripts of his fellow-countrymen, and run the risk of selling enough copies of the venture to grow rich therefrom; or he can take the English books which he knows will sell, which the newspapers and periodicals of the world are advertising for him, and run no risk. He avoids the expenses of proof-reading and correction by buying advance sheets; and since he publishes for the same reason that authors write, to accumulate a competency, and meanwhile to support himself until he does accumulate it, we can hardly blame him, because, already once in print, the author or owner of the English book can deal with him on better terms than the American author.

In answering the question as to whether we really want an international copyright, I should like to consider it under two propositions; namely, (1) whether our own authors need it, and (2) whether the British authors need it (and, if yea to the latter, how we can give it to them at all). In answering these questions, I would like to premise, first, that personally I am in favor of an international copyright with England; that I am not only in favor of, but some years ago labored hard to secure, one (at my own expense), and contributed money to assist the labors of others in the same direction. Nay, further, I once devised a plan by which a case should be constructed, like the celebrated greenback case, wherein an English citizen should write and publish a book in this country, an American publisher pirate and print it, and the Englishman begin an action for the infringement and an accounting; and so go up to the Supreme Court of the United States on the question whether the Constitution of the United States by its exact words, or by any statute enacted by virtue of such exact words or grant of power therein clothed, did forbid, or deny in this single instance, the natural right which every man has to his own, to his property. And I may add (in self-defence, lest what I am led to say in this paper may look as if I am of different mind now from what I was then) that I believe the abstract act of printing for gain, without license therefor, of literary matter one has not produced and which belongs to another, is larceny, pure and simple, and therefore without color of moral excuse.

Let us examine the second question, as to the British author, first. If an Englishman brings his horse to this country, it does not become the less his horse. If I break in upon that Englishman's stables and appropriate that horse, it is horse-stealing on my part; and if I use the horse so appropriated, and earn money by using it, and present the Englishman with a portion of my winnings, I am none the less a stealer of horses. Similarly, if a publisher takes an Englishman's book without the Englishman's consent, and publishes it, he has appropriated what does not belong to him; and if the book so republished sell, and the publisher presents the Englishman with a portion of the proceeds of the sales (or with the entire proceeds, for that matter), the fact that the publisher has appropriated what does not belong to him, and so committed an immoral act, is not affected in the least. But, unfortunately, it is one of the accompaniments of the curse of Adam that nations must legislate for their own people, and make treaties with each other on only the one principle, the selfish principle, of expediency, — of what is expedient to themselves and to their own people. Indeed, no attempt has ever been made, so far as I am aware, to maintain nations on

purely moral grounds. No nation that I am aware of, on being invaded by a foreign foe, has said, "You are right, we are morally wrong, therefore we will not fight you: take our nation, we have erred, and deserve to lose our homes." And, to go a little further, no nation that I am aware of has ever enacted laws for the benefit of citizens of another nation, or even for the benefit of a certain class or guild, or association of citizens of another nation, simply because it was morally right that such laws should be passed, or because the citizens of that country, or class, or guild, or association thereof, had really a moral right to something which the fact that they were not citizens of the nation enacting the laws had theretofore withheld from them. Could or would the British Parliament enact a law for the benefit of American statesmen, or American lawyers, or American physicians, without the comment that one man was as good as another, and that if Parliament proposed to give American statesmen, or lawyers, or physicians, equal rights with English subjects in England, the law should be for the benefit of all Americans, whatever the profession by which they earned their bread, not for a single class thereof, since the Law should be no respecter of persons? Clearly, the English author can only petition the American Congress for a statute of Anglo-American international copyright on the ground that he is a man, and that it is wrong to take his property without his consent; and the only answer to that statement will be, that the laws of national expediency do not, prima facie, permit a nation to pass statutes to secure special justice to a special class of aliens, although it is equally true that no civilized nation denies equal justice, under its general laws, to any man by reason of his alienage.

