that he has failed to emphasize the place which lakes occupy in the cycle of river development, some types being characteristic of the youth and others of the maturity or old age of a river system. Much the same criticism may be made of the author's discussion of plateaus and mountains. The book contains a few errors which ought to be corrected. Hadley's inaccurate explanation of the deflective force of the earth's rotation is repeated by Mr. Tarr. As has been shown by Ferrel, this force is dependent solely upon the latitude and the momentum of the moving body, and not at all upon the direction of motion, whereas Hadley's explanation demands that there be no deflection in the case of bodies moving in an east-and-west direction, and that the amount of deflection diminish with the departure from a north-and-south direction. According to the diagram on page 49, the temperature in the southern hemisphere is higher in June than in December, an error probably due to carelessness in preparation. The text seems to have been hastily written, and in places it is marred by careless expressions, such as, "a river valley trans- | formed into a lake" (p. 299), and "we have in this, the Malaspina glacier, an instance of a well developed forest" (p. 313). The illustrations are profuse and in general well chosen, many of them being new to text-books. Unfortunately not a few of them are poorly reproduced. the work as a whole, which is of the nature of a pioneer. The author has in preparation a larger work, which will be awaited with much interest. English Essays from a French Pen. By J. J. Jusserand, Ministre Plénipotentiaire. London: Unwin; New York: Putnams. 1895. M. JUSSERAND is certainly one of the most vivacious of antiquaries. A book from his pen is sure to be curiously instructive and not to be heavy, and we hope he may long continue to keep to his present average of a volume a year. Of the essays brought together in the little volume before us, "The Forbidden Pastimes of a Recluse" is by all odds the most entertaining. It consists of a string of extracts from a manual for anchoresses written in the twelfth century by the Englishman Ailred, Abbot of Rievaulx, for the guidance of his sister. The manual has interesting points of comparison with the well-known Ancren Riwle' of the following century. Some of the scenes depicted are highly characteristic-particularly that of the tattling old woman at the recluse's window, telling tales and keeping her informed of the town gossip. The second paper is a brief and lively account (from an unpublished manuscript) of the journey of Regnault Girard to Scotland in 1435. Girard's errand was to fetch the little Lady Margaret, the betrothed of the Dauphin, and he had some amus But praise much more than censure is due to ing experiences. We are glad to learn that Mr. SIR QUIXOTE OF THE MOORS By JOHN BUCHAN. Buckram Series. 75c. "Is full of humor and vitality, and deserves to be successful there is an individual quality in bis work, and a certain bewitchment which belongs to the higher forms of imagination the heroine becomes a living memory long after the book is closed told with great delicacy and grace of diction the power of reserve which is evident on every page makes us hope great things of the author."-The Bookman. HENRY HOLT & CO., N. Y. THE FEBRUARY Book Buyer Contains a Frontispiece Portrait, E. L. GODKIN, accompanied by a sketch of his life and work by Wendell P. Garrison of the Nation. The number also contains the usual attractive literary features. Sent to any address on receipt of 10 cents. Charles Scribner's Sons 153-157 Fifth Ave., N. Y. Complete Index to Littell's Living Age, to the E. ROTH, 1135 Pine St., Phila. LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS. Edited by GEORGE RICE CARPENTER, A. B., Professor of Rhetoric and English Composition in Columbia College. With full Notes, Introductions, Bibliographies, and other explanatory and illustrative matter. Crown 8vo, cloth. NEW VOLUMES SHAKSPERE'S A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by GEORGE PIERCE BAKER, A.B., Assistant Professor of English in Harvard University. With Frontispiece-the Imitation of an Elizabethan Stage, used in the revival of Ben Jonson's The Silent Woman at Harvard College, March, 1895. 60 cents. COLERIDGE'S THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. Edited, with Introduction and Notes. by HERBERT BATES, A. B.. Instructor in English in the University of Nebraska. With Portrait of Coleridge. 45 cents. A circular describing the series, its objects and scope, with specimen pages, announcements, etc., will be sent to any address upon application. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., PUBLISHERS, 91-93 Fifth Avenue, New York. Yale A GENTLEMAN'S SMOKE. A two-oz. trial package, postpaid, for 25 cts. The American Tobacco Co., Successor, Baltimore, Md Andrew Lang is preparing an edition of this important manuscript for the Roxburghe Club. Two other visits to England-that of Sorbières in 1663 and that of Voltaire in 1726-are briefly treated. The longest paper in the volume is that on Scarron, which is reprinted from the Lawrence & Bullen edition of The Comical Romance.' BOOKS OF THE WEEK. La Jeunesse de Bougainville et la Guerre de Sept Ans. [Les Français au Canada.] Paris: Daupeley-Gouverneur. Lees, Prof. The Claims of Greek. Syracuse: C. W. Bardeen. 