cates that Christianity will be in no fancied (for it could not be real) danger from taxing the exclusive and the lazy for their religious luxuries. No doubt fine music and stirring sermons are attractive to the penniless and penurious alike, and no doubt meanness occasionally meets a merited rebuke by exclusion from facilities to worship God like the rich and liberal; yet all such things are not Christianity -are merely business principles applied to a religious habit-and are unjust alike to those who are willing to endure the fancied discomfort of finding a stranger in the pew, and to those who know no God. There is an inconsistency in suffering a private religious club to escape taxation, which might be dangerous among a less intelligent people than ours.

The people need not trouble themselves with the means of supporting religious worship; let the tax fall on every place of worship which does not freely open its doors as soon as the service begins, and no place will be taxed, no one will be seriously incommoded, no scandal from superserviceable sextons and irate pewholders will disfigure the newspapers, while the principle of exclusion will receive a serious blow where it is most needed.

WILLS are often deferred from a superstitious feeling that death would soon follow. The connection between a will and death seems so obvious that the origin of the superstition is difficult to detect, but perchance a little light may be had in a definition given by Victorinus, bishop of Petau (in

Austria), towards the end of the third century. Commenting on the Apocalypse (chap. V., v. 5), he says, "no law is called a testament, nor is anything else called a testament, save what persons make who are about to die" (7 Ante-Nicene Fathers, 350).

POOR LAWS are not uniform because their draftsmen do not proceed upon an uniform principle. It is easy to say that such laws should be so drawn as to encourage honest labor; this is not, however, the main motive of such a law. The Vagrant Acts, laws relating to youthful reformatories and Houses of correction, proceed upon the defensive principle of making honest labor both a habit and an inducement. The poor

who have dropped out of life's current, who have no energy, no strength, are to be cared for more in the manner of the partially insane, who are put to regular but not self-sustaining work, as a part of their medical treatment. The application of this principle is often prevented, not only by a fear of encouraging idleness, but by an old heathenish feeling, worded by Plautus long ago and kept alive by modern selfish non-religionism: "He deserves ill who gives food to a beggar; for that which he gives is thrown away, and it lengthens out the life of the other to his misery." Begging is a nuisance, but not for this heathen reason. If he begs because he will not work, the man ought not to have food. (2 Thess. 3: 10). If he begs because he cannot work, the man is really being taught by the negligence of the community

how to live without work, how to prey upon benevolence, how to become a deceiver in every member and faculty. No man is proof against such instruction.

Both the idler and the pauper are dangerous, but the fact that the two classes are scarcely distinguishable when not appropriately cared for by the community, is no reason for overlooking the principles upon which they should be treated.

ENGLISH as she is taught, says that a critic is something to put your feet on to.

It is not true that there is nothing in a name; there is often much in it that is misleading. Caldwell, F., 35 Fed. Rep., 574.

ALIEN SUFFRAGE is provided for in Washington Territory in the law of 1888 (chap. 51) in these words: "All other inhabitants ** of this territory, above that age [21 years], who have declared on oath their intentions to become citizens of the United States at least six months previous to the day of election, and shall have taken an oath to support the constitution and government of United States at least six months previous to the day of election, and who shall have resided six months in the territory * * * ." Universal suffrage is right, but it should be the suffrage only of those born in the United States, or of foreigners who have been fully naturalized. In other words, if the different States and Territories will adopt different tests for the suffrage, a national question will inevitably arise, notwithstand

ing the fact that some persons try to discriminate between local and national elections. This distinction is too refined, and is like damning a mountain stream-a thing easy to do in the dry season, but likely to send a destructive flood through the lower valley at the first unusual cloud-burst.

For the future, American political theories must be as strong as they are sound.

THE SELDEN SOCIETY is a most deserving organization, though it would seem that some think it merely a gathering of old fossils worshipping the bones of a now happily dead past. Such a sentiment overlooks the value of the past as a teacher. The Society appeals for members and moral aid and comfort on this latter ground almost exclusively, and holds out the hope of so unravelling an age of English common law as to teach avoidance of some later English blunders.

FLOATING MORTGAGES are proposed by some enterprising lenders who think the expense of creating a new mortgage each time a loan is made prevents some loans being made. But the liability to fraud from keeping alive a paid mortgage is not considered. The true way to accomplish the desired object is to have a public abstract office, with a moderate charge for registering each mortgage and certifying on it, at the time of the registry, the condition of the title mortgaged. This would probably meet with little favor, and the next best is to condense the form of mortgage by law and trust to the

formation of title insurance companies. Still another way would be to authorize the title insurance companies to take the legal title and issue ownership or collateral certificates against the legal title.

