From the testimony of Register Fitzgerald, of New York, before the Fassett Investigation Committee, it appears that, notwithstanding the decrease in the business of his office, the payroll of the office has steadily mounted upward, by the increase of clerks, who have so little to do that many of them only put in an appearance at the office None work the six hours required by law in the city's offices. The book-keeper gets fifty-one cents a line for very simple entries. Acting Land Commissioner Stone has issued to registers and receivers of local land offices a circular calling for a reduction of contingent expenses in their respective offices. The acting commissioner calls attention to the fact that while the number of entries made has decreased from 252,479 in 1888 to 163,463 in 1890, and the acreage and cash receipts have correspondingly decreased, the amount expended has increased from $147,000 in 1888 to $176,229 in 1890.

The total postal revenues of the Government for the last fiscal year were $60,882,097.92, -an increase over the preceding year of $4,705,486.74. The excess of expenditures over revenue for the last fiscal year was $5,048,619,19.

III. Corrupt. — The evidence obtained in the suit brought by the Ticino Cantonal Bank against the government of the canton, arising from the embezzlement of one million francs by the treasurer of the canton, shows that the embezzlement was intimately connected with the revolt that occurred in the canton last September. In is said that Signor Respini, the head of the cantonal government, has in his possession documents which compromise a number of influential men in political life.

The Bank of Naples and the Bank of Sicily for a number of years have been conducted so corruptly, chiefly for political purposes, that the Italian Parliament has at last been compelled to authorize an investigation of their accounts. These are not private banks; they are two of the six banks to which the government of Italy confines the monopoly of issuing notes.

IV. Tyrannical. — In a case of assault recently tried before a Brooklyn (N. Y.) judge, it was shown that, while the accused had been out on bail, a witness had been detained in prison owing to his lack of means and influence. The judge could not see why the witness had been sent to jail. He said:

"It appears, from information given to me, that you happened, accidentally, to be an innocent witness to an assault committed by one man on another, both entire strangers to you, and that the magistrate who investigated the assault

sent you to jail on a commitment charging you with being guilty of the crime of witness in a matter to be tried before a Court of Special Sessions. The idea of charging a man with such a crime as that and sending him to jail is beyond my comprehension. I have no hesitancy in saying that your imprisonment was an outrage, and that the commitment on which you were held is absolutely ridiculous and absurd."

INDUSTRIAL.

The Woman's Industrial Union of Vienna has 771 regular memebers and 94 honorary members, owns property to the amount of £14,000, and supports 16 schools attended by 1,666 pupils.

The textile branch of the Women's Congress at Chemnitz has decided to form a union comprising the whole of Saxony. This has been brought about by the discharge of workmen resulting from the operation of the new American tariff bill

The Association of Working Girls' Clubs wil soon issue a monthly organ, called Far and Near, which will present the news of the various societies of working girls in America and England. The journal will be published by the New York Auxiliary Society, and will have, besides contributions from well-known women, a department of working girls' contributions.

At a recent conference of labor editors in Austria it was stated that, in spite of the severe restrictions placed upon the labor press in that country, the circulation of workmen's papers has increased fivefold during the last three years.

About six months ago the Illinois Steel Company entered into an arrangement with its men on a profit-sharing basis, and three months later divided about $4.000 among its men as premiums for faithful and efficient service. Another quarter has now passed and another $4,000 will be distributed.

The San Francisco Shoemakers' Union will establish a co-operative shoe factory.

The celebrated Rochdale co-operators, who started only twenty-six years ago, on the humblest scale imaginable, have a capital stock, every share of which is held by a wage-earner, of $2,355,000. Profits distributed to members have reached $200,000,000, while the total sales for 1889 showed an increase over those of 1888 of $10,000,000.-New York Commercial Advertiser.

The labor organizations of Pittsburg and Allegheny County propose to enter into an alliance, offensive and defensive, with the Retail Grocers' Association, which includes more than two thirds of all the grocers in the country.

