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nobody" again compels his party to elect nobody. In Pennsylvania interest has centered in the investigation of the charges of bribery brought against the Quay manager in connection with the McCarrel bill to change the jury law so as to prevent the complete exclusion of Quay partisans. The high-handed methods employed by Speaker Farr and others of the Quay leaders to defeat this investigation not only led three of the Quay supporters to declare their independence, as we reported last week, but also brought about the enlargement of the investigating committee upon a basis promising thorough work. Several members have already testified that bribes were offered them, and the end is not yet reached. One prominent paper, friendly to Senator Quay, now predicts that the Legislature, before adjourning on April 21, will elect a Senator" satisfactory to Senator Quay, though not Senator Quay himself." Other predictions are that the Legislature will adjourn without electing any one, as the breach in the Republican ranks cannot be healed during the present session, and the Democrats willing to support an independent Republican like Mr. Wanamaker or Mr. Stewart dare not withdraw their party candidate for fear that a minority of their colleagues would vote for and elect Mr. Quay. Nothing is certain except the uncertainty.

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announcement was made in the House of Commons that the English Government had decided to introduce competition in the telephone service of the country. A resolution was adopted indorsing the proposal and giving the PostOffice Department a credit of $10,000,000 to develop the telephone service. This action indicates that in the near future the telephone service of Great Britain, like the telegraph service, will be a part of the post-office system. When telephones were introduced in that country, the Government recognized that the service to be rendered was of the same character as that performed by the Post-Office Depart ment, and gave the private telephone company very limited privileges, stipulating that it should be under the close super

vision of the post-office officials. The Government even imposed a tax of ten per cent. upon the gross receipts of the telephone company, to compensate the Post-Office Department for the loss of telegraph business which telephone communication necessitated. The partnership between the private company and the Government, however, has not been satisfactory. Owing to the limited rights of the private company, it has not felt justified in going to the expense of a costly and satisfactory plant; and owing to the antagonism between its interests and those of the public, the public officials supposed to supervise the company have been the subjects of criticism and almost of scandal. The partnership, therefore, has not been a success, though telephone charges in England seem to have been much lower than those in the United States. According to a statement made by Mr. Simon Sterne, of this city, in an address before the Social Reform Club last week, the London-charge is $85 per year for an unlimited service, where the New York charge is $240. Inasmuch as electrical apparatus of all sorts is in this country as cheap as or cheaper than in England, the only important item of expense which is greater in London than here is the wages of the young women at the telephone exchanges; but inasmuch as $30 per subscriber covers these wages in this country, $10 per subscriber would perhaps cover the difference in wages between the two countries. The English company, says Mr. Sterne, claims that its expense is increased by the fact that it has not the New York privilege of stringing its wires in subways and thus saving heavy outlays for repairs. There are, however, probably two sides to this question, as to most questions. The greater number of subscribers in New York doubtless requires a somewhat higher rate; but if the English House of Commons feels that an $85 rate is so monopolistic as to demand government interference, it would seem that the New York Legislature might accept the moderate bill urged by the New York Board of Trade, establishing a $150 rate for an unlimited service, unless the telephone company can show to the courts that this rate will not return to it ten per cent. on its invested and accumulated capital.

Competing

Telephone Systems in the West

In our own Central and Western States, and at some points in the East, telephone rates are gradually being reduced by private competition. This remedy, however, is not only unsatisfactory-because neither of the two competing companies can connect all the local subscribers-but it is also of uncertain duration, as the competitors may consolidate. Nevertheless the reductions of rates secured by the introduction-and sometimes merely by the fear-of competition have been important. In Indiana the competing companies have gradually developed a practical system, and more of the smaller towns are served by the new system than by the old. Even in Indianapolis, according to the Chicago "TimesHerald," a new company, by guaranteeing to reduce the yearly charge from seventytwo dollars to forty dollars, has secured hundreds of five-year contracts; and promises to begin business next month with almost as many subscribers as the old company. The New Long-Distance Telephone Company promises to connect one hundred and forty-four towns and cities, and to establish charges from twentyfive to forty per cent. less than those of the long-distance company operating under the Bell patent. In the matter of telephone communication the smaller cities are everywhere served at a lower rate than the larger, partly because the service is actually cheaper, and partly because it is easier for a competing company to establish itself. According to a recent statement made by the head of the old company in Chicago, the increase of its business by three hundred per cent. during the last ten years has added fifty per cent. to the cost of serving each subscriber. But the principal reason, apparently, why the service in the smaller towns is conducted at rates so much lower is the ease with which a competing system can be introduced if rates are unsatisfactory. In a great city, on the other hand, the telephone subscribers cannot easily get together, and no telephone subscriber is willing to transfer his patronage to a new system until nearly all the people he wishes to keep in communication with have done the same. For this reason the telephone system in a large city is a natural monopoly, and rates can be kept reasonable only by public regula

