always object to allowing the public to get too close a view of their methods. The secret session is the spoilsman's opportunity, and only in his interest is it retained.

National Republican, April 17.

SENATORS who are taking the lead in the movement against secret sessions are strongly intrenching themselves in public confidence.

N. Y. Independent, April 18.

THERE is no good and sufficient reason why these sessions should be secret and the action of the Senate should be known to the people only in the result. Secrecy gives an opportunity for bargains between Senators and bargains between the President and Senators in respect to appointments to office, that would not exist to anything like the same extent if the sessions were open and the general public permitted to see all that is done. Both the President and the Senate, with open sessions, would act under a sense of responsibility-the one in making nominations, and the other in acting upon them--that would be favorable to the best interests of the civil service of the country. Both would be influenced by the fact that the eye of the public is upon them.

N. Y. World (Dem.), April 19.

THERE now appears to be a prospect of a compromise in the matter of the publicity of executive sessions. It is thought desirable not to let their full effulgence break loose on the people at once, and the proposition is, for the present, to merely publish a record of the proceedings with the speeches left out. The people will know then who voted for or against any particular nomination without being informed as to the reason why. The next move will be to permit the reason why to be known, or full publicity. Probably never since the considerate action of the man who shortened the dog's tail gradually by successive amputations in order to make it easier for the dog, has such a thoughtful policy as this been adopted. But there are great minds among statesmen as well as among surgeons.

PROHIBITION.

The Voice (Prohibition), New York, April 15.

LET us look at the official figures as they appear in the revenue report for the year ending April 30, 1885. To get at the population in each State for 1885, we have taken the census reports for 1880, and assume that the ratio of increase for each State from 1870 to 1880 has continued to the present time. The estimates by this method are too large for the newer States, as Kansas and Nebraska, but in the main will be found correct.

And

What could be a more thorough demonstration of the efficacy of prohibition than the above figures? Louisiana under license has six times as many saloons as its sister cotton States, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Missouri under license has four times as many saloons as its next door neighbor, Arkansas. Again, let it be remembered that we are counting every permit issued in a prohibition State as representing a permanent saloon. Could we get at the actual facts, we have no doubt that it would be found that at no time are there onehalf as many drinking places open in prohibition States as there are permits issued. But count a sal on for every permit, and still prohibition is from two to six times as destructive to the saloon as is any system of license.

Now what do these figures prove? Beyond all question, that prohibition is a most effective means in reducing the number of saloons.

Washington Sentinel (Brewers' Organ), April 17.

THAT prohibition does not prohibit the Voice concedes by publishing the above tables. People who want to drink can get the needful in Maine as well as in New York. The only difference is that in Maine, where there is one saloon to five hundred and ninety-four inhabitants, they have to go perhaps half a square farther to imbibe than in New York, where there is one saloon to one hundred and sixtytwo inhabitants. But with four times the number of customers and no State taxes to pay, the Maine restaurant keeper is surely financially better situated than his New York colleague with but one hundred and sixty-two people to rely upon. Besides the Maine customers drink whisky, whilst the New York men enjoy themselves to a great extent with nothing but beer before them. Beer is too bulky to be concealed, and also will spoil, whilst whisky will improve by age and can be carried in the pocket. The larger the number of customers the greater the profit. Besides there is more gain in selling whisky than in selling beer. Your prohibition tavern keepers, as you show by your tables, are, therefore, a great better deal off than their brethren in the license States. In Nebraska the latter pay annually $1,000 license and in Illinois $500. Your prohibition State saloon keepers pay nothing, and your Mr. Price, of Wisconsion, is going to free them also of that internal revenue permit or tax, amounting for the 1,594 saloonists in Maine and Vermont to over $100,000 per annum. Is that fair? Can you blame us, if we contend for equality of both classes, i. e, protest against your favoring the prohibition State dealers against the license State dealers, and ask that your men shall be treated no better than ours? We are under obligations to the editors of the Voice for the compilation of those tables, which are quite instructive. They will also indicate to the restaurart keepers where the business is not overrun and the number of customers the greatest. They will thank the Voice, if by some further statistical information it can show them the percentage, quality, and price of whisky sold by the "druggis s" and other saloonists in the prohibition States of Maine and Vermont compared with that of non-prohibitory States, and whether the general impression is correct that there is more whisky per head consumed in prohibitory than in license States. That is our side of the question. We cannot go into any lengthy discussion whether the people in prohibition States take three or five drams a day. Certain it is that they take some, more perhaps than they ought to, and the tables of the Voice prove it. Your whole prohibition movement is a humbugand you cannot deny it. Surely there is everything but temperance in it.