25c. Lieber, B. F. Standard Telegraphic Code. Lieber Publishing Co. $10. Marcou, J. Life, Letters, and Works of Louis Agassiz. 2 vols. Macmillan & Co. Meade, L. T. A Princess of the Gutter. Putnams. $1. Sears, Prof. Lorenzo. The History of Oratory. Chi- Tille, Alexander. lan. $1. German Songs of To-Day. Macmil. Waugh, Arthur. Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Study of His Life and Works. Macmillan. $2. Welch, Deshler. The Bachelor and the Chafing Dish. F. T. Neely. Wentworth, G. A. Syllables of Geometry. Boston: Ginn & Co. Williams, R. P. Chemical Experiments, General and Wood, Gen. Sir Evelyn. Cavalry in the Waterloo Cam- Zola, Émile. The Fat and the Thin .F. T. Neely. The Transvaal. The Story of South Africa. The Cape Colony, Natal, Orange Free State, South African Republic, and all other Territories south of the Zambesi. By GEORGE M. THEAL of the Cape Colonial Civil Service. (Published in the "Story of the Nations" Series, in which 45 volumes have thus far been issued.) 12mo, illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. Half leather, gilt top, $1.75. "By far the most valuable addition yet made to a series of volumes justly popular alike with a special student and with the general reader. . . . His style is as picturesque as it is emphatic. ... He has done for history what Olive Schreiner has done for romance. For the first time we have now before the mental vision a clear picture of South Africa, its native inhabitants, and the two great European races living side by side."-Outlook. "Mr. Theal must be congratulated on having been able to compress into one volume so clear and valuable a picture of South Africa."-New York Critic. Sent, mail prepaid, on receipt of price. Send for new illustrated prospectus of the Series. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON, Do me the favor to ask your wine-merchant, or Park & Tilford (wholesale agents), for my "Picarillo" natural sherry, and "Manzanilla Pasada." GUILLERMO DOBLACHE, Puerto de Santa Maria. NEW YORK, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1896. The Week. President Washburn of Robert College, Constantinople, has an interesting article in last week's Independent on the Armenian deadlock. He seems to be convinced that Salisbury could not have done any THE reference in the Queen's speech to more than he has done without imminent the Venezuelan difficulty is pacific enough. danger of bringing on a European war. Parliament is informed that the Govern- That danger President Washburn thinks ment of the United States have "express- should have been faced with "faith in ed a wish to cooperate in bringing to a God and the Right." But that, on mereclose" the Guiana boundary dispute, and ly political and statesmanlike grounds, that "I have expressed my sympathy Salisbury could not have gone forward with the desire to come to an equitable without the Powers at his back, appears arrangement." This seems to give ample to be admitted. When he has threatened, confirmation to the rumors that negotia- or intimated, as he did last summer, tions have been going on between Wash- armed intervention, he meant intervenington and London since the bellicosetion, perhaps by England alone, but with message of December 17, and have been the consent and moral support of the much more amicable in tone. Certainly Powers always understood. Mr. Washno ministry could describe the Olney- burn is fair and frank enough to concede Cleveland threat to settle the whole thing that the "difficulty with the United ourselves as the expression of "a wish to States" must have hampered Lord Saliscooperate." It must be, then, that our bury enormously. The depression which Washington fire-eaters, after their thea- our brief war madness of December last tric display, went quietly back to the methods of Evarts and Frelinghuysen and Bayard and Blaine and Gresham, and tried the effect of good offices instead of bludgeons. This will be hailed as good news on both sides the Atlantic, and all will hope, -with the Queen's speech, that "further negotiations will lead to a satisfactory settlement." The speeches of Mr. Balfour and Lord Salisbury, as well as those of Sir William Harcourt and Lord Rosebery, following the Queen's speech at the opening of Parliament, further indicate that the Venezuela controversy is in a fair way of peaceable settlement. The sense of the English nation, like that of the American people, is clearly against even the thought of the possibility of war between Great Britain and the United States. Mr. Balfour reiterated in the Commons his hope that out of the late evil the great good may come of a permanent arbitration agreement between the two countries. Certainly this is the auspicious time to strike for such a consummation; and the Washington authorities cannot bring forth works more meet for repentance than a hearty closing with any and every advance made to them along this line. Mr. Olney's extremely polite and gracious note of February 3, though a little late, was received with equal graciousness; and nothing seems now to remain except an exchange of compliments and a speedy adjustment of the whole miserable Venezuelan dispute, with our Commission probably, and to their own great satisfaction, left high and dry to one side. Of far greater interest to Parliament and the British nation