Second, so far as the American author is concerned, I apprehend that one reason why Congress cannot pass a statute of AngloAmerican international copyright on the petition of American authors is because Americans can not (or at least because they do not) present a case, or at least a grievance, upon which Congress can act. Legislatures in constitutional countries can no more enact statutes than courts can find judgments or issue decrees, without a statement of facts, positive and special: neither the Legislature nor the court can act upon mere generalities. And generalities are all that our American authors can present (or at least have so far presented) to Congress. When any one, or one hundred, American authors can show to Congress that anybody is being specially damaged by the absence of such a statute as they pray for, then the time will come for the showing to be legislated upon. Let the petition recite that A is, and always has been, an American author; that he is dependent upon his trade or profession of authorship for his daily bread; that he cannot earn any money for his authorship unless he can secure a publisher; that he cannot secure a publisher, although he has made every effort in good faith; and that he is informed, and believes, that the reason why he cannot secure a publisher is because Congress has hitherto neglected or refused to pass a statute enacting an Anglo-American international copyright. On such a showing as that, Congress could act : could appoint a committee to inquire into the facts, and, if found as stated, report a bill for the relief of A. But is it not the fact, that, while any number of American authors are willing to sign a round-robin at any time for an Anglo-American international copyright, no single author has ever been known to come forward and make such a petition, or show such a loss or grievance, anywhere or to anybody?

Or if the round-robin of American authors could join in a petition of another sort: Let A, B, C, and D respectfully show that they are citizens of the United States; that, by reason of the neglect or failure of Congress to pass a statute enacting an Anglo-American international copyright, there is a dearth of books, or magazines, or other published matter in the United States; and that by reason of this dearth of books they cannot pursue their studies, or procure reading-matter for themselves or their families; that they are, by reason of this state of things, suffering great loss and hardship, etc.,- there, again, would be a state of facts into which Congress could inquire, and, if found bona fide, could legislate. But I am afraid that this last round-robin would have hardly a leg to stand on, in the current year at least, from the fact that in the office of the Librarian of Congress, the legal depository for copyrights, the entries have footed up to 31,229, of which 4,676 were for bound volumes, being an increase of 588 over any previous year, as I learn

from the Librarian of Congress. If, therefore, Congress cannot find any individual to say that he is a sufferer by the present state of affairs, and cannot find anybody to depose that the country is suffering, where is the case to meet which, or the hardship to remove which, Congress can act?

As to the constitutional powers of Congress to pass laws resulting in an admission of Englishmen to full privileges of our laws so far as the protection of literary property is concerned, perhaps a word may be said; though, from the above considerations, it would hardly affect the fact, that, however constitutional the action to be taken, Congress must have some pretext upon which to base their action.

-

When the Constitution of the United States was framed, it gave Congress power to pass laws to promote the progress of science and the useful arts' by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. It is argued, that, since the words used are, to promote science and the useful arts,'- this clause must be construed to mean that the framers were not thinking particularly of the citizens of the Republic, but rather of the sciences and the useful arts, in their anxiety that the new commonwealth should grow in intelligence and intellectual strength. But, since the presumption is always that a State legislates for the benefit of its own citizens first, even before it legislates for the abstract benefit of arts and sciences; and for the practical worldly prosperity, safety, and peace and tranquillity of its citizens, even before conservation of their intellectuality, something more, I than abstract argument will suppose, be required by Congress before it will be satisfied that those presumptions have been disposed of, and the constitutional clause sufficiently widened for them to act upon a generality.

Commercially speaking, questions of copyright as a matter of fact are at present of very minor importance in the jurisprudence of the United States. As a matter of exact calculation, decisions upon questions of literary property do not occupy one sixty-fifth of one per cent of the time of our courts. It is impossible to deny that such a consideration as this may, in its turn, have some effect upon the indisposition of Congress to legislate upon questions of copyright; though that it can militate in the slightest against the right of every man to his own, of course nobody can pretend for a moment. The real value of the subject, being thus appraised by the despotic laws of trade and of supply and demand, need not be further assessed. But I have no doubt but that the great resources of the English language, and the perfect ease and impunity with which any literary work can be pirated by paraphrase, have something to do with this estimate. Eleven years ago I myself prepared a legal treatise on this very subject of copyright, and my publishers issued it in two octavo volumes of some fifteen hundred pages. Since copyright cases rarely appear in the digests, and only occasionally in the reports (being mostly settled, if they get into court at all, at special term), I was at the pains of considerable servile labor in collecting my cases at first-hand from counsel and the court records. But no sooner had my book appeared, than a general writer for the press, who, among other lucubrations, had been favoring a popular weekly with dissertations to the effect that copyright should not exist and be limited by statute at all, but by common law, and so be perpetual,— and that therefore the law was a robber and a villain,-gathered up these dissertations, and bound them, along with my cases, into a book; which, as it came later than mine, by the inexorable law-book rule, superseded it. To conceal the plagiarism, this last writer was at great pains to display in his volume a list of the authorities he had consulted, taking in authors a century or so back, but carefully omitting my work of the year before (which he, however, reviewed at great length in a daily newspaper), out of which he had nevertheless obtained all his recent, and the bulk of his valuable, material. Now, here was no apparent nor technical piracy,—nothing against which I could demur, or courts relieve. The example has survived its importance, and (since the last-coming volume is already effete) lawyers have so rarely occasion to open it, that I doubt if they have even discovered that its letter-press reads one way, and the cases it cites another. But I recall it here to show how small, at the most, is the real protection an author gets from the act of taking out a copyright; and how easily even technical matter can be pirated with impunity. But