The Boston Post contains an article corroborating our assertion, and which we copy for the special edification of the editors of the Voice:

"It is worthy of note that since the adoption by Maine of the constitutional amendment, prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors, the number of arrests for drunkenness has increased 33% per cent. The amendment took effect in 1885, and during that year the number of those imprisoned for drunkenness was 1,761, against 1,320 in the year preceding. This, too, despite the fact that in Portland, the largest city in the State, prohibition was never so rigorously enforced as in 1885. If the friends of prohibition claim that enforcement of the law lessened drunkenness in Portland, then they must admit that the proportional increase in other portions of the State was enormous."

These facts seem to add another to the many proofs that prohibition does not prohibit.

The Star (Ind.), Providence, R. I., April 15.

PROHIBITION will not enforce itself; the people of this State have learned that from the bitter experience of former years. It is true that it has never been tried before under so favorable conditions as now. A law that is on the statute book to-day, and which may be repealed to-morrow, inspires neither prosecuting officers nor juries, if they are disposed to do their duty, with that confidence and courage that we shall expect to see begotten by a provision in the Constitution that is certain to remain there for the present at least. But the liquor dealers will not surrender without a struggle. If they do not openly violate the law, they may be depended upon to throw obstacles in the way of its enforcement at every step-to do everything in their power, in fact, to make it odious and unpopular, as well as a dead letter. We do not anticipate that they can prevent the amendment from being proclaimed a part of the Constitution, or throw serious obstacles in the way of the enactment of laws to give it effect; but they will use their political influence and their money to make those laws as mild as possible, and to persuade prosecuting officers to overlook violations of the statute, and to treat those against whom prosecutions are begun as leniently as possible. In one way only can this opposition be successfully met and overcome, and that is by arousing and educating a public opinion throughout the State that will demand an enforcement of the law rigidly and impartially. This is the duty to which the prohibitionists must now address themselves if they expect to reap the fruits of their late victory. The Star believes that a majority of the people of Rhode Island will sustain any law which they honestly think will promote the cause of tenperance by actually closing up rum shops and reducing the amount of liquor consumed, and in the long run they will favor prohibition, local option, or license, as they find by experience that one or the other is most effectual to this end, That is why the electors of Providence have voted to license liquor selling every year since the present law was enacted. A majority of the people of Providence, if they could have their way, would decree the closing up of every saloon and bar in the city; but they have believed, and the conviction has been sustained by past experience, that with the present machinery for enforcing the law, that with the chief of police apparently under the thumb of the liquor dealers, and the attorney-general of the State evidently more anxious for their political support than to punish law-breakers, no license would simply mean free rum. Nor do we interpret the election of last week as indicating a change of opinion in this regard. It is probable that the Star's crusade for the enforcement of the laws during the past three months, and the fruits it had already borne, inspired a hope in many that prohibition would stand a better chance of being successful in the future than in the past; but a majority of those who have voted for license heretofore, but sustained the amendment last week, were moved by other motives. Respectable men in both parties had become sick and tired of the dicta

tion of the liquor dealers, and were only waiting for an opportunity to resent it. Three things now remain to be done. First, laws must be framed giving effect to the amendment, providing the necessary machinery for its enforcement, and appropriating the money that will be needed to set and keep that machinery in operation. In the second place, the prosecuting officers must be held to the strictest accountability for the faithful, fearless, and impartial performance of their duties; and, lastly, the work of education must be carried on until there is throughout the State a public opinion that will make juries convict those who are guilty of violating the law; and this is the most important part of the work before the temperance people of the State. If it is neglected, the last state of this commuuity will be worse than the first.

