able degree social life is very imperfect. One way of deciding this question must be more in conformity with these fundamental laws than the other.

Popular governments might profit from the experience of the world with monarchical governments. As a monarchical government limited by the rights of the people was found to be better than an absolute monarchy, so, it is probable, will a popular government limited by the rights of the individual be found to be better than an unlimited popular government. This country presents the only instance in the world of a limited popular government, except those which are limited in the sense of not being entirely popular. It would seem to be the part of wisdom for us, before abandoning our theory of government, or altering it in the direction of an unlimited government, to make sure whether the evils we have experienced have arisen from the limitations upon the powers of our Government, or whether they have not rather arisen from the fact that not strict enough limits were imposed.

POLITICS IN THE MAGAZINES.

OCTOBER.

The Political Science Quarterly has five articles, all of considerable interest.

In Recent Centralizing Tendencies, by FRED. P. POWERS, the writer takes for his text a remark of Justice Miller's at the constitutional celebration in Philadelphia: "While the pendulum of public opinion has swung with much force away from the extreme point of states'rights doctrine, there may be danger of its reaching an extreme point on the other side." In the opinion of Mr. Powers, this premonition is amply warranted by recent opinions and decisions rendered by the Supreme Court, five of which he selects for discussion.

The first of these is the judgment in the Gross Receipts case of the Philadelphia and Southern Mail Steamship Company (May, 1887), where it was held that a State may not tax the receipts of a transportation company derived from foreign (or interstate) commerce, even those that are mingled with moneys earned from commerce wholly within the

State. This reverses a previous decision in a very similar case, where the Court held that a State might tax gross receipts.

The second opinion is that given in the Wabash Railroad case, October, 1886. It had been held previously, to wit, in the Granger cases of 1876, that a State might regulate elevator charges, even though part of the commerce affected should be interstate. Now, however, the Court, through five of its nine members, denies that right to the State; and, moreover, expressly declares that the omission of Congress to regulate this branch of interstate commerce must not be deemed as authorizing the separate States to do so, but, on the contrary, as a virtual prohibition, the omission being construed as a declaration by Congress that it should not be regulated.

The third case is one arising out of the Tennessee law, levying a license tax upon drummers and pedlers. This exaction had been decided valid in the case of the Connecticut sewing-machine agent; but after the lapse of only eight years, this decision is now reversed, in the case of Robbins against the city of Memphis. It is there held that drummers from another State may not be subjected to a license tax.

The fourth case opens up that fruitful source of controversy the regulation of private corporations. In 1876 the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Wisconsin law requiring foreign corporations to take out a license for doing business within that State, and directing the revocation of this license should the corporation have the case of a Wisconsin citizen against it transferred to the federal courts. Iowa having enacted a similar law in 1885 as regards railroads alone, apparently, a case came before the court and was decided in 1887. The former decision is reversed, and the exacting of the license is declared unconstitutional for the reason that, in providing for its forfeiture, the State aims at a control of interstate relations which belongs to the federal courts.

Fifth, the so-called "Original Package" case of Leisy & Co. vs. Hardin, 1890, reverses decisions of the Supreme Court of 1847. In Pierce vs. New Hampshire, the Court had affirmed the right of New Hampshire to prevent the sale of liquor brought from Massachusetts and offered for sale in the original packages, the precise point now decided the other way.

It will be seen that the writer brings strong evidence in favor of his contention that the Supreme Court is tending toward centralization. The several points and cases are elucidated, and their general bearing indicated with much skill.

PROF. E. R. A. SELIGMAN contributes a second article on the Taxation of Corporations.

Thirteen different bases have been used in the different States, not in any consistent but in an extricably confused manner, for levying taxes on corporations. These are, the value of the property, cost of property, capital stock at par value, capital stock at market value, capital stock plus bonded debt, capital stock plus total debt, loans, business, gross earnings, dividends, capital stock according to dividends, net earnings, and franchise. All of these methods, except the one described as taxes based on "loans," are discussed and the merits and demerits of each is canvassed with much clearness. Tax levied on a so-called franchise a very indeterminate entity and quantity is found to be the least practicable. The tax on net earnings is the method recommended as the one which "satisfies all the requirements of a scientific system." Other bases are rejected either for their inequitable incidence or for the ease of evasion. The last objection is said not to weigh strongly against the net-earnings tax, because the stock of the majority of corporations is distributed pretty widely and the holders will not submit to having their dividends diminished merely to escape the lesser evil of taxation. Besides, the system has been tried in several States and foreign countries and has worked well. County and town taxes come in for their share of consideration, the proper bases for which is said to be the local real estate of the corporations. The next essay will deal with the problem of incidence and double taxations as applied to corporations.