tion upon some such basis as is proposed by the Board of Trade Bill for this city, or, still better, perhaps, by the bill which has been before the Massachusetts Legislature giving a State Commission the power to ascertain the cost of service and to recommend rates which shall be alike fair to the public and to the companies.

The Allen Law Repealed

The Illinois Legislature has at last repealed the Allen Law, which gave city councils the right to grant fifty-year franchises to street-car lines with five cents as the minimum fare. Upon the final vote only one member, and that one Mr. Allen, dared stand out against the repeal of the law; and Governor Tanner, after satisfying himself that the repeal bill did not allow city councils to authorize competing car systems on any street without

the consent of the owners of most of the

abutting property, signed the bill. Under the new law, which is merely a modified form of the old law, no franchises can be granted for a longer period than twenty years, and the city councils may stipulate for fares less than five cents. The establishment of low fares instead of heavy taxes, when franchises are extended, seems at last to be recognized in Chicago as the more sensible policy. A few months ago the press of that city, and the Mayor, seemed intent upon prolonging five-cent fares, if ten per cent. of this unjust charge could be turned over to the city treasury; but the campaign which ex-Governor Altgeld inaugurated has borne fruit in unexpected quarters. The Republican City Convention, held last week, adopted the following resolution:

The streets of Chicago are public highways. All grants and extensions of franchises should be for short periods-in no case exceeding twenty years. Extensions of street railway franchises, if made, should provide that all subsequent grants shall expire at the same time, and that the people shall, upon their expiration, if they shall then so desire, be entitled to purchase the tangible property used in the operation of the roads, at its then value for railroad purposes. Provision should first be made for reduced fares, especially during the rush hours and for school-children, and then for special services and cash payments to the city.

A valued correspondent of The Outlook, in reply to a former paragraph favoring

the policy of low fares against that of increased taxation, has urged upon us that three-cent fares are an impossibility in most cities, because the average expense per passenger now reported by street-car companies is more than three cents. In reply to this, it need only be said that the average expense per passenger in Toronto before the new charter was granted was more than three cents, and yet the company which gave the three-cent fares during the rush hours, and the two-and-one-halfcent fares to school-children, is making such profits that its securities have a market value more than double the invested capital. Low fares make it possible for a company to run large cars well filled instead of small cars partly empty; and in Toronto at least-where the reduction of fares was accompanied by the introduction of electricity-the average cost per passenger has fallen to two cents. Had the city government of Toronto required a ten per cent. tax upon gross receipts instead of requiring a forty per cent. reduction in fares during the rush hours, the Toronto company would not to-day be as prosperous as it is, and the working.people of Toronto using the cars morning and night would be out of pocket nearly a week's wages every year.