The plan is substantially this: All the labor organizations agree that their members shall patronize only the grocers who are members of the association. The unions will see that their members pay their bills for the necessaries of life, or at least use their influence in that way. They will also bring what influence they have to bear on all other unscrupu lous persons who neglect to pay their bills. On the other hand, the grocers will ageee to buy goods only of wholesalers and manufactururers who employ union men and to handle no goods produced by non-union labor. The move will strike some large houses which have intimated that they have no use for unions.

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers has decided not to affiliate with the United Order of Railway Employees, composed of conductors, trainmen, and switchmen.

In 1888 the New York Malsters' Union men got $16 a week for ten hours. The loss of a strike cut wages to $10 and $12 and increased the day to fourteen hours. They are reorganizing.

The Western Union telegraphers in St. Louis, St. Paul, and other Western cities have struck on account of the discharge of old employees who were prominently connected with the movement in favor of labor organization. It is believed that the Western Union is determined to make war upon the Telegraphers' Brotherhood.

The Vienna tram-car employees have returned to their posts. The municipal council has promised them to compel the companies to revise their rules in accordance with the employees' demands.

The Fall River, Mass., trades council has recommended that those political candidates who are in favor of labor legislation should receive the labor vote of the city, irrespective of party.

In his book "In Darkest England" Gen. Booth, referring to prostitution in London, says: "In London there are over 30,000 prostitutes, in Great Britain 100,000, besides an army of probably 100,000 more poor women who secretly increase their earnings by their shame." Under the head of " criminals," he says: "In

prisons, 32,000; juvenile thieves, 22,000; reputed known thieves out of prison, 32,910. Last year the cost of police magistrates, etc., was £500,000; 155,000 passed through prisons, and there were 711,000 summary convictions. Under "destitution," is written: "In London workhouses, asylums, and hospitals, 51,000; homeless, 33,000; starving, 300,000; next door to starvation, 222,000; very poor, 387,000." The author says: "Out of every five persons in London, one dies either in the hospitals, asylums, or workhouses."

In Paris out of the 2,700,000 residents, it is calculated that one in eighteen, or 150,000, live on charity with a tendency toward crime.

The Calais town council has voted 60,000 francs to support the families of the lace workers recently locked out by the manufacturers in consequence of a trade dispute.

The dissolution of the London Bread Union is announced. Last year it was the most notorious trust in the metropolis. It took in all the important bakers.

The Irish chief secretary, Balfour, having made a tour of the poor districts of Ireland, declares the rumors of a potato famine unfounded, and says that he found no evidence to prove the danger of much suffering there this winter.

IN GENERAL.

The Russian Ministry of the Interior is forming a new council to solve the Jewish question. The highest officers of the principal government institutions will be members, and the governorgenerals of the sixteen governments in which the Jews are allowed to reside will be invited to present their views on the subject.

The young kaiser of Germany has undertaken to protect his Jewish subjects against the wrongs perpetrated upon them by evil-minded Christians. He has gone so far lately as to give a warning to the notorious anti-Jewish Court Chaplain STOECKER, and to inform him that the Jews must not hereafter be vilified at the religious meetings which the Stoeckerites may be permitted to hold.

The vice-president of the French Society against the Abuse of Tobacco, Dr. Beamely, has made a statement to the Academy of Medicine,

in which he says that after an exhaustive study of the subject the members of the society have come to the conclusion that tobacco is the real cause of France's depopulation, and that to smoking is due the small number of children in the average French family.

By the order of the Pope of Rome, published by Cardinal Simeoni, the bishops of the American hierarchy are forbidden to give any official or overt approval to the Irish Nationalist campaign of Dillon and O'Brien in America.

A mutiny of Siberian convicts has occurred on a steamer on the river Lena, in Siberia. The inhabitants of a village which the steamer was passing came to the convicts' assistance, and the guards were disarmed and pinioned. Some of the convicts were subsequently recaptured by the troops of the province.

