HE party lines of the future will, it is evident, be widely different from the party lines of the past; what they will be no one can at this writing clearly foretell. The immediate and pressing questions are all connected with the revenue; the remote but not unimportant ones are the relative authority of the Federal and the local governments: not their degree of authority, which was settled once for all by the Civil War, but the field in which their authority may be respectively exercised. This question is as yet remote, and cannot be permanently obscured in the public mind by charging all the descendants of the old Democracy of the -Jefferson type with being disturbers of the public peace, and assuming that all virtue of loyalty to law and order is monopolized by the inheritors of Federal tendencies. The other and immediate question, of revenue, presents itself under two aspects-tariff and currency. On the tariff there is apparent an inclination of conservative or middle men, in both the National Democratic and the Republican parties, to get together, illustrated, for example, by such utterances as this of Bourke Cockran at the Chamber of Commerce dinner in New York City:

"We are confronted with the necessity of raising revenue at the very threshold of this Administration. That question must be met, and for my part I am ready to concede the right of the majority to fix the means by which it shall be met. I would deplore as the greatest disaster that could overcome this country the spectacle of the President of the United States, elected on a platform of sound money, forced to bargain with the silver Senators for the passage of the legislation necessary to support the Government of the United States. Here is the theater where Democrats can show patriotism. Here is the opportunity which Democrats alone enjoy, and which is denied to our Republican brethren."

It is currently reported that President Cleveland is considering propositions for an increased tax on beer, and a moderate tax on tea and coffee. Both taxes raise large amounts for the revenue in England, and without friction or popular hostility. The "Evening Post" is quite right in saying that the question of economy in expenditures is quite as important as that of taxation for revenue. But whether Congress will take this view is, we fear, quite doubtful. It is, at all events, evident that protection is not just now a very vital issue, since it is impossible by any recognized method of taxation to raise the revenue which is absolutely indispensable without a tariff which will be practically protective.

It is at least too early to affirm that gold monometallism has won in this election. Says the New York "Journal (Silver organ):

"There is growing up an expectation that President McKinley, who knows a great deal more about the money question than the goldstandard men like to think he does, will be disposed to make use of his knowledge in his recommendations to the new Congress. It is not at all improbable that he will scandalize the monometallists by taking the Republican platform seriously and urging efforts looking toward international bimetallism. It is also not improbable that he

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will be averse to radical action in the matter of increasing the privileges and power of the national banks. Major McKinley is a cautious man, he has been a long time in public life, and is a shrewd student of popular sentiment. The problems he must face are difficult ones, and it is not likely that he will go at them rashly. The cause of silver has a strength behind it for which President McKinley will be pretty sure to show some respect, particularly as he is himself a veteran bimetallist."

We are inclined to believe that there is truth in these suggestions, and wisdom in them also. If Mr. McKinley is as wise a politician as we think him to be, he will recog nize that the popular demand for bimetallism in this country is very strong. If the issue had been, not between gold and silver, but between gold and bimetallism, it is almost certain that the majority would have gone against gold. We shall be rather surprised if the President-elect does not, under the counsel of such advisers as Senator Hoar and President Walker, consider plans for bringing about international bimetallism, without the co-operation of England. Meanwhile a very wise plan has been started in the West for the organization of a commercial, non-partisan, non-political commission to frame some permanent currency scheme for the future. We quote from a dispatch in the New York "Tribune:"

"Indianapolis, November 18 (Special).-The Board of Governors of the Board of Trade held a well-attended meeting to-night to consider the financial situation of the country. Justus C. Adams presided. By invitation Hugh H. Hanna, a prominent manufacturer, but himself not a member of the committee, read a paper outlining the plan of the movement. He said that since the Far West will not move in the direction desired, and such a movement instituted by the East would be met with the prejudices that pervade the West, it was left to the business men of the Central West to inaugurate a movement by which, he predicted, some desirable ends may be attained. He proposed that the Indianapolis Board of Trade invite the Boards of Trade of the fifteen or sixteen cities of the seven States lying east of the Missouri and west of the Alleghanies to meet here on December 1, and prepare a plan for a meeting of the Boards of Trade in the United States later in the month."