when it comes to general propositions the protection vanishes altogether; for we can equally well say, 'the sun shines' or 'the orb of day illuminates,'' the rain falls' or 'it rains,' 'gravity controls' or 'the attraction of gravitation governs,' 'the statute provides' or 'it is enacted by the statute,' etc.; and a very little ingenuity indeed will suffice to make a later book entirely entitled to copyright, while actually, consecutively, and unblushingly pirating the entire contents of its most recent predecessor by the simple and artless process of paraphrasing it. Certainly there is no law, rule, or custom of the copyright bureau to prevent; no oath of originality, novelty, or utility is required, as in the case of application for a patent. Anybody can mail a titlepage and fifty cents to the Librarian of Congress, and, on publication of his matter, two printed copies of something whose drift or contents corresponds to that titlepage; and this, entirely irrespective of the source, authorship, proprietorship, or character of the matter forwarded,― gives a complete copyright under our statutes. Under such trivial, almost childish conditions, is it worth while to inquire exactly what franchises we are proposing to enlarge, or whether, on enforcing them, the constant and inevitable percentage of evasion will be increased or lessened? Our present statutes of copyright give the very minimum of protection, at the very maximum of expense; but the amendment they need is not just now, perhaps, in an international direction. For the American author, however, they do afford a certain amount of security, from the very fact of their being upon the statute-books; while, as to the English author, the purchase by our publishers of advance sheets — which, by the constantly decreasing time-distance between New York and London, is becoming much the cheapest thing our high-class publishing-houses can do - makes almost any piracy on this side labor under the great disadvantage of delay and a remainder-market already supplied. And as to the piracy of current standard works, we can, of course, pass no ex post facto laws.

Again: British authors have never ceased, I think, to press with whatever interest here they could muster, for international copyright between their own country and ours. But it is only since a remarkable series of letters by the late Charles Reade, addressed (about twelve years ago) to a New York City daily newspaper, — claiming that American authors suffered more than English ones by non-international copyright relations between the two countries, that American authors have been found sending in their roundrobins and petitions for a treaty or a statute securing such comity. Are our American authors quite sure that Mr. Charles Reade was entirely disinterested, or, as he claimed to be, entirely devoted to the interests of American authors, when he wrote? That it was not only a new tack, after all, from the English standpoint? Are American authors quite sure, if English authors could copyright over here, that American publishers would not still prefer the English to the home author; that he would not, perhaps, write quite as interesting novels and quite as competent text-books; that from King Log our American author would not find he had been appealing to King Stork?

As a matter of fact, there are numerically very few publishinghouses indeed at present engaged in reprinting English copyrighted books without English license. And by actual examination of the trade-lists of these, moreover, I find that they are publishing mostly such books as are called 'standard;' namely, the works of English anthology, letters, and science, from Shakspeare, Bacon, Locke, Newton, and the like, down to Tennyson, Browning, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall; which latter (simply because they do not sell popularly, with the exception, perhaps, of Tennyson) they do not reprint at all. Now, although the descendants of William Shakspeare, could we find them, have a perfect copyright at common law in their ancestor's plays (for there were no statutes of copyright in William's day, and what is now American was English soil), there is no claim in that quarter for our publishers to sin against; and it is only the living English authors, mostly the novelists, who are moving for international comity. Now, the English novelists are a fraternity to which we owe a good deal in this country. For my own part, I would miss a large fraction of the amenities of existence without them. But the question is, are they a large enough body politically and economically, from an international point of view, to justify treaties or other international legislation

especially since no such legislation can be retroactive so as to compensate them for past losses?