New York World (Dem.), April 15.

THE Republicans have played fast and loose with prohibition and have managed to use it and to throw it aside at their will, according as political expediency dictated. When they found they could no longer deceive and trifle with the principle they took to abusing its most zealous champions. Because those who are as sincerely and disinterestedly in favor of total prohibition as the honest abolitionists of past years were of negro emancipation adhered to their faith and refused to be made political tools, the Republicans set to work to destroy them with slander and abuse. Gov. St. John was branded with dishonesty and the purest men in the temperance cause were traduced. What has been the effect of this unjust treatment? Prohibition is rapidly growing into importance as a political power. It has already checked the triumphant career of Republicanism, and it is steadily eating into the vitals of the party and gathering to itself the strength its old but false ally is losing. It is idle to tell the earnest Prohibitionist that he is aiding the Democracy, his wost enemy, by striking down the Republican machine. He knows, as a piece of political history, that the self-same argument was advanced by the Whig party years ago, when it desired to use the abolitionists for the benefit of its own candidates and to play with their great principle of freedom for the slave as the Republican politicians have been playing with the principle of total abstinence. The abolitionists were told that by refusing to vote for Whigs they were playing into the hands of the Democracy, their worst enemy. But they chose to stand independ. ently, trusting to the justice of their cause, and their party before long practically ruled the nation. Time vindicated both their wisdom and their sincerity. The Prohibitionists are now following the historic example of the abolitionists. Have they any reason to be dissatisfied with what they have thus far accomplished? In the election of 1884 the votes of three of the four Northern States which elected Mr. Cleveland were cast as follows:

New York For Cleveland, 563,154; for Blaine, 562,005; Cleveland's plurality over Blaine, 1,149. Prohibition vote, 25,016.

New Jersey-For Cleveland, 127,798; for Blaine, 123,440; Cleveland's plurality over Blaine, 4,358. Prohibition vote, 6,159.

Connecticut For Cleveland, 67,199; for Blaine, 65,923; plurality for Cleveland over Blaine, 1,276. Prohibition vote, 2,305.

The prohibition vote in those States would have given Mr. Blaine a plurality over Mr. Cleveland and have made him President.

What was the result again last year in this State? For the important question is, not how does the prohibition vote affect Ohio, Iowa or Michigan, but what is its effect on the pivotal State of New York, whose electoral vote has decided and will probably again decide the Presidential contests? The vote in this State last year stood as follows:

New York, 1885-For Hill, 501,465; for Davenport, 490,331. Plurality for Hill over Davenport, 11,134. Prohibition vote, 30,867.

Look at the steady growth of the prohibition vote since the Republicans began to show their hypocrisy to the temperance party. The vote has risen in all the States, as these figures will show :

Prohibition vote in New York in 1883, 19,662; in 1884, 25,016; in 1885, 30,867.

In Ohio in 1883, 8,362; in 1884, 11,069; in 1885, 28,081.

In Pennsylvania in 1883, 6,687; in 1884, 15,283; in 1885, 15,647. In Michigan in 1881, 12,774; in 1883, 13,950; in 1884, 18,403. In New Jersey in 1882, 2,004, in 1883, 4,153; in 1884, 6,159. Besides this, in Ohio a constitutional prohibition amendment was only defeated by a small majority, and in this State the Legislature is now hovering between submitting the constitutional prohibition amendment to the popular vote, which will make prohibition the leading issue, or, refusing to do so, which would make the prohibition party still more angry. For if the proposition to submit constitutional prohibition passes, it will disintegrate the Republican party in this State and drive from it the entire German element, while if the proposition is defeated, it will swell the prohibition vote from 30,000 to 60,000.

Christian at Work, April 15.

THERE is no occasion for a vote on a constitutional amendment as proposed, and for the reason that no constitutional amendment is necessary. The legislature has all requisite power necessary under the present constitution to give us good and wholesome temperance legislation even to prohibition. Instead of doing this it does nothing. The animus of this bit of temperance irenics is plain: the whole procedure is an attempt to blind the eyes of temperance men and to swing temperance men of both parties over to their respective political organizations, and to keep temperance out of politics." You might as well try to keep original sin out of the legislature as to blind the eyes of the people to the need of restrictive legislation in this accursed liquor traffic. In this work of demagoguery men of both parties are equally culpable. The temperance mills are running and the public men who refuse to do the duty which devolves upon them concerning this wretched liquor business will sooner or later-we believe sooner-be ground to powder.