In the article on German Historical Jurisprudence, the writer, ERNST FREUND, traces briefly the introduction into Northern Europe of the Roman Civil Law, its application, and the development of research in the attempts at rationalization. These culminated in Germany, in two schools: one, that of Savigny, called itself the historical school; the other, represented here only in the person of Dr. Gaus, called itself the philosophical

school. The historical jurists were impressed with the importance of the study of history, past conditions, traditions; the philosophical jurists insisted upon the superior claims of the present for consideration, asserting themselves against the influence of past ages, and in favor of a philosophical codification based on present conditions. The one school was absorbed in the work of collecting the thoughts of predecessors, chiefly in shape of documents; the other was intent on constructing a rational system of laws founded on present conditions and on certain assumptions about the nature of society. Here was the weakness of the latter; and the weakness of the former was the restricted range given to their investigations, confined all the while to the Roman, the canon, and the German law. The few students who carried their research outside this territory studied foreign law only as it related to public or quasi-public institutions. The philosophical school insisted from the outset on the value of comparative jurisprudence. But they did nothing serious in that direction. And the work remains to be done to this day. The writer suggests that the comparative study of the present German law and of the English common law, the only European system unaffected by Roman law, will prove the most fruitful field of investigation.

Italy and the Vatican, by W. C. LANGDON, is a sketch of the parliamentary struggles to settle the relation of the papacy to the secular government of Italy. The central figure is that of Baron Bettino Ricasoli, who played an important part in this affair from the time when, on the death of Cavour, in 1861, he became chief minister, till 1867. Ricasoli is represented as the true champion of religious liberty. When he was governor-general of Tuscany, in 1860, he refused to give formal permission for the opening of an American Episcopal chapel in Florence, on the ground that to grant such a permission would imply the existence of a right to withhold it. The complete separation of church and state was the object of his endeavor. But his efforts were twice frustrated in the Italian parliament by those who thought that in settling the relations of the government with the Pope the rights of the latter were too liberally dealt with by the minister. As a matter of some $360,000,000 was in dispute, it is not surprising that opposition should have been incurred.

Ricasoli's plan of settlement included not only a liberal disposition of the church property that had been seized by the government, but the establishment of the Vatican, shorn of secular power, on a footing of independence of the state. His effor s having failed, the unsatisfactory posture of affairs for all these years is the result. The sketch is written in a clear and interesting style.

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The Boston aldermen, having witnessed the presentation of the Clemenceau Case" at the expense of the taxpayers, decided that the play is too wicked and demoralizing to be seen by the ordinary citizen, and cancelled the license of the theatre at which the play was produced. Now the Chicago aldermen talk of suppressing the play should the company visit Chicago. Of course they will go to see and judge it. That they are well qualified to play the part of literary critics and dramatic censors may be seen from the following remarkable statement of one of the Chicago aldermen interviewed by a reporter of the Tribune: "I am surprised," said Alderman O'Brien to the reporter, "that Mr. Dumas could write anything so immoral. He used to be all right. Why, I see a piece of his once that he wrote for Jimmy O'Neill. Monte Christo was the name of it, and no more moraler piece was ever wrote. There was one part in it where Jim used to say, 'The world is mine!' Do you remember that? It always made me get up and howl. I'll go and see this here new piece, and if it ain't right, it's got to stop.” — Liberty.

It is believed that the only instances of increase of wages that will be noticeable this year will occur in Congressional districts naturally Democratic which the Republican Congressional Committee may wish very strongly to carry. In such localities there will undoubtedly be a temporary advance in the remuneration for a certain kind of manual labor: men who have in former years received but five dollars for carrying a Republican ticket from the ward heeler to the ballot-box will this year get as much as seven dollars and fifty cents, and it may be, in rare instances, ten dollars, for doing the same work.

This advance will of course be attributed to the new tariff, for if the McKinley bill had not passed, those who are its beneficiaries would not have furnished the wherewithal to make the advance possible. - New York Times.

EXCITED CONGRESSMAN (addressing the House). - I say it is an infamous falsehood, Mr. Speaker, originating in a heart as black as the innermost dungeon in the lowest pit of perdition, uttered by lips, sir, from whose mildest breathings the demon of pestilence itself would shrink in unutterable horror, and emanating from a personality in whose presence the foul fiends of envy, calumny, treachery, and assassination, sir, would bow their hideous heads and acknowledge that they had found a meaner, viler, more leprous, and abominable creature than themselves!

SAME CONGRESSMAN (reading same speech a few hours later as revised for the Congressional Record.)-Permit me to say, Mr. Speaker, that my conception of the dignity that pertains to the position I hold, and my appreciation of the constituency I have the honor of representing on the floor of this House, forbids me from descending to the plane of personal abuse in replying to the insinuations that have been made by the honorable gentleman on the other side. I shall content myself by merely challenging the honorable gentleman to produce the proof of his inuendoes, passing on now to the consideration of the main question at issue. Washington Post.