We earnestly hope that some such plan may be carried out, and an attempt, freed from the bitterness of political animosity, may be made for a scientific adjustment of our currency problem. And the place to make the attempt is in the West.

The report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration shows that 340,000 immigrants arrived last year, as against 280,000 the year preceding, when the prostration of business was greatest, and 503,000 in 1893. before the present depression began. As the number of immigrants registers in some measure the difficulty of finding employment, it would seem that this difficulty was at least materially less last year than two years ago. Most of those in Europe who contemplate emigrating to this country are in some way in communication with immigrants already here, and more immigrants would not have come to this country unless employment were easier to find here, or harder to find in Europe. Out of 270,000 who were over fourteen years of age, 78,000 could neither read nor write. Of these,

31,000 were from Italy and 36,000 from Austria and Russia. This is the kind of immigration which the Lodge Bill would exclude. As this measure has now not only the support of the labor organizations but also of the most definite pledge in the Republican platform, the Immigration Restriction League hopes to have it enacted into law by the present Congress. It has already passed the House.

The friction which has retarded the development of the public-school system of New York under the new law is at an end. The Mayor has appointed four new members to the Board of Education, whose term of service is for three years from January 1-Messrs. E. Ellery Anderson, John E. Eustis, William Greenough, and Richard H. Adams. Two of the appointees are graduates of Harvard, one a graduate of Wesleyan University and the Columbia College law school, and the third, a native of New York City, was educated in Germany. The Mayor has also reappointed three of the old Commissioners. Two of these are identified with the former majority of the Board. The new appointments change the character of the Board and put the reform element in the majority. The friends of school reform throughout the whole country will rejoice for the marked advance made in the law, as well as in the character of the men governing the school system of the metropolis of the country. The committee on the establishment of high schools are actively at work. They hope to have at least one high school ready in February, but have been forced to change their plans, and it appears now that the high schools will not be ready for occupancy until September of 1897. The proposition has been made to change the school hours in the crowded districts where the greatest number of children are denied admission, arranging for one session from eight to twelve, and one from one to half-past four, with two sets of teachers. This plan has many advocates as being the only one that will meet the present emergency. There is money enough, its friends claim, to employ the double set of teachers, and they also declare that it will at least save one year of school life to thousands of children. Comparatively few of the buildings offered to the Board of Education are adapted to school-room purposes. The Building Department has condemned nearly all that have been offered, lack of ventilation and absence of light being the main causes for the condemnation.

The National Council of Jewish Women has been in session during the past week in New York. The total membership of this Council is three thousand. The purpose of the Council was to bring about closer relations among Jewish women, to furnish a medium of communication and a means of prosecuting work of common interest, to educate the mass of the Jewish people by supplying means of study, and to further the efforts of social reform by the interchange of experience and suggestion and the application of the best thought to philanthropic effort. The officers of the Convention are all Chicago women, as the idea of the Convention grew out of the Congress of Women held in Chicago at the time of the World's Fair, when that city took up in a spirit of earnestness the idea of a National organization of Jewish women. The difficulties and limitations of the lives of the Hebrew immigrants to be found in such large numbers in all our large cities are fully realized by the intelligent Jewesses of the country. They recognize, as does every worker among the poor, that the best moral protection thrown about any family of immigrants is the preservation of their religion to them; they hold that proselyting means, in the vast majority of cases, a moral weakening