As to American literature, I may repeat, that the constitutional right of Congress to provide an international copyright with England is based on the constitutional clause, when interpreted to mean that Congress has the right, not to encourage authors quoad authors, but to encourage the growth of literature and the arts per se; and this (though I have them not by me) I understood to be the gist of the arguments of my esteemed friend, E. L. Andrews, Esq., before a committee from one of the houses of Congress, and of Mr. Thorvald Solberg in a late letter to Science. I rather doubt, myself, if the framers of the Constitution were thinking, at that precise date, of future flights in literature and art, instead of the new born nation for which they were drafting organic laws, or if the presumption is not that they were thinking of the latter; but, at any rate, I am of opinion that the absence of an international copyright with England is rather more of an incentive to emulation on the part of our American authors than its presence could possibly be. Just as the highest standard produces the highest scholarship, so, it seems to me, the fact that, other things being equal, the American publisher prefers to print the Englishman's work rather than the American's, is a tremendous inducement to the American to make things unequal in his own favor. Said a writer of novels, an American, to me the other evening, The public buy novels, — not your novels, nor my novels, but novels, and I ought not to be obliged to compete with stolen goods. But if that be the case," said I, "it appears that you are not competing with stolen goods necessarily, but with your brother novel-writers. Stolen goods are the accident, no doubt, of your trade, but not to a larger proportion than of any other trade. Your remedy, it seems to me, is not to petition for international copyright, but to give your goods such a character and reputation that consumers will take none but yours. If you assume a commercial standpoint, you must take the consequences of it."

However, in dealing with the guild of authorship, we must never forget that all the members, indiscriminately, of that guild, deserve our grateful recognition; and this is equally, I think, the public sentiment of this continent; and besides, as to any of the craft, alien or native, in these questions one should always remember that authors and dealers in literary property do not exactly stand upon a bread-and-butter basis. As to the author, he is a gentleman who has deliberately selected the worst-paid and least-thanked of the professions, a profession which not only attracts the minimum of commercial attention, but practically unfits him for ever leaving its walks for any other, and therefore he should be treated, if not with that benign munificence which the law extends to sailors and infants, at least with the consideration and self-abnegation of his fellow-men.

So far as the question of an international copyright with England goes, I personally have never abandoned my belief in its righteous

ness.

However doubtful of the constitutional powers of Congress to enact one by special statute, I am able to see no reason why the present statute cannot be amended (say, by substitution of the word 'person' for the words 'citizen of the United States') so as to practically enact one: or treaty made with Great Britain, which, under the treaty-making power, might shield itself from any judicial question whatever. As to an international copyright with France, Germany, or other continental nation, it is needless to add, the considerations I have suggested above do not in any wise apply. APPLETON MORGAN.

We have now before us what is said in a general way by representative men among the economists and students of political science with respect to the character of recent legislation, so far as it bears upon the question as to the increase of State interference. We have sufficient data to justify the opinion that laws having a tendency to interference are on the increase, and that this increase is pretty general throughout the country. It remains to discuss the views entertained by our correspondents as to the advisability of such legislation. These views are extremely diverse, and show very

clearly the absence of any organized body of widely influential economic thought in this country. Sixteen per cent of our correspondents are unreservedly in favor of the unlimited extension of State control they are therefore logically State socialists. We believe, however, that this proportion is far larger than that which obtains among either professed economists or the people at large. Twenty-seven per cent of our correspondents are in a general way favorable to the extension of State control, but would guard such extension carefully. Twenty-four per cent view State control with disfavor as a principle, but would admit it in certain cases. Thirty per cent are unreservedly, some of them violently, opposed to State control, and express themselves with much directness and force. A comparatively small number rest their opposition on laissez-faire as an economic doctrine, the larger number assigning other reasons. Three per cent express no opinion, and are therefore classed as non-committal.

In noticing the able pamphlet of Prof. Henry C. Adams, The Relation of the State to Industrial Action' (Science, ix. No. 222), we pointed out that he lays down three guiding principles for the regulation of State interference. It will be well to recall these principles, and keep them in mind for comparison with what is said on the subject by others. The principles referred to were, (1) the State may determine the plane of competitive action, (2) the State may realize for society the benefits of monopoly, (3) social harmony may be restored by extending the duties of the State.

Professor Cooper of Carleton College, Minnesota, says, "I believe the State should interfere to control powerful monopolies, but this power cannot be wisely used by such men as are chosen to our State Legislatures."

Frank R. Morrisey of the Omaha (Neb.) Herald strongly opposes State interference. He would check it by "the education of public sentiment to the fallibility of majorities through the columns of the press, the pulpit and the rostrum, infusing a broader knowledge of the privileges of personal liberty, and impressing upon the citizen the necessity for the consideration of every other citizen's opinions."