A dispatch from the St. Petersburg correspondent of the London Telegraph says: "There are alarming accounts of peasants' revolts in Kharkov and Yekaterinoslav districts in Southern Russia. Nine thousand troops are operating against the peasants in the Bogodookhov district, who declare they will not relapse into serfdom, preferring instead to die fighting. The peasants are prowling around in armed bands, firing and pillaging landowners' residences."

A party of Poles, while attempting to reach Prussian territory, with the intention of emigrating to Brazil, were fired upon by Russian frontier guards. Six men, two women, and one child were killed.

At the late Parliamentary election in Greece the Government was defeated, retaining only one third of the seats.

The Secretary of War has received the annual report of Brig.-Gen. John Gibbon, commanding the Department of the Columbia. He reports that the Indians of the extreme Northwest are in a perfectly peaceful condition, and says he thinks they will remain so indefinitely, "unless goaded to desperation by the constant encroachments of the whites and their acts of injustice."

In the last Wyoming election a woman was elected superintendent of schools in every county in the State.

Canadian customs officials at Windsor have been ordered to collect duty on all implements of American sportsmen coming to Canada for a day's shooting. The custom heretofore has been to require a small deposit, which was refunded.

A Berlin statistician reports that the number of suicides in the various countries of Europe, including England, was 75 per cent greater between 1880 and 1890 than during the preceding decade.

A Michigan woman, in a paper read at the recent Toronto convention, insisted that women ought to be allowed to serve on juries, especially in cases where women are defendants or plaintiffs. Her own seven years' legal practice convinced her that the present system worked great injustice to women. She claimed that women have shown fitness for jury service in Kansas, Washington, and Wyoming.

The English commander who was recently sent to Vitu to co-operate with the Germans in punishing the natives for massacring a number of Germans captured Vitu, and burned it to the ground.

For several years past the amount paid to Indiana pensioners has exceeded the total amount of Government tax paid by the State. Thus in 1887 Indiana paid internal revenue tax amounting to $4,259,039, and received in pensions $6,402,489.35. In 1888 she paid taxes amounting to $4,139,159, and received pensions amounting to $7,016,525, getting back from the Government in pensions nearly twice as much as she paid in taxes. - Indianapolis Journal.

On Tuesday, the question of the tariff was again submitted to the ballot test in most of the States throughout the country, and the returns up to the present writing show phenomenally large gains for reform. It is now about three years since the people at large began to have their attention called to the question persistently. It would be easy to overestimate the significance of the present election. Outside of New England, the campaign was complicated with local issues. In South Carolina, a revolt from the Democratic "Machine"; in Pennsylvania, the issue was personal; in Kansas and in some Southern States the "Farmers' Alliance was a disturbing element, as was the public school question in Illinois and Wisconsin. Ohio and Indiana were gerrymandered. After all allowances have been made, the balance in favor of tariff reform is slight; but the general tone of the campaign is an improvement on recent performances.

Tariff! Tariff! Tariff!

The contention that a high tariff lowers prices has received a severe set-back since the passage of the McKinley Bill; nevertheless, it is met with now and then. One of the most recent

instances of its appearance is in a reply made to Mr. Sherman Hoar by the treasurer of the American Watch Company, at Waltham.

"The buyer pays about half as much for his American watch now, under the tariff, as he payed for his foreign watch before the domestic industry was enabled to establish itself. This is a fair sample of the burdens of protection."

A person entirely ignorant of the improvements introduced into watchmaking since this country was dependent upon foreign countries for its watches might, perhaps, make this argument honestly, if he was very stupid; but hardly the treasurer of the American Watch Company. Does Mr. Robbins mean to imply that, when the industry was first enabled to establish itself, the manufacturer's profit was the present profit plus the present selling price of the watch? If not, then the cost of making a watch must have greatly decreased. No doubt, as he asserts, domestic competition has been instrumental in bringing down the price; that is the same as saying that the price is less now than it would be if the American Company had a monopoly of all the watches sold here; but would not competition with foreign manufacturers be just as effective? If it would, then, however much the tariff may have lowered the price of watches in the past, it certainly does not lower the price now.