that is almost fatal to the family. How to combat the skepticism that so soon assails the Hebrew family, how to combat indifference to their traditions, how to preserve the rites and ceremonials of their Church so that God may not be lost to these families, is a problem which these Jewish women recognize and are endeavoring to solve. One of them said: "This Convention is not to elevate Judaism,. but to elevate our people through Judaism." The care,. nurture, and culture of children was a paramount subject at the conference. First, the preservation of the home and the God of Judea in the home; secondly, how to preservethe home when pauperism stares it in the face; thirdly, howto educate the children of all classes in fidelity to their religious faith; and, finally, how to administer the charity and the philanthropic effort of the rich Hebrews so that largerreturns will be made, were the questions that received full. and intelligent attention from this audience. The Convens: tion dropped the word National from its title, and will here-after be known as "The Council of Jewish Women." ThePresident of the Convention summed up the purpose of this Council in these words: "A true Jewish womanhood, a Jewish life, and a home true to our spiritual inheritance, true to the flag under which we live, faith in God's provi-dence, these are the ties that bind us. This is the Jewish. thought that shall belt the globe, bringing its message of higher life, of spiritual aims and purposes, practicing justice, loving mercy, and walking in modesty and humility before God and his light. For this we have come together."

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The Board of Health of New York City has within> the last month begun investigations of the condition of bake-shops in the basements of tenement-houses on the East Side. These investigations have been carried on during working hours in the shops, from 12 to 4:30 A.M.; the result is that about one thousand arrests for violation. of the law will be made. This law, which was passed in May of 1895, had the cordial support of the Bakers' Unions. and the allied trades. It regulates the working hours, no man being allowed to work more than sixty hours a week. or "more than ten hours in any one day," unless for the purpose of making a shorter work-day on the last day of the week; it provides that all buildings occupied by bakeries. shall be drained and plumbed to the required standard; that any room used for the manufacture of flour or meal food-products shall have an impermeable floor; that the side walls shall be plastered or wainscoted, and whitewashed at least once in three months; that flour and meal food-products shall be kept in rooms so arranged that the floors and shelves can be perfectly cleaned; that properwash-rooms and water-closets, apart from the bake-room or rooms where the food-product is manufactured, shall be furnished; that sleeping-places for the persons employed. in the bakery shall be separate from the room or rooms. where the food is manufactured or stored. The penalties. for misdemeanors or violations of the law are $50 for the first offense, not less than $50 or more than $100 for the second offense, or an imprisonment of ten days, and for a third offense a fine of not less than $250, or imprison-ment of not more than thirty days.

On January 27, 1896, eight months after the passage of the law to regulate the manufacture of flour and meal food-products, the tenth annual report of the State Factory Inspectors was issued. The greater portion of that report was given to the bake-shops. The details of the report. are so disgusting as to make it impossible for The Outlook. to place them before its readers. The violations of the law

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regulating the hours of employment are almost incredible. In some of the bake-shops in the cellars under tenementhouses, where the sanitary conditions were sickening, men were found who were compelled to work from twelve to twenty-two hours a day. In one bake-shop in Mulberry Street the "second hand" was required to work nineteen hours a day seven days a week; or, in all, one hundred and thirty-three hours every week. For this he was paid $25 a month and boarded himself. He slept in the bakery on a mattress black with filth; he never took off his clothes to sleep. The inspector says that four others were employed in that shop," and a more woe-stricken set of men it has never been our lot to see." In the Jewish bakeries men worked on an average about fifteen hours a day, but they work only six days in the week. In other shops it found that the mattresses for the men are laid on top of the barrels of flour stored in the cellar. That it is time that public sentiment demanded the enforcement of this law is evident. Some defects in the law as printed make part of its enforcement difficult, especially the regulations as to the boiling of fat for crullers and doughnuts in buildings that are not fireproof. Among the many evils growing out of the tolerance of bake-shops in dwelling-houses is that of the escape of gas into the buildings. There is scarcely a tenement-house to be found in New York with a bakeshop in its basement in which the inmates will not be found to be suffering from throat and lung difficulties. Within a year a bake-shop in one of the large East Side tenements failed. It had been located there ten years. It was impossible to keep from coughing at any hour of the day on entering that building. The people in the house were all consumptive-looking, and the percentage of deaths of little children was enormous. The same families are occupying that house, and the decided improvement in their appearance began within three months after the shop was closed. To maintain hospitals, on the one hand, with lavish generosity, and, on the other hand, tolerate the conditions that make those hospitals necessary, is not a mark of intelligence.