is the Turkish situation. All Lord Salisbury's skill in dialectics cannot save him from the appearance of having suffered a great diplomatic defeat in this affair. wrought in thoughtful Americans living "The present hope of the world is in Ameri- The Rio News has some striking and truthful remarks about the total confusion of mind of many of our public men, with Secretary Olney 'at their head, in regard to what we ought to think of South American institutions, and what South Americans themselves really think of us. The power of words to mislead mankind was never more conspicuously shown than by the effect on the imagination of the term "republic" chosen to describe governments which are truly, for the most part, nothing but military oligarchies. England, a republic in everything but name, we must hate as the home of "alien institutions," but South American governments, which are republican in nothing but name, we must hail as sisters on the strength of what we call them, not what they actually are. Equally factitious is the idea that the South Americans have any especial fondness for us, either as republicans or human beings. The Rio News tells the exact truth on this point; and so does the Buenos Ayres Herald when it affirms that the Argentines are of " a different race, of different language, customs, and interests, having no sympathy with American thought or commerce, having neither affection nor any especial friendship for Americans." Ah, but these are the opinions of jealous foreigners, violently suspected of having their pockets filled with British gold. Not at all. Both the News and Herald are edited by Americans-only they happen to be Americans who have lived long in the countries they write of, keep their eyes open, and speak the thing they think, unaffected by the fumes either of a Presidential ambition or of the afterdinner wine-cup too long looked upon. It appears that the advocates of the admission of Arizona and New Mexico as States have about half of the House committee on Territories on their side, and are hopeful of pushing the scheme through Congress at this session. Public sentiment ought to pronounce so emphatically against this proposition that Congress will drop it. Neither of the two Territories is fit for statehood. The only effect of admitting them will be to strengthen the champions of every financial folly by four more votes in the Senate. Soundmoney Representatives and Senators ought to be notified that their constituents will not pardon them if they help to consummate such an outrage. There is a sort of poetic justice in the action of the Senators from the silvermining States who have voted to substitute a free-coinage bill in place of the House tariff bill. Those States were admitted to the Union for the express purpose of keeping the Republicans in control of the Senate and of preserving the blessed tariff. Both of these dishonest aims have failed, but the republic has received no detriment in consequence. The House tariff bill is a bill of false pretences from beginning to end. It was not expected to become a law when it was passed in the House, but merely to commit the party to passing it at some future time when the party should be strong enough to shape legislation at its own pleasure. The silver extremists have said, through Senators Teller and Jones, that in any such game they hold the winning cards. The country is much benefited by non-action at the present time on the tariff as well as on the silver question. It would be even more benefited if Congress would adjourn as soon as the necessary appropriation bills can be passed. But if it is to remain in session for purposes of general legislation, it can do nothing less harmful than to substitute a free-silver bill for the tariff bill and then kill the former. The address of Mr. Wharton Barker to the manufacturers on the subject of silver and the tariff is not a very weighty document. It amounts to saying that there will be no more protective-tariff bills passed unless the free coinage of silver is made a part of the measure. But this threat carries no terrors to any manufacturers who are satisfied with the present tariff, and we have heard of no movement for increased duties except among the Ohio wool-growers, who are hardly to be classed as manufacturers. Accompanying Mr. Barker's manifesto is a paper signed by sixteen Republican Senators (all of them, except Cameron, from States west of the Missouri River), saying that they favor rescuing the people of the United States from the impending danger of being overwhelmed by the industrial competition of China and Japan, "by removing the difference of exchange between gold-standard countries and silver-standard countries by the only method possible, which is the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 by the independent action of the United States." This is not exactly the same thing in terms as Mr. Barker's pronunciamiento, but it probably means the same thing. If so, it means that the House tariff bill will not pass the Senate at this session of Congress, and probably not at any ses. sion. Yet it is possible that the manufacturers may not tremble. er St. Paul, on Saturday week, and will not be got afloat again so easily, we think. He had his scheme nicely prepared and printed, to be offered as an amendment to the House bond bill. It proposed