The Congregationalist, Boston, April 15.

The Week (Toronto), April 15.

J. D. Rice in Christian Union, April 16.

HIGH license, I believe, will be popular, and a great financial success; but as a measure to promote temperance it will prove humiliating and disappointing beyond all calculation to those who put their faith in it to remove the evils of drink. But can we combine this "financial" popularity of high license with local option and prohibition, so that public sentiment will overwhelmingly support such a law, and make it succesful beyond a doubt? Let us try. To secure this I suggest: First. In all cities having a population of 10,000 and over, make the license fee not less than $500. (Make no distinction of classes in the licenses; if you do, dealers will take out low licenses and then sell high license liquors; there is no way of preventing this.) Second, In all cities and towns having a population of less than 10,000, make the license fee not less than $300. Third. Provide that, at every municipal and town election, the legal voters thereof shall vote yes or no for an additional increase of $100 to the license fee for the ensuing year. (It would be most desirable that this vote should apply to each ward and town separately, so as to secure more active local interest through ward and town organizations.) Starting with a $500 license fee, and then adding $100 to it from year to year by a popular vote, would combine the three methods most effectually. These three propositions, if enacted into a law, are amply sufficient to completely throttle the demon of drink, and strangle its material vitality. Can such a law be obtained from the legislature and be retained permanently? Well, if the advocates of high license, local option, and prohibition, united, with large numbers of others, have not the power to secure and sustain a law of this kind, then the State may as well be turned over to King Alcohol at once, and be done with it. But, it will be said, this co-operative law would not eradicate the sale and use of intoxicants. Perhaps not; but it would come as near to it as it is possible for any enactment whatever.

The New Era (Prohibition), Springfield, Ohio, April 16.

THE unparalleled venom and malignity at present displayed by the Republican press toward the Prohibition party can only be explained in this way, namely, a consciousness of the fact that the double dealing and treachery and hypocrisy of the Republican party in its treatment of the prohibition question are being every day more and more thoroughly exposed by the Prohibitionists. For this reason the Republican press is endeavoring to turn public attention away from these very un. pleasant revelations by using the fiercest and vilest kind of denunciation when speaking of the Prohibitionists. This maneuver will, of course, be successful for a time and with some persons; but in the end it will recoil with fatal force upon those who employ it. A party which can exist only by resorting to misrepresentation and slander and lying, whose main weapons of political warfare are to stir up strife and engender hate, and perpetuate old, dying and almost forgotten feuds-such a party is doomed to a dishonored grave. But how any one can suppose such a party to be, in any sense of the term, a prohibition party, passes all comprehension. Than such a belief we can conceive of no more wonderful or unaccountable delusion. That multitudes are honest in this belief, cannot for a moment be doubted or denied. But an error, however sincerely held, still remains an error. That so many Prohibitionists, whose intelligence and purity of life put them beyond suspicion, should cling so tenaciously to the Republican party only proves the blinding influence of party spirit. For this reason we must " deal gently" with such persons. Time and events will gradually open their eyes, and then they will wonder how they could have been deceived. As has many others, so will grad. ually diappear the Republican party temperance delusion.

The Christian Standard, April 17.

HIGH license as a means of suppressing the liquor traffic seems to be coming into pretty general favor with our politicians as "most feasible and equitable." Of course the politician can see high license as "most feasible and equitable," when it is in favor with the saloon men, and it is the saloon men who are controlling the ballot-box. It would seem that any form of license, high or low, would be a partial protection; that in proportion to the burdens and restrictions laid upon the trade, the nearer would we reach that consummation. But this logic seems largely outweighed by fact, and really this form of prohibition is very unprohibitory. We