The suit against the wire-nail trust begun some time ago by a Cincinnati manufacturer, on the ground that the trust had prevented a maker of machinery from fulfilling a contract to supply him with nail-making machines, has resulted in a temporary injunction against the trust. The attorneys for the nail combination sought to defeat the suit on the ground that the United States Court before which it was brought had no jurisdiction. The case was tried before Judge Baker, of the District Court at Indianapolis, who overruled the contention of the trust, making use of the following language:

"The trust described is an unlawful combination, a conspiracy to raise the price of goods and to interfere with the manufacture of wirenail machinery, and is in direct violation of an act of Congress, of good morals, and of the public weal."

The allegations made by the Cincinnati manufacturer, and not denied by the attorneys of the trust, amply justify the vigor of these terms. Not only was it alleged that the trust had purchased control of all the nail-making machinery in the country, so that competitors are forced to the wall, but also that the trust has, within eighteen months of falling prices, advanced the price of wire nails two hundred per cent., and by this extortion transferred $7,000,000 from the pockets of the nail-buying public to the pockets of its members. All of this plunder went to the stockholders in the trust. Labor received not the smallest driblet of it. On the contrary, the advance in the price of nails has been so great that hardware merchants

in many parts of the country complain that the consump tion of nails has been seriously reduced. In other words, the combination to raise prices has been incidentally a combination to lessen the demand for labor. The temporary injunction granted by Judge Baker has led to a widespread hope that in this case the Anti-Trust Law will be enforced against a trust. The loss of trade to hardware merchants has been so marked as to goad their National Association to action. At its recent meeting this Association resolved to make an aggressive fight. Some of the threats made seem to have proven to a certain degree effective. The price of wire nails has suddenly been reduced from $2.55 a keg to $1.70. Even this price, however, is double that at which such nails were sold before the trust was organized. The suit begun before Judge Baker should be prosecuted with vigor.

The Massachusetts Labor Bureau has again published a most valuable report. It deals exclusively with the relation of liquor to crime, pauperism, and insanity. So many loose assertions have been made on this subject that it is a great satisfaction to have a comprehensive and dispassionate examination of the facts. As to criminals the Massachusetts investigation is singularly comprehensive, and the results reached seem to justify most of the general.izations made by earnest temperance reformers. Examination was made of 26,672 convictions recorded last year. Of this number 18,232, or over sixty-eight per cent., were for drunkenness alone, or for drunkenness in connection with other crime. Of the 8,440 remaining convictions the further inquiry was made: " Was the criminal under the influence of liquor at the time the crime was committed?" In 3,640 cases the answer was "Yes." This left only 4,800 cases, or but eighteen per cent., in which the person convicted was entirely sober when his offense was committed. Further inquiries were made as to the condition of criminals when their crimes were planned, and as to the extent to which that condition was due to intemperate habits. The answers in these cases have less scientific value, as the accuracy of the criminal's statement is less reliable; but here also the answers simply made stronger the evidence of the closeness of the relationship between drunkenness and crime. Of less moral importance, but nevertheless of considerable interest, was the investigation of the parentage of criminals. In only thirteen per cent. of the cases were both parents native, in three per cent. one parent was native and the other foreign born, while in eighty-three per cent. of the cases both parents were foreign

born. In the State at large forty-four per cent. are of native stock, and fifty-six per cent. have foreign parentage.

In Boston the plan of confining the saloons to the business district has found support in an unusual quarter. The Chairman of the Police Board, General A. P. Martin, gives it his warm approval. The plan has been so successful in Minneapolis, Minn., where nine-tenths of the area of the city is saloon-free, that its application to Boston would certainly seem to be an immense stride forward. There are, however, certain practical difficulties in the way of the complete transplantation of the Minneapolis plan. The present law in Massachusetts allows one saloon in Boston for every 500 people, and there is not temperance sentiment enough in Boston to make the liquor interests fearful of extirpation. As a result, the 993 saloons now licensed will fight vigorously against any considerable reduction in their number, while a great many families residing in the so-called "business district will fight as vigorously against any considerable increase in their saloon facilities. In fact, an