The recently reported closThe Purging ing of gambling-houses and of Trenton cleaning out of gambling slot

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machines from Trenton, New Jersey, has a history behind it. It shows, as in the case of Dr. Parkhurst, what a publicspirited and courageous minister can do as a tribune of the people. There were more than twenty of these houses and more than three hundred of these machines in Trenton, operating in open defiance of laws which the "respectable part of the community apathetically declined to demand enforcement of. From $4,000 to $6,000 a month went out of Trenton as the profit of these machines, from men and boys, large groups of whom might sometimes be seen waiting the turn of each to put his nickels in the slot. The Rev. Alfred W. Wishart, minister of the Central Baptist Church, who had previously led a successful movement for the stoppage of prize-fights under the guise of sparring entertainments, took

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this new scandal in hand, at first in a private way. He remonstrated with the police authorities without effect. He presented charges before two grand juries without effect. Then he determined to lay the matter before the people. He obtained, with the co-operation of friends, a mass of the most convincing facts in evidence, and, taking these into his pulpit, laid bare the iniquity, and charged the police authorities with connivance at it. The next morning the papers published his sermon in full. With prescience of the result, some of the guilty parties immediately prepared to move out of town. The grand jury, of its own accord, at once took the matter up, and, while stopping short of an indictment, adopted resolutions which braced up the police authorities to order the enforcement of the law. This was done, and the infamy speedily banished, at least for the present. It is to be hoped that the lesson will not soon be forgotten.

and Princeton

Dr. van Dyke has announced Dr. van Dyke his acceptance of the invitation to fill the Professorship of English Literature at Princeton University, the date of his retirement from the pulpit of the Brick Church to be determined by the needs of the church. The new professorship will bear the honored. name of Dean Murray, whose services to the institution have been invaluable, not only as a teacher and executive officer, but in the quiet, manly, and beautiful illustration of the highest Christian character, which the students have recognized in his life. This chair will give unusual latitude to the man who fills it. It will be a grief to many that Dr. van Dyke feels called upon to leave the pulpit which he has made so influential and so conspicuous. No preacher in the city has attained a more prominent position, or has sustained his pulpit work at a higher level; and no man in the pulpit has had more authority with young men. On the other hand, the country has been recognizing with increasing clearness the talent for literature which Dr. van Dyke has shown in so many ways; and he who serves God and his fellow-men through art serves as truly and often in a larger way than he who serves through direct

teaching. Whatever instrument Dr. van Dyke uses, it is certain that his spiritual ideals will always be the burden of his utterance. The country has a right to expect, both in prose and verse, work of an unusual quality and value from him in the future. As a teacher in a university he will have the qualities which win and inspire young men. There is no touch of professionalism in him; his manliness is revealed in the frankest kind of speech; he has great courage; he is always virile in thought and in utterance, and he has the kind of feeling about a man's place and a man's work in the world which appeals with peculiar force to young men. In going to Princeton, Dr. van Dyke puts himself in the way of deeply impressing those who are in turn to impress others; of bringing out the finest and best quality of his nature in the most lasting forms; and of carrying his message of courage and faith into many pulpits.

Mrs. Irvine will retire Wellesley College from the presidency of Wellesley College at the close of the present academic year, after discharging the duties of that office for several years in a spirit of devotion to the institution which its friends have not been slow to recognize. Mrs. Irvine is pre-eminently a scholar, and the surrender of her life to executive work has involved a genuine sacrifice. She brought to her position exceptional qualifications both of ability and training, and she has steadily illustrated in the life of the College the highest ideals of intellectual integrity and thoroughness. Miss Caroline Hazard, of Peace Dale, Rhode Island, has been chosen by the Trustees to succeed Mrs. Irvine, and has accepted her election with that kind of reluctance which is one of the best evidences of qualification for a position. Miss Hazard is a woman in the prime of life; a member of the well-known Hazard family of Rhode Island; exceptionally well educated, because she had not only the semi-collegiate privileges accorded to women by Brown University, but especially because she was the personal friend and pupil of Professor Diman, whose memoirs she subsequently wrote. Her biography of her ancestor, Thomas Hazard, which is described in its

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The latest act in the drama Italy in China of the decline and fall of the Chinese Empire was performed last week; one scene being set in China and one in Europe. After the experiences of a few months ago in Abyssinia, Italy was apparently willing to confine her attention to home matters; but she suddenly appeared in the Far East and demanded what is euphoniously called a base for a port (really a large tract of territory) and other concessions. San-Moon Bay is a seaport not very far from the Chusan Islands, which are generally recognized as lying within the sphere of influence of Great Britain. The Chinese Government demurred, and Italy promptly made preparations to take by force that which China refused her. The latest reports indicate that the Chinese have recognized the futility of resistance, and, after the usual diplomatic formalities, they will undoubtedly cede what Italy demands. As Italy has practically no interests in China, her action at once gave rise to the suspicion that this new move betrayed the influence of one of the great players in the game now being played between the Great Powers.