have but to look to Nebraska for proof of this statement, which State, four years ago, made a thorough test of the high license law. The saloon men were forced to pay $1,000 license in towns of the first-class, and $500 in towns of the second-class. There were in Omaha at the time one hundred and sixty saloons. About eighty of these speedily suspended, but not like the Arabs to "silently steal away." After the crash there was a combination of heads, a combination of capital, a combination of companies, a refitting up; and the remaining eighty saloons opened with more money, more liquors, greater brilliancy, the business steadily increased, and to-day in Omaha are one hundred saloons selling more whisky, making more drunkards, having more capital invested than was required to run the business four years ago. Says the United Presbyterian: “Saloons have increased in every town, village, or city where they are permitted to exist at all Such are the immediate effects of high license in this State, where it has been more thoroughly tested than in any State in the Union." Hon. H. W. Hardy, ex-mayor of Lincoln, and the father of the high license bill, says: "There has been no improvement in our saloons; saloon-keepers violate the law as they always did, and gambling and prostitution go hand in hand."

Philadelphia Record (Ind.), April 17.

THE manufacture and sale of liquor will for the first time be made a crime in Rhode Island, and it is an old experience that when heavy penalties are denounced against new-made offenses juries and courts refuse to convict and punish. As Maine, Kansas and Iowa have shown, it is one thing to pass prohibitory amendments and quite a different thing to enforce them.

N. Y. World (Dem.), April 18.

SINCE Rhode Island's adoption of the prohibition amendment the Newport season will not be so attractive to foreign diplomats. French Minister Roustan announces that he will summer in Paris; Russian Minister de Struve will linger in Paris and at the French watering-places till autumn, and British Minister West is about to sail East to pass his vacation in London.

Atlanta Appeal (Dem.), April 16.

THE Rhode Island millionaires are chagrined over the adoption of the prohibitory amendment. In Newport they are in a state of consternation. A millionaire cottager can no more give away intoxicating drinks than he can sell them. The law applies as much to Newport as to Woonsocket-to operatives and operators alike. There are no exceptions to the sweep of the new amendment. The ring did not dream that any man on the State ticket would be defeated, and they were confident the amendment would be defeated. They are in hot water, and do not know how to get out of it.

Norfolk Virginian (Dem.), April 16.

AT the election in Milwaukee last Tuesday 28,000 votes were cast, forty-one of which were for the Prohibition ticket. This majority of 27,959 could make the alcoholic howl.

Der Deutche Correspondent, Baltimore, April 19.

(Specially Translated for PUBLIC OPINION.)

HOLY Week, as it is called, is for the different journals in the large towns of Virginia, a week of the greatest excitement aud agitation, for next Monday the "local option" vote will be taken, which has already thrown its gloomy shadow upon several insignificant localities, such as West Point or James River, &c. In Richmond, Alexandria, Lynchburg, and Danville both parties are working, the "Wet" as well as the "Dry," like beavers, and the tone of the press affords conclusive evidence of an excitement such as declares itself only upon the greatest and weightiest electoral occasions. It is manifest that the question of personal liberty is finding more and more friends and adherents in the press of the South, only it is to be regretted that their conversion has come so late. Had the Southern papers adopted this tone from the beginning it is probable that the law would neither have passed iu Georgia nor would do so in Virginia. But the Southern journals of influence, while the question of legislation was under discussion, have enveloped themselves in a mantle of moral cowardice- of lofty silence; just as those of the North and the West, who considered it a sin against respectability to dabble in the subject of "Dutch notions." Among the most zealous and at the same time cleverest champions of personal liberty is Richard F. Beirne, editor of the Richmond State, whose article discharges a whole broadside against the dyspeptic kneebaggy humbug of prohi. bition. The arguments of the paper, it is true, are not at all new to German-Americans, but must always attract notice when an American treats the subject so impartially as the State.