William Alvord of San Francisco believes in amendments to the State constitutions, forbidding the enactment of local or special laws. He says, that, since the adoption of the new California constitution, the bound volumes of session-laws have decreased from over 1,000 pages to 270 pages or thereabouts.

Prof. Jesse Macy despairs of any reform so long as thinkers and teachers beat the air, and keep out of speaking-distance with the people who are in governmental difficulties.

Prof. Henry C. Adams thinks that the increasing attention now being devoted to political science will in time produce less unsatisfactory legislation.

C. Caverno, Esq., of Lombard, Ill., is very optimistic. He finds in the increasing interference only renewed adaptation to the social environment. In my judgment," he tells us, "our legislation is predominantly wholesome: the work of man rarely appears to so good advantage as therein."

Herbert L. Osgood of Brooklyn, N.Y., says, "Take the world over, political theories at the present time tend strongly toward the advocacy of more State interference. This is doubtless in response to a real need. The statutes of this nation, as well as those of Europe, will probably yield to this impulse to a certain extent; but theories always far outrun practice. The Republic does not necessarily lead toward individual freedom, but the spirit of private enterprise is too strongly developed in this country to yield to a paternal government. I believe the restrictions upon the freedom of the individual coming from public opinion and social custom are in this country more dangerous than those to be feared from the laws." Assemblyman E. H. Crosby of New York City believes that the increase of legislative interference is the result of a popular demand for it. This demand, to be intelligent, must be directed by sound political science, and the dissemination of this is the need of the hour.

Morris F. Tyler of Connecticut is a representative of those who think that unlimited laissez-faire will work a cure in time. Prof. A. T. Hadley does not believe it worth while to try to check it, but would let extremists pass such laws as they please. These could not be enforced, and would either be repealed or become a

dead letter. Prof. John B. Clark of Smith College would trust to political education. The specific point," he says, "in which intelligence can do the most immediate good, is in the labor-organizations from which the political pressure proceeds."

The Chicago Tribune sends us the following: "The Tribune holds that restrictive legislation is not only advisable, but necessary, though admitting it may be carried too far, and has often been overdone in the past. You have doubtless noticed that the relative breadth of restrictive legislation varies with the development of civilization in a community. At first all is arbitrary, each offence being treated on what the judge or judges (maybe dictator or plebiscite) regard as the merits of the individual case, without regard to precedent. As the community grows, the tendency is to swing towards the other extreme, and the resulting over-legislation is more slowly corrected. Bad laws are repealed, good ones consolidated, and special legislation forbidden for the future by constitutional enactment. These three phases may be said to be approximately represented by the mining-camp in this country, the frontier State, and the older State. Illinois is a senior of Minnesota in the family of States, and may therefore be expected to be less paternal in legislation. And there is reason to believe that a careful comparison of the two would show this to be the fact. Undoubtedly the best form of government, and we may even say the ideal one, is that in which an appeal to the common law would suffice as a rule of action in all courts, and its interpretation be found adequate to the punishment of wrong-doing by any member of the community, however prominent he may be. But no State in the Union has yet reached the stage where this could be depended upon; and, till this has been attained by a process of slow growth, it seems to be necessary to resort to some kind of special legislation to provide against new forms of wrong doing which every now and then crop out in the race between conscientiousness and rascality."

Prof. E. J. James prefers to secure better legislation by improving the grade of legislators. He would not "restrict the power to Legislatures to do much good, for fear they may do some harm,” by constitutional amendments.

The replies mentioned above are fairly typical of the divergent views presented. Had space permitted, we should have been glad to produce more of our replies in full. But our end is gained if we shall have succeeded in directing thoughtful attention to the tendency developing among us. As Dr. Shaw says in his original article, we think we are proceeding on one economic theory, but our actual legislation is in direct opposition to that theory. We are not asking for a restoration of laissez-faire; but we should like to know whether this perpetual running to the Legislature for purely private enactments meets with the approval of the thinking men of the country. We do not believe that it does. We believe, with Professor Perry of Williams College, that interference results from the attempts, often successful, of individuals to accomplish, in the name of the State, their own personal ambitions and desires. We believe that when the people at large realize the extent to which paternalism in legislation has developed, they will declare themselves with no uncertain sound as in favor of the fundamental American principle of individual liberty and individual responsibility. They will just as emphatically refuse to permit the State's power to be prostituted to personal ends.

HEALTH MATTERS.