Railroad

The New-Chwang

At the very moment when The New-Chwang Italy was making this demand upon China, the tension between Russia and England in regard to what is known as the NewChwang railway was extreme, and there was talk of serious differences between the two Governments. railroad is being built within a part of China included in the Russian sphere of influence, but it is being built by English capital upon the condition that the road shall never pass into the hands of any other power, and that the chief engineer and the chief accountant shall be British subjects. To these concessions on the part of the Chinese Government Russia

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was vigorously protesting at the very moment when Italy appeared as a new claimant in the field. It was instantly surmised, therefore, that she appeared as the result of an understanding with England; and that, if the situation may be put in the language of the Street, she proposed to secure a small share of Chinese stock for the purpose of being able to vote with Great Britain whenever the great stockholders came together in conference.

Then came the proRussia and England posal of the English Government, put forward by Mr. Goshen, for an increase of the navy, by adding to the regular ship-building programme— already very extensive and ambitious-a supplementary programme providing for the construction of four more battle-ships and four more cruisers. Mr. Goshen declared that the Government was taking this action to meet the increase of foreign navies, especially that of Russia, and that it will be the fixed policy of the English Ministry to keep the English fleet at all times equal in power to the fleets of the two naval Powers which stand next it in rank. Mr. Goshen, after frankly declaring that England was going to meet Russia's increase of strength by equivalent increase of strength, then offered to modify the ship-building programme if Russia would abandon a portion of her great scheme of naval construction. There was a good deal of apprehension last week in regard to the outcome of the Russian attitude toward English control of the New-Chwang railway; but the apparently determined position of the English Minister at Pekin has resulted, if reports are to be trusted, in a modification of Russian demands; and England is likely to keep her railway concessions, and Italy to secure the territory which she has claimed. Meantime China is being rapidly disposed of; England is now in possession of Wei-Hai-Wei, the Russians are securely intrenched at Port Arthur, the Germans have taken Kiao-Chau, the French are established at Annam and Tonquin, the English hold Hong-Kong and Singapore, and, with the Italians in possession of San-Moon Bay and the outlying islands, the available harbors and roadsteads along the coast are in the hands of foreign Governments.

Various suggestions have been made in different quarters that our own Government should now take its part in the division of China; but our Government has wisely decided to take no steps in this direction. We have but one interest in China, and that is the protection of our increasingly valuable commerce.

Samoa

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The statements of the German Consul in Samoa, Herr Rose, made public this week, do not materially alter the case, as previously known. Herr Rose contradicts Chief Justice Chambers's account in some particulars, but it is still perfectly clear that the German Consul and the German President of the Municipality of Apia deliberately defied the orders of the Chief Justice, issued under his well-defined powers, as laid down by the Berlin Treaty, and that their excuse is that their understanding of the law was different from his! Fortunately, the German Government seems to be in earnest in its adherence to the Berlin Treaty, and while it may diplomatically defend its rather unruly representatives in Samoa, there is no likelihood of any serious trouble. The true American position is simple; while the treaty is law, it must be enforced; revision should be in the interest of the Samoans, as well as of foreign nations. Our war-ship the Philadelphia is now well on its way to Apia, and Admiral Kautz has orders to preserve the peace and enforce the treaty. The actual situation in Samoa at last accounts (February 23) was that Mataafa had the support of the majority of the natives and had the largest forces of native soldiers; Malietoa has the support of the law, as laid down by Justice Chambers, and therefore of the American and British authorities.

The Dreyfus case is now The Dreyfus Case on trial before the entire Court of Cassation, and every judge (and there are, if we are rightly informed, fortynine) has the evidence in his hands. No announcements have yet been made in regard to the time when a decision may be anticipated. It is expected that the decision will take one of three forms: the combined Court may hold that the

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