to authorize the Secretary of the Treasury to issue bonds to the amount of $100,000,000, drawing interest at 3 per cent., the principal payable twenty years from date in "coin," with an annual sinking fund of $3,000,000, the proceeds of the bonds to be kept in a separate fund and applied solely to the fortification of the seacoast and lakes of the United States, for the manu facture of guns, the purchase of sites, and the erection of forts and batteries according to plans to be hereafter prepared by the War Department. When this amendment was offered, Senator Teiler moved to lay it on the table. Mr. Lodge called for the yeas and nays. To order the yeas and nays a vote of one fifth of the Senators present is required. Only three or four votes were cast for this motion. Senator Teller's motion to lay on the table then prevailed without a division. The debate in the House on Thursday showed that the silver element among the Republicans in the lower branch of Congress is as bent on declaring itself as is the case with Republican Senators who believe in free coinage. Mr. Johnson of California openly and strongly denounced the Reed programme of inaction. He declared that "a do-nothing policy, or a We are glad to record the practical de- policy confined to action on non-essentials, feat of the movement in the Senate to divide up the appropriation bills among a lot of committees, instead of giving the control of nearly all of them to a single committee. The object of this attempt to destroy a centralized and responsible oversight of the national expenditures was scarcely concealed. Much fine talk was put forward about the need of relieving the committee on appropriations from a part of its arduous labors, and of securing more deliberate consideration for important bills; but behind all this was an evi dent plan, both to increase the power of other committees and other chairmanships, and to make raids on the Treasury easier of execution. The very character of the men engineering the affair was enough to make it extremely suspicious; and though they began with great confidence and with an apparent large majority of the Senate, the sober sense of the older members, together with a little manoeuvring of their own, appears to have squelched the whole scheme. It would surely be a pity to abandon one of our few remaining checks on reckless and extravagant legislation, and to make our system of voting money in and out of the Treasury still more chaotic than it is. such as self-constituted leaders of the House say is proper, will not serve," and he criticised Chairman Dingley of the nothing as an alternative to free coinage, ways and means committee for offering urging that at least provision be made for the coining of American silver. "The silver Republicans," he announced, "are ready to set lance in rest now or at any In taking this time upon this question.' position Mr. Johnson, and the silver Republicans who stand with him, feel that they have their constituents behind them. Upon the passage by the Senate of the free-coinage substitute for the bond bill, the Denver Republican declared that "the Republican majority in the House ought to have sufficient intelligence and patriotism to pass the bill exactly as it went through the Senate." Although it is generally assumed that there is a "goldite" majority in the House, the Republican questioned the correctness of that conclusion, and wanted to see a fair test made in order that every member may be forced to go on record. It expected that Speaker Reed and the Republican members who favor his Presidential aspirations would attempt to smother the measure in committee or elsewhere, but insisted that this should not be permitted, but that the bill should be forced to a vote on its merits, "in spite of the opposition of possible Presidential candidates, and the jugglery of two-faced lists at home and act as the tools of the Money Power in Washington." A significant speech was delivered in the House on Saturday by Mr. Hall, a Democratic Representative from Missouri, who has hitherto been a strong free coinage man, but now declares his conversion to the cause of sound money. Mr. Hall made the interesting statement that eight of the Senators who voted for free coinage a few days ago have said privately that they believe the adoption of this policy would destroy the commercial prosperity of the country. This is entirely credible; indeed, nobody has ever been able to believe that all, or a large proportion, of the Senators who have voted for free coinage were such fools as to believe in it. It is impossible, for example, to suppose that such a man as Wolcott of Colorado seriously thinks that the prosperity of the United States would be promoted by the adoption of this policy; but he knew that anybody who questioned its wisdom would have stood no chance of being elected a Senator from Colorado. same side have had less excuse for their Many other Senators who voted on the attitude, since their constituents have no selfish interest in silver mines, and might have been shown the folly of the silver delusion if the public men whom they trusted had done their duty. One of the most striking signs of the decadence of the Senate is the readiness of its members to shirk responsibility, as evidenced by the willingness of many who believe that free coinage would ruin the