since the improvements of machinery in the last hundred years have been beyond the wildest dreams of any former age, we cannot wonder that whereas, in 1780, only one-thirtieth of the population of the United States lived in cities of 8,000 inhabitants or more, nearly one-fourth of the population in 1880 were inhabitants of cities of that size. What is equally important to be observed is this, that the improvement of the machinery of production and transportation has by no means come to an end. It is still going on. Hardly a week passes without some new discovery or invention which puts former machinery out of date. Hence we may expect a further relative diminution of the country population, and a further relative augmentation of the population of cities, the effect of which will doubtless be to increase the number of cities, but will also be indefinitely to increase the population of existing cities. If any one in the time of Shakspeare had predicted that the population of London would grow until it should be as large as the population of all England and Wales then was, he might justly have been set down as a lunatic. But what if one should now say that the population of London is destined to increase to thirty millions? Causes are in operation which make such a prospect very far from preposterous; and the same may be said of more than one of the cities of the United States.

But there are moral causes which draw as well as economical causes which drive men into cities. Man is a social creature; it would hardly be too much to say that the social instinct in one or other of its innumerable forms is the strongest instinct in humanity. It is not good for man to be alone; nothing is so contrary to his nature as solitude. The mere numbers of men in cities is so attractive as to draw other men like a magnet. In cities all that comes of human association is most active and most vital. The love of passionate excitement which stimulates the strong to action and the weak to alcoholic indulgence finds every means of gratification in a populous city. The vicious find there every opportunity of swift and speedy self-destruction; the benevolent find every possible form of charity inviting their co-operation; lovers of art, letters and learning find innumerable attractions and unfailing sources of intellectual inspiration; that inherent love of battle which characterizes the highest as well as the lowest natures finds endless fields of exercise in professional or business competition. In short, such is the attraction of cities that Mr. Loomis in his excellent work does not hesitate to assert the law that "the urban population in every country is always as large as circumstances allow;" and that "when a city's increase is not checked by the superior attractiveness of some rival, it will grow until it reaches a point where life within its walls becomes so difficult that it is no longer to be preferred to life without!"

If we admit that statement, then only two causes can prevent the increase of cities, namely the lack of food, or such unwholesome sanitary conditions as will kill off the population. But in these two particulars modern cities are daily improving. The facility of transportation is such that the necessaries of life are to-day as cheap in cities as else

where. The time was, and it is not so long ago, when thousands of people perished of hunger in the streets of London, for the simple reason that when the crops of the immediate neighborhood were destroyed by floods, there was no means of bringing food in sufficient quantities from other places. Nothing of that kind is possible in these times. The supply of food in cities is, and always will be, equal tơ the actual demand, and it will be sold at the lowest average price of the world's markets. At the same time the sanitary conditions of city life are constantly improving for the poor as well as for the rich; the deathrate is constantly lowering; and pestilences, such as were the terror of the world in former times, have been virtually abolished. Still further, the provision for the care of sick and helpless persons has grown to such proportions that the poorest inhabitant of a city can hardly perish of want or curable disease.-The Churchman.

RECALLING A Gained Cause.—It is a much easier matter to compliment an address of Mr. Chauncey Depew than to furnish a complement to it in the form of a germane addition. Yet it is this which the Ledger is about to do in relation to Mr. Depew's very fine address on the occasion of the corner-stone laying of the World's new building, on Thursday last.

In character with most of Mr. Depew's serious literary and oratorical efforts, what he then said was not only pertinent to the occasion, but was historically interesting and instructive. In the course of an outline sketch of the rise and progress of the free American newspaper press, the speaker came to the prosecution for libel and the memorable acquittal in 1735 of John Peter Zenger, printer, proprietor and editor of the New York Journal. There is where the Ledger comes in with its complement to the address. If Mr. Depew had had but this one incident to take care of, as the main point in 'his discourse, he doubtless would have amplified it at least far enough to show the honorable and illustrious part played by a "Philadelphia lawyer" and statesman in that first successful struggle in America between an independent editor and the tyranny and oppression of a royal government.