EDITING is thus expounded in Printer's Ink:-As understood in the United States, the "ethics of editing" permit an editor to make such alterations in a contributed article, bearing the signature of an author, as do not touch the substance of the argument nor the style, and which are necessary to bring the article within the space available for its publication, and to conform its technical style to that of the periodical wherein it appears. In a case of doubtful editorial propriety the author is of course consulted, if time and circumstances permit; but as writers do not live upon rejected articles, nor publications shine by what is omitted from their columns, the middle course suggested by com. mon sense is in practice pursued. True, a cherished phrase or idea is occasionally sacrificed, but taking the matter "full and large," editors, as a class, serve the author, their journal and the public by a courageous, though prudent, exercise of their function of editing. To use a Bismarckian phrase, the editor is "an honest broker," who brings the author and the public together to their mutual advantage, exacting such concessions from one or the other in matters of thought, style and volume as the exigencies of each transaction require, and so making a market for. what the one wishes to sell and the other to buy.

INAUGURATION was fixed by an intelligent witness as the time of an incident, only the national event was mentioned as the " aggrega. tion "--which, of course, it was.

LANDLORD AND TENANT law has reached that state of certainty in which it is comprehended by the adolescent, if an exchange is to be believed in this narration:-a small scion of impecunious parents, whose constant movings had impressed his growing mind, replied to his Sunday school teacher's query, "Why did the Israelites move out of Egypt?" by this, "Because they couldn't pay their rent."

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY appeals for local publications, which, 'hough easily procured on the spot, and often without cost, would not otherwise reach the library. There is little risk that anything will come amiss, but any book or pamphlet relating to local history, also town and city documents, State reports on agriculture, geology, mining, railroads and canals, banks, insurance, schools, health, charities, labor, and the like, are desired. Duplicates will bring an equivalent in exchanges with other libraries. While a single pamphlet will be thankfully received, and acknowledged if the address of the sender is known, it is hoped that some may be able to send parcels of books or miscellaneous pamphlets. The express charges will be cheerfully paid by the library. It is especially desired that no graduate will omit to send, if he has not already sent, copies of his own publications.

Book Notices.

REPORTS OF CASES adjudged

and determined in the Court of Chancery of the State of New York. Complete edition, copiously annotated by embodying all equity jurisprudence, with tables of cases reported and cited, by Robert Desty. Book III, containing Paige's Chancery Reports, Vols. 3, 4, 5 and 6. The Lawyers' Cooperative Publishing Co., Roches. ter, N. Y., 1888.

In this book, the Co-op's advance four more pegs towards the completion of a work whose value, when accomplished, will be hard to overestimate. Not only are the reports themselves of great value, but Mr. Desty's notes, showing the changes in the law, the develop. ment of the ideas put forth and the authority of the cases annotated, are of very high character; for an example of which we may refer to the note on Hawley v. Jones, 5 Paige, 318. But we have before expressed our appreciation of this series of reports, and it is hard to say anything about it which we have not already said; if our friends, the Co-Op's, would only get out an inferior volume, we would have plenty to say; but it would be rather too much to ask that they should fall from their high standard to give a reviewer a chance to show his ability to criticise adversely, and so we have only words of praise for Book 3, which we hope soon to see followed by the rest of the set, the volumes of which we doubt not will be worthy of their predecessors.

HENRY BUDD.

THE MAGAZINE OF AMERICAN HISTORY for February again anticipates the popular desire and comes in honor of Washington's birthday as a "Washington Number." Those who are searching for data concerning Washington's presidential career in New York City will warmly welcome 'Mrs. Lamb's leading article, "Washington as President, 1789-1790," a companion piece to her famous "Inauguration of Washington in 1789," published in December. These two able articles represent authoritatively from all sides the position in which Washington stood at the beginning of our government, and give in popular and pleasing style the exact information the public wishes to obtain. The illustrations of the current number act as side lights of immense value. The frontispiece represents in a group, Washington, his wife, and her two grandchildren, at the age and as they appeared in 1789. The copy of Huntingdon's great painting of "Lady Washington's Reception fills two full pages, and the key another page; this is invested with marvelous interest, particularly for such as never saw the original. The house New York was building for President Washington also occupies a full page. The sensational feature of the issue, however, is the De Vries portrait of Washington, discovered in Holland the past summer by the Holland Society of New York, while on its remarkable pilgrimage there. Rev. Dr. J. Howard Suydam describes the find, and gives also a picture of De Vries, the owner of the portrait. The third article, by General

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