N. Y. Journal of Commerce, April 20.

OUR opinion is based on the fact established by indisputable evidence that a large majority of people in this and every other country use some form of alcoholic beverage. Some drink only malt liqnors, or light wines, and many who partake of distilled spirits, or the stronger juices of the grape, do so irregularly and intermittingly; but a very large proportion of the people of the United States make some use every year of their lives of one or more of the beverages that would come within the inhibition. One of the most common fallacies taught by all classes of the prohibitionists is that drinking and dissipation always go together. Most of their public speakers assume that those who habitually use wines and other alcoholic drinks are guilty of intemperance; that they are under the control of a habit dangerous, if not ruinous, to their health, and demoralizing to society. In fact, we have before us a very intemperate pamphlet written by a socalled "temperance advocate," which begins with the startling affirmation that "moderate drinking is moderate drunkenness." The writer insists that every person who uses any form of intoxicating drink is "more or less of a drunkard." There is no truth whatever in this assertion. Drunkenness is a crime, and there are, alas! too many in every country who are guilty of it. But many of the best men of all ages have made a moderate use of wine, and also of distilled spirits, without ever becoming drunkards. The model Man of the race conformed to the

custom of his day and not only drank fermented wine himself, but increased a failing supply on a festive occasion by the exercise of a superhuman creative energy. Only a small percentage of the people of this country who make habitual use of such stimulating beverages ever indulge to excess. They are in every proper sense of the word strictly temperate; they are not the victims of a depraved appetite, and they are in no serious danger of lapsing from sobriety and of thereby filling a drunkard's grave. As long as this remains true the production and use of such beverages cannot be prohibited by any form of legislation, no matter how many such laws are enacted. We are not in this urging a defiance of the statutes, nor saying what ought to be done in communities where the experiment is tried and the legislation is adopted. We are only setting forth a truth, established by all human experience, that whatever a large majority of the people in any country desire, and can procure, they will have in spite of legal interdicts.

N. Y. Tribune (Rep.), Apri! 20.

THE Republican party has heretofore been a party of performance. The moment it convinces the people that its promises are now made only for effect before elections, its hold is hopelessly broken. On September 19, 1883, the New York State Republican Convention at Richfield Springs adopted the following as a part of its platform:

"We believe in the wisdom of the people deciding all questions pertaining to the pub lic welfare, and would accede to the desire of a large body of our citizens to submit to. the voters of the State a constitutional amendment in regard to the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors."

The Republican party in New York ought to fulfil that promise at this session of the Legislature. We suppose a majority of the Republicans believe such a con: titutional amendment could not be adopted in this State; and that, even if adopted, the enforcement of a prohibitory law framed under it would, in the large cities at least, be impracticable. But why not let those who differ from them express their opinions at the polls? Why not let the honest citizens of whatever party who believe in prohibition stand up and be counted? We shall then know better where we are. The Prohibitionists will then see what a length of road they have yet to travel in a State like New York before they can get a chance to test their favorite remedy. The Republican party will see what the real feeling of the people is on the subject, and, as the party of the people, will be better prepared then to take the next step in practical efforts for temperance reform.

Philadelphia Times (Ind.), April 20.

PRIOR to the recent vote on the prohibition question in Rhode Island the liquor dealers, it is said, collected a large sum of money with which to fight their opponents and distributed it where they thought it would do the most good. There were some doubts as to the legality of such a proceeding, but as the liquor dealers had a point to gain they imitated Bob Burdette and told conscience to shut up and give them a chance. Then they sent or gave the money to the men who were to handle it. But the Rhode Island strikers, in addition to being ingenious, are also proverbially thrifty. The money is said to have reached the hands for which it was first designed, but there it seemed to have encountered an obstacle. In fact, if the truth is told, it never went any further. It was assumed, no doubt, either that there was not the ghost of a chance for prohibition and that it would be a shame to uselessly squander the money, or that prohibition would pass, no matter how bitterly it was opposed, and that it would be a good idea to save what could be saved out of the wreck before it really wrecked. The average reader will laugh at the sad experience of the fellows who lost both their money and the election in this way. It is always funny to see a biter get bitten and as the fund was nothing but a corruption fund, although it didn't bear that name, there won't be many tears shed outside of Rhode Island for the money that went astray. It was an old joke which the jokers played, but that doesn't make the loss less or the ridicule less cutting. Perhaps they will know better down there by and by.

IT IS useless to discuss the methods of restoring bimetallism until your honorable body (House of Representatives) shall determine to stop the coinage and place that indispensable condition of negotiation in the hands of those who must execute your will.-Secretary Manning.