What Mr. Depew had the opportunity to say concerning that memorable event is comprised in the following passage:

"Here, in the city of New York, that sturdy old editor, John Peter Zenger, gave expression to the popular discontent, and exposed the iniquities and assailed the tyrannical acts of the government. The Governor ordered the Mayor and Council to attend the burning of Zenger's paper by the hangman, but they refused. After nine months' imprisonment he was finally brought to trial. Against the wishes of the Governor and the instructions of the Judge, the jury considered the truth of the alleged libel a justification for its publication, and acquitted him. The bonfires and the illuminations, the universal popular rejoicing and

applause which greeted the verdict, were the public manifestations that the people had found and freed their tribune.'

That is entirely accurate so far as it goes, but it is both interesting and important to carry it some steps further. Zenger, coming to New York from Germany at the age of thirteen, having learned to be a good printer as an apprentice to William Bradford (who had been a Philadelphia printer), founded the New York Journal in November, 1733. Bradford then had his printing house in New York City, and was printing the Gazette, which (established in 1725) was the pioneer of all New York papers, and in 1734-35 was the organ of the English Royal Colonial Government. Zenger, being a man of independent turn of mind and something of a politician, made his Journal the representative and champion of the opposition to the royal government and freely criticized its abuses. He had a backer in a wealthy merchant, who was President of the Council-Rip Van Dam. After sundry other adverse criticisms on the Administration, The Journal said that “The people of this city [New York] and province think, as matters now stand, that their liberties and properties are precarious, and that slavery is like to be entailed on them and their posterity if some past things be not amended."

This, in the view of the royal British Colonial Dogberry, was "most tolerable and not to be endured," and so John Peter Zenger was arrested on a charge of libel, on Sunday, November, 1734, and was put into jail, where, as Mr. Depew says, he remained nine months. While the sentence, last above quoted, contained the libel specifically complained of, the "information" founded upon it charged Zenger with publishing "divers Scandalous, Virulent, False and Seditious Reflections, not only upon the whole Legislature in general, and upon the most considerable Persons, in the most distinguished Stations in the Province, but, also, upon His Majesty's lawful and right Government and Prerogative."

Now, although Zenger did not scare worth a cent under that fulmination (for, after missing one issue of his weekly paper, he went on furnishing editorial copy for it from the jail), his backer, Rip Van Dam, and other supporters, considered that a fight with the royal representatives on such an issue would be formidable, and they considered it advisable to have the suit defended by the ablest legal counsel to be procured in the American Colonies. To this end, after the throwing out of Zenger's local counsel by the government, they sent for the famous "Philadelphia lawyer" and renowned jurist-Andrew Hamilton-the same Hamilton who, as amateur architect, designed our State House"-now Independence Hall.

The cause came on to be tried on the 4th of August, 1735, the Judge sitting in the case being a mere creature of the Government, which was the prosecutor. But, in spite of this, the sound learning, the irresistible logic, the eloquence, the zeal and the daring courage of Hamilton, won a verdict of acquittal from a jury that had been instructed by the Judge to convict on the facts, and to leave the law to the Court.

Hamilton had offered to prove the truth of the publication, but this

the Court refused to allow him to do, and then, having no testimony to proceed upon, he made that illustrious argument which laid the foundation of freedom for the American newspaper press. Being denied the right to introduce witnesses as to the oppressions and wrongs that the Government had put upon the people, he appealed to the jurors themselves to become witnesses to the fact of the suppression of the evidence proffered, which, he claimed, should be considered the strongest evidence in vindication of the defendant; that it is an indefeasible right of the people-founded in reason and in nature-to complain when they are hurt; to publicly remonstrate against abuses of power in the strongest terms; to put their neighbors on their guard, and to assert with courage their sense of the blessings of liberty. And when told by the Judge that this was matter of law which only the Court could deal with, Hamilton courteously responded to the Judge by telling him that the jury also had the right, beyond all dispute, "to bring in a verdict upon both the law and the fact, and where they do not doubt the law they ought to do so."