nation to vote for it because they think it popular with their constituents, and leave the House of Representatives or the President to block a scheme that they ought to have defeated themselves. People may freely speak their mind, as they are speaking it, about the wretched incapacity and recreancy of Congress in all matters of domestic legislation. Nothing is commoner than to hear the Senate, especially, denounced as a collection of knaves and imbeciles, a fearful incubus on the country which it totally misunderstands and misrepresents. The vast majority of the intelligent citizens of the nation would be indignant if told that they must not question the wisdom of Congress about the currency, about taxation, about copyright, about banking. What! that body of adventurers and trucklers represent the country? We must all "stand behind" it? Treason to talk against it? But, excited brother, is not this just what you were saying about the action of Congress on the vastly greater question of peace or war? Were you not almost ready to mob anybody who said that Congress was as ignorant and cowardly in that matter as you now admit it is in all others? It would be strange, indeed, if a Congress which has shown itself wholly incapable Senator Lodge's $100,000,000 bill for coast defences, about which he has been so long mewing and caterwauling on our roofs, was stranded worse than the steam-representatives who profess to be bimetal-of laying taxes or ordering the currency, agery." If war makes us savages, and should suddenly develop the loftiest pa- That the proper study of mankind is war is maintained with great power in the last North American Review by Capt. H. C. Taylor of the Naval War College. He is pained at the widespread "prejudice against its study," admits with shame that "soldiers and sailors hardened in battle" have called war" unnatural," just as if they were no clearer eyed than "philosophers of a certain ability," and points out that the ravages of "the anti-war spirit during the nineteenth century" have gone to such an alarming extent that some men can "soberly suggest the possibilities of the nations of the earth ceasing to war with each other." Against such a horrible thought he lifts a manly voice. War, he maintains, is necessary to the whole man-to "the artistic spirit," to "the moral nature," to "the fervor of religion." It is a serious mistake to think of Christ as the great non resistant; for "the willing effacement of the stubborn ego in the flood of fellow-humanity which the head of Christianity demands," is possible through war alone. The duty of a Christian nation, mindful of "the dignity of her high estate," is clearly, there fore, to keep fighting as constantly as possible, so that we may retain "the idea of war as a permanent factor of life," and prevent peace from "generating doubts as to the wisdom of the Providence that Bways the universe." All this makes the plan of salvation plain and beautiful, but Capt. Taylor seems to confuse matters by a weak admission that "war is cruel and brutal, disposing men to a state of savagery." We do not see that he saves himself by adding that "the corrupt ease, the luxurious immorality of life, towards which a total absence of war always leads nations, has in it something more degrading for the human race than simple sav. that the anniversary will secure but small disturbance of business. Lincoln himself, measures. John Morley gave a definition of the Jingo, in his speech at Arbroath the other night, which has a philosophical neatness and accuracy about it. He rightly said that your Jingo is known to the fauna of all countries, infesting Great Britain as well as America. The "born Jingo," said Mr. Morley, evidently having in mind the many artificial, for-this-campaign-only Jingoes, is "a man overflowing with the old Adam of violence and force, who would not be a bad fellow if he could only recognize two things-first, that there is a relation between cause and effect, and, second, that there is a difference between right and wrong." It is almost cruel now to recall the aptness with which our Jingoes have lately illustrated the definition. To shriek for war one day and bewail a smashed stock market and chilled business the next, could be possible only in beings of a deficient sense of causal relations. Great Heavens, they said, we never meant that! But godlike reason is given to mortals precisely that they may foresee the consequences of their own acts. The difference between right and wrong is a subtier thing, which bluff Jingo minds perhaps ought not to be expected to grasp on all occasions; but even they ought to find it incredible that we should always be right, and the other fellows always wrong, and that, anyhow, we can whip them. The Anglo-French convention, signed January 15, relating to Siam, appears to have given satisfaction on both sides of the Channel. Its effect is not so much to partition Siam as to determine the respective English and French "spheres of influence," and to neutralize the Menam valley-say, one third of the entire territory of Siam. In this region each country will enjoy the same commercial rights, and Lord Salisbury made it clear in his letter to the Marquis of Dufferin, that he did not doubt the ability of English merchants and traders to compete with the French on even terms. No one seems to have