Preventive Medicine.

IN an address on the recent advances in preventive medicine, delivered at the thirty-eighth annual meeting of the American Medical Association, Dr. G. H. Rohé stated that the danger of an invasion of this country by cholera was greater than it had been at any time during the past three years. The United States are threatened from three sources: first, from Europe, by way of the Atlantic Ocean; second from Japan, by way of the Pacific; and, third, from the west coast of South America, by way of the Pacific, or by way of Mexico and our southern border. The Isthmus of Panama and the South Atlantic lines of transportation may also act as gateways to the infection.

In this address, Dr. Rohé refers to the researches of Shakspeare, Koch, and Pettenkofer into the relations between cholera and its

bacillus or spirillum. He also alludes to the claims of Freire of Brazil, and Carmona of Mexico, concerning protective inoculations against yellow-fever, and to the fact that these claims are now being investigated by Dr. Sternberg, under the authority of the president. A brief history is given of the cases of scarlet-fever which have occurred in England, apparently having their origin in milk from diseased cows. We have already mentioned these cases and the able investigation of them by Mr. W. H. Power of the English local government board. The subjects of tuberculosis and typhoidfever also receive attention.

Decided advances have been made in the disposal of the refuse of cities. The cremation of garbage has been carried out at Montreal, Canada, and at Wheeling, W.Va. The irrigation system of sewage-disposal has been greatly extended in Germany. In Berlin it has given great satisfaction, the sewage of 900,000 people being carried to irrigation-fields, and the water which drains off being submitted to chemical examination for evidences of pollution, which were discovered but once during an entire year. The objection that this system of sewage-treatment is not applicable in cold climates is invalid, as is shown by the results in Pullman, Ill., and in Dantzig, Germany. Birmingham, England, with a population of 600,000, has adopted the irrigation system, and the income realized during 1885 from the sale of stock and produce from the sewagefarm amounted to over $100,000.

During the past year the poisonous effects of tyrotoxicon, discovered by Professor Vaughan, have been witnessed repeatedly in persons who have taken milk and ice-cream. Professor Vaughan has made the suggestion that this ptomaine may be the active cause of cholera-infantum. The question of public baths is treated very fully in the address. Public, like private, bathing institutions must make provision for individual baths. Large pools, in which many persons bathe at once, fail to answer the requirements of sanitary science or of public decency. A French army surgeon, Duval, has overcome this difficulty, and now both the French and German soldiers have proper facilities for bathing. The latter are required to bathe every week, the government furnishing the bathroom, warm water, soap, and towels. In our army and navy no steps have been taken to introduce this reform, although Dr. Billings has shown its feasibility. Dr. Lassar of Berlin has demonstrated the practicability of separate bath-rooms in connection with public bathing, and has been urging the extension of the military system to the civil population, so that every German may have his weekly bath. He gives excellent illustrations of the practical benefits to be derived from the adoption of such a system. At the white-lead works in Ehrenfeld, the eighty employees are required to bathe weekly, the facilities being furnished by the proprietor. In the first year, 1884, the sickness was reduced twenty per cent, and in 1885 it was reduced still lower, fifty per cent. In certain dye-works in Berlin, ten rooms, containing shower-baths, have been provided for workmen and their families, and for all who desire to use them. In Göttingen, with a population of 21,000, of which number 3,000 are children who attend the public schools, baths are fitted up in the basement of one of the school-houses. A class of fifty can bathe in an hour. Each child has the opportunity of bathing once in two weeks, and seventy-five per cent of the children avail themselves of it. The authorities and teachers are unanimous upon the point that the system is of great benefit to the children, not only from its direct sanitary advantage, but from the habits of cleanliness formed, to which they are likely to adhere through life. The only cities in the United States having public baths are, Boston, with 17; New York, 15; Philadelphia, 5; Brooklyn, 3; Cleveland and Hartford, each 1; and Buffalo, the number not given. In New York, 3,431,086 persons bathed from June to October in 1883; during the same time in Boston, 959,765; and in Brooklyn, 225,885. In eighteen cities where there are no public baths, only about twenty-three per cent of the residences are supplied with bath-tubs. Dr. Rohé concludes his address with a statement of some of the results of the application of sanitary measures, quoting the statistics of Dr. Baker in Michigan, and Dr. Ogle in Great Britain. The address is an admirable résumé of what has been done in the realm of preventive medicine, and no one can read it without being impressed with the great strides which have recently been made in this field of research.