Here is the concluding passage of Hamilton's great argument: "Men who injure and oppress the people under their administration provoke them to cry out and complain, and then make that very complaint the foundation for new oppressions and prosecutions. I wish I could say there were no instances of this kind. But, to conclude, the question before the Court and you, gentlemen of the jury, is not of small or private concern; it is not only the cause of a poor printer, nor of New York alone, which you are trying. No! it may, in its consequences, affect every freeman that lives under a British government on the main of America. It is the best cause; it is the cause of liberty, and I make no doubt but your upright conduct this day will not only entitle you to the love and esteem of your fellow citizens, but every may who prefers freedom to a life of slavery will bless and honor you as men who have baffled the attempts of tyranny, and by an impartial and uncorrupt verdict have laid a noble foundation for securing to ourselves, our posterity and our neighbors, that to which nature and the laws of our country have given us a right-the liberty both of exposing and opposing arbitrary power, in these parts of the world at least, by speaking and writing the truth."

The jury, as already said, acquitted Zenger in the face of the hostile Court and Government. The verdict was greeted with shouts of applause in a crowded court. The Chief Justice admonished and threatened the audience in vain; cheer on cheer greeted the great and successful advocate of freedom for the press. Hamilton was feasted and fêted and honored with an almost royal homage as the barge carried him across the Hudson on his way to his Philadelphia home.

In the opinion of Gouverneur Morris, the result thus achieved by Andrew Hamilton was "the dawn of liberty which afterwards revolutionized America.”—Phila. Public Ledger.

A BANKRUPT LAW has been prepared by the Committeee on Bills of the National Convention of the Representatives of Commercial Bodies, and that committee solicits correspondence with all persons interested. Jay L. Torrey, Esq., 510 Pine street, St. Louis, Mo., should be addressed. The whole bill is too lengthy to print at one time, and the chapter (III) on Bankrupts is, perhaps, sufficient. It is as follows:

850. Acts of Bankruptcy. Any person shall be adjudged a Bankrupt, if he has, within six months, (1) made an assignment for the benefit of his Creditors; (2) made a conveyance, gift or transfer of all, or any part, of his assets with intent to defraud or delay his Creditors; (3) procured or suffered a judgment to be entered against himself, with intent to defraud or delay his Creditors; (4) while insolvent, for the purpose of giving a preference, made a conveyance of any of his property, or suffered any of his property to be taken or levied upon, by process of law or otherwise; (5) failed for thirty days to secure the release of any property levied upon by attachment or execution; (6) suffered an execution against him to be returned nulla bona; (7) made a written declaration of his inability to pay his debts and filed it in Court; (8) while insolvent made a contract or contracts, personally, or by agent or broker, for the purchase or sale of a commodity or commodities, with an intention not to receive or deliver the same, but merely to receive or pay a difference in the market price thereof, at a time subsequent to the making of such contract or contracts; (9) concealed himself to avoid arrest or the service of legal process; (10) secreted, concealed or removed his property to avoid its being levied upon under legal process against him; (11) departed, or remained away, from his residence or place of business with intent to defraud or delay his Creditors; (12) suspended, and not resumed, payment of his commercial paper for thirty days; (13) neglected for sixty days, after written demand shall have been personally served on him, to pay an open account which was, at the time of such demand, due by him, or (14) voluntarily petitioned to be adjudged a Bankrupt.

851. Bankrupt's Death. The death of a Respondent shall not abate the proceedings which have been instituted, but the same shall be conducted and concluded in the same manner, so far as possible, as if he had not died.

52. Bankrupt's Duties. The Bankrupt shall (1) in voluntary proceedings, file with his petition, under his oath, with the Clerk, a schedule in duplicate of his assets, showing the amount and kind of property, the location thereof and the cash value, in detail, and a list of his Creditors in duplicate, showing their residences and the amount due to each of them and the consideration thereof and the security held by them, if any; (2) in involuntary proceedings, within ten days, unless further time be granted, after being adjudged such, file with the Court such schedule and list of Creditors; (3) claim such exemptions as he may be entitled to hereunder, at the time of filing his schedule of assets and list of Creditors; (4) attend the first meeting of Creditors and