inquired how the Siamese would like the arrangement. It was apparently thought superfluous to question Siam's perfect willingness to be cut up into spheres of influence and neutralized regions. Anyhow, it is now reported that the Siamese authorities are quite content. They may be making a virtue of necessity, or reflect ing how much worse it might have been. Protection, masquerading as hygienic regulations, is taking a novel turn in Ger many. The demand is made that Russian grain be excluded on the ground that it is a deadly vehicle of infection. A professor has found in one-tenth of a gramme of Russian oats, barley, and rye, anywhere from 500,000 to 1,000,000 bacilli, and from 400 to 12,000 mould fungi. This is enough for Count Kanitz and the Agrarians, who are loudly demanding that the national health (not, of course, their farm products) be protected against the new danger. Meanwhile, it is safe to say that all attempts of bacteriologists to put German grain under the microscope will be severely frowned upon. Such a thing, on a pinch, could be made out lèse majesté. What a serious business the trade of Emperor has become in the modern world may be inferred from some statistics recently published in the German papers regarding William II.'s distribution of his time during the past year. He spent 159 days away from Berlin. Of these, 52 were taken up by hunting parties, 38 by visits to allied princes, and 28 by military parades and army manoeuvres-what has been called the "defilirium tremens" of the Kaiser. The remaining days of his absence from the capital were passed in different German cities, haranguing the burgomasters, and in various royal châteaus, doing "suthin' in the pastoral line." Even when in Berlin, William keeps up his pathological activity, counting that day lost whose low descending sun has not scen a garrison alarmed, a minister rebuked, Socialists threatened with the sword of the Lord's anointed, or an imperial finger thrust into some international pie. To such a life a young man must feel that he has a "serious call" before daring to undertake it in this degenerate age. THE BOND SALE. THE success of the new Government loan has surpassed the expectations of everybody, in both the amount offered and the price obtained. The oldest and most experienced heads in Wall Street were as much astonished as the neophytes. The whole amount subscribed for was in excess of $500,000,000. This casts in the shade everything else previously attempted. The loan of February, 1894, was practically forced upon the New York city banks after the public had failed to subscribe. The 5 per cent. bonds it offered were taken at 117.223, a rate which made the interest equal to 3 per cent. The purchasers lost money on them. The loan of November, 1894, was of the same kind, and the results were the same. The syndicate loan of February, 1895, was a sale of 4 per cents at 104.50, which made the interest equal to 334 per cent. The present bids averaging about 111, the rate of interest will be about 33%, which is more favorable to the Government than the syndicate loan of last February, but not so favorable as the loan of February, 1894. Nor must we fail to remark that the credit of New York city is higher than that of the United States. On the 26th of February last year, $3.265,000 city bonds sold above par, the bids ranging as high as 103.25. These were 3 per cents, but they were specifically payable in gold. This accounts for the solecism that the nation's credit is inferior to that of one of its cities which contains not more than a fortieth part of its population. If we look abroad for comparisons, we find that British consols bearing 234 per cent. interest are selling at 108, or nearly as high as our 4 per cents. When the Government bond contract was pending in February, 1895, the syndicate offered to take the lot at a price equal to 3 per cent. if the loan were made payable in gold, but Congress refused to pass an act to that effect. It cannot be doubted that if such a law were now in force, the present sale would have been made on far better terms for the Government. The bid would probably have been as high as 125. Of course this sale will be drawn into comparison with that of February, 1895, and to the disparagement of the latter. It should be borne in mind, however, that the syndicate contract was made at a time when the Government was within three days (some say three hours) of suspension. It was made in the very teeth of a panic. The Government came as a borrower at a time when ordinary borrowers could not get money on any terms. To have delayed thirty days then would have involved both public and private bankruptcy. Under circumstances of that appalling kind it was impossible to wait, and we think still that the offer at the time was a reasonable one, considering the syndicate's engagement to protect the Treasury gold reserve for ten months, and their actual protection of it for a year. It should be remembered, also, that the elections of last autumn, so disastrous to the silverites in parts of the country where they were supposed to be strong, have had an improving effect on the public credit, so that, barring any war scare, the bonds ought to sell higher now than then. If we make a further comparison with the recent offer of the Morgan syndicate to take $100,000,000 at 105, we must bear