Many years ago Carlyle wrote these somewhat youthfully buoyant sentences:

"But truly it is beautiful to see the brutish empire of Mammon cracking everywhere; giving sure promise of dying, or of being changed. A strange, chill, almost ghastly day-spring strikes up in Yankeeland itself: my transcendental friends announce there, in a distinct, though somewhat lank-haired, ungainly manner, that the Demiurgus dollar is dethroned; that new, unheard-of Demiurgusships, priesthoods, aristocracies, growths, and destructions are already visible in the gray of coming time."

Half a century has gone by without affording any clear evidence that Carlyle did not mistake a meteor flash for the coming of the dawn. The reason for this feverish desire for riches on the part of the nations-a desire so much deplored by many is perfectly plain. In modern times, it is chiefly by reason of their wealth that nations and individuals have power and importance in the world. The day is past when a poor nation could, by superior valor, overcome a rich na

tion. At the present day, 66 courage without money is courage without guns; and courage without guns is useless." With wealth, nations have always been able to hire enough men to fight for them; but it was proved that men would not fight so well for money as for patriotism; and, moreover, mercenaries were likely to plunder their paymasters. But now nations can expend their wealth to better purpose, — upon superior weapons instead of inferior men. Besides, the struggle among nations for survival now takes the guise of industrial competition instead of military conflict, and a nation which has been distanced in this ―i. e., has become poor while its rival has become rich is not likely to try the fortunes of war to reverse the decision.

The natures of men are not yet perfectly adapted to the new order. Courage, and valor, and loyalty arouse in most a stronger emotion of approbation than honesty and faithfulness in work, and cowardice excites far greater detestation than crookedness in business transactions. The honor of a knight seems a much nobler thing than the honor of a business man; while there is no comparison between the feeling against a man who turns traitor and that against one who commits the greatest possible sin against property. If the present importance of wealth persists, the virtues and vices adapted to the industrial state will probably excite as strong emotions as those adapted to the militant state do now. There still remains the question whether the kingdom of Mammon will not some time pass away, as the kingdom of Mars has already in some degree passed away. All that can be said at present is that there are no indications that it will, and that what Carlyle and others mistook for indications have turned out to be deceptive.

Regulation. Massachusetts courts still labor with the question of rum selling. The reason is that there has been found a way of restricting and regulating the poor, leaving the rich exempt, without very obvious discrimination. Now in 1838 the attempt of the rich to regulate the poor was so very crude that the game was not long in being detected. Still it is worthy of remark that in that year a law was actually passed forbidding the sale of liquor in quantities of less than fifteen gallons! This law was repealed after one year, because the device was too obvious.

But there is really no essential difference between that and the prevailing laws. It is not merely that the license system is plainly founded on the theory that the poor are the ones to be regulated, for they are the ones affected by the increased cost; but any regulation, whatever its basis, acts as a discriminating agency between industrial classes. The rich hold the upper hand in society; and a regulative law merely adds one to the social conditions with reference to which the rich have the advantage of exemption.

Latifundia At first glance one would be Perdidere inclined to believe that the disItaliam. tribution of the public land would be a task which the Government could perform comparatively well. Yet it is notorious how badly this task has been discharged from the beginning, and still the evidence turns up. At every step the Government has been cheated and hoodwinked. Although the laws have prescribed the maximum entry of a quarter section and residence by the settler for a term of years in order to perfect the title, corporations and individuals are found in possession of thousands of acres long before the title could have been perfected by actual settlers. The fault lies partly with the original basis of the law, for men cannot be prevented from cheating, and partly with the execution of the law, which has been inefficient to a final degree. But the chief fault is with the building, and the mode of building, of the Pacific railroads; but for them the titles to Western lands would have been held by settlers without any assistance from the law. But the Pacific railroads created the opportunity for fraud, which otherwise would have been wanting, by bringing to the spot, not pioneers in the old sense, but adventurers and criminals on the one hand, and millionaires looking for investments on the other. And the broad acres have disappeared so rapidly before this fraudulent fusion that the land office will soon be a thing of the past — that is one consolation.