in mind that that offer was made in the shadow of a panic caused by Mr. Cleveland's Venezuelan message, which has since been measurably cleared away. On certain days after that message was sent to Congress, no bid could be obtained for Government bonds in Wall Street. Nobody could have anticipated then that there would be such a clearing up of the financial atmosphere within so short a time. The effect of what has happened on the silverites must be blighting. When the business interests of the country come forward, at thirty days' notice, and offer to bet five hundred million dollars that the gold standard will be maintained, and to put up 20 per cent. of that sum as a pledge of good faith, the bragging and blackguardism of the silver majority in the Senate disappear like loose straw in a hurricane. It would be impossible to produce by any other means such a profound moral effect. It was only a few weeks ago that their chief men assembled in Washington and prepared a political programme for the Presidential year. They called a national convention to meet at St. Louis on the same day as that of the Populists. They declared it to be their purpose to compel one of the great political parties, if not both, to adopt a platform in favor of free coinage at the rate of 16 to 1, by this country alone, failing in which they would nominate a Presidential ticket and create a new party in all the States, based upon that single idea. They could have done nothing more gratifying to the friends of sound money. The strength of the silver faction all along has consisted in their ability to pose as a ba lance of power between Republicans and Democrats. In this way a minority as small as one-tenth may exercise a preponderating influence over a wide region of country and over national affairs, whereas if they should take the field as a separate force, relying on their own numbers and the merits of their particular scheme, they would win nothing but ridicule. This will be the situation of the silverites as soon as they begin a separate 16-to-1 campaign. The "first gun" in this campaign has been fired. It is a far more telling shot than the numbers of the persons concerned would imply. Its force consists in the demonstration that the capital of the country is determined that the gold standard shall be maintained, is ready to put up, not $100,000,000 merely, but as much money as may be needed at any future time. The effect of such a demonstration upon political parties must be very great and very beneficial. It must also serve to brace up the financial nerve of the Administration if it needed any bracing, and it may lead to a still further accumulation of gold. Indeed, it would have been better if the loan had been for $200,000,000 instead of half that sum. With the gold now in hand, that would have given the Treasury a reserve of nearly $270,000,000, which is not too large for the total amount of fiat money outstanding. When the gold reserve was collected preparatory to specie resumption in 1878, it was about 30 per cent. of the legal-tender notes to be redeemed. Since that time we have added to the stock of fiat money, in round numbers, $400,000,000 of silver and $150,000,000 of Treasury notes, bringing the total up to $900,000,000. If 30 per cent. was the proper proportion of reserve to demand liabilities in 1879, it must be considered so now. In fact, that percentage is much smaller than is held by the great banks of Europe which are charged with the duty of keeping the ultimate gold reserve of their respective countries. It may be said that the $100,000,000 of greenbacks now in the Treasury vaults should be deducted from the total amount of fiat money. It is true that as long as they remain there they cannot be used to draw gold from the Treasury, but, since they are liable to be paid out in consequence of any excessive appropriations by Congress, and must be so paid if, for any reason, the Government's expenses exceed its receipts, they cannot be ignored. They are liable to be rushed into the circulation at any time, and hence, in any prudent calculation of the future, must be considered as a part of the nation's demand liabilities. The $110,000,000 or more of gold to be realized from the new bond sale, added to the stock in hand previously, will carry us to the end of the present year, without any commotion resulting from financial causes; but if the reserve should fall below the traditional $100,000,000 at any time during the term of the present Secretary, he will be justified by public opinion in making a new loan equal to the present one, which would be large enough to constitute a permanent infallible reserve, needing no further additions and dispensing with all further anxiety. NATIONAL INSANITY. THERE is a story told of Bishop Butler, the author of the 'Analogy,' that, walking in his garden one night with his chaplain, he asked him whether "public bodies might not go mad as well as individuals," adding that "nothing.else could account for most of the transactions in history." The question is an exceedingly interesting one, and seems to grow more so with the passage of time and the increase of intellectual activity; and yet there has been but little discussion of it by either historians or alienists. For instance, if we were to examine Socialism-or rather the various schemes which are laid before |