THE labor question is a question that forces itself on the country. It is a bigger thing than the tariff or the United States army, and it can neither be talked, clubbed nor shot down.-Age of Steel.

THERE are very few people who do not think they are qualified to edit newspapers; and there are very few editors who do not think they are qualified to edit the tariff-Age of Steel.

BEAR in mind, when you hear talk of danger to the State, that a majority of the citizens of the United States own an interest in the soil.-La-Crosse Chronicle. Ir the liquor traffic cannot be put down by law and constitutional amendment in Rhode Island, it cannot in any State in the Union.-Detroit Free Press.

THE unreformed primary is the most fruitful source of bad nominations, the most facile field for ring exploitation.-St. Paul Pioneer Press.

JAY GOULD may be responsible for the Southwestern troubles, but the Republican party is responsible for Jay Gould.-St. Paul Globe.

WHAT Mr. Gladstone now concedes is only a scaffolding from which to build the largest concessions that Ireland asks.-Boston Record

any considerable length of time. It is said that in primitive times it was not so. But practices then were indulged in that the experience of mankind have thrown away. Even Abraham we are told went unto his bond-woman, had children by her and then drove her and her child out into the wilderness to starve. He took his little boy with a knife and a pile and bound him and laid him on the pile to burn him. In the name of religion he practiced this, and there was no law against it at that time. The patriarchial system won't do here. It has been thrown away in these days. These practices might have been proper in a barbarous and primitive time-in crude times, but they won't do now. Civilization has thrown them away."

POWER OF PUBLIC OPINION.

Christian Register.

ABSTRACT OF AN ADDRESS BY H. P. KIDDER.

It

IN a country like ours, where most of the offices are elective, the governing power is through the influence of public opinion, controlling and molding public action in answer to its demands. There are those who think a large share of the people are moral and well-behaved, avoiding crime and questionable actions, more through fear of public opinion than because of moral restraint and conscientiousness. There is, doubtless, much of truth in this; and it is well that such a power exists, when it can be made useful for good. Few are proof against the desire for public applause and approval; and, while not by any means the highest motive, it need not in itself be despised. Genius anticipates and leads public opinion, while the mere politician is eager to find which way the tendency is that he may avail himself of it for his party, and so, he thinks, for his own ends. When it was questioned whether Lincoln should be nominated for a second term public opinion was so strong in his favor that politicians who opposed it were overpowered, and he was triumphantly elected. In all the war time the public were in advance of the officials, and spurred them on to more efficient action. Clamorous demands by a noisy few must not be mistaken for public opinion, nor at times can a majority of votes be counted as the deliberate opinion of the public. Our high standards of education are stimulated and upheld by the tone of public opinion, which knows that the permanence of our institutions and duration of our form of government depend on the education of the masses of the people. A striking illustration of the force of public opinion was the season prior to the resumption of specie payments. Certain speculators, for their own ends, opposed it, and sought, by advocating further issues of greenbacks, to put far away the day of resumption. can control and mold public action; and one can properly rejoice that on the whole it is unselfish, seeking the greatest good of the greatest number. We ofter have occasion to regret that it is not felt more quickly by public men; that they seem to incarcerate themselves within walls of prejudice or conceit, or frequently ignorance, circumscribing their vision to narrow limits in their zeal for party, forgetting that men and parties die, but institutions are perpetual, and it is our part, while we have influence, to do our best to pass them on to our successors in the best condition our efforts can produce. This, it has always seemed to me, is the best public sentiment of this city and State, which has contributed so largely to their standing and reputation. It seeks the best man for office, demands honesty under all circumstances, approved the payment of gold interest where most others did not, frowned and still frowns on the suggestion of the few speculators that the United States shall pay its interest in paper or silver. It disapproves the continued coinage of silver, now carried on at the great peril of our financial affairs a course of action no one with an intelligent knowledge of finance can look upon otherwise than with grave apprehensions. The public does not require it, but, on the contrary, dreads its ultimate effect. The public press seeks to voice, as far as possible, the tone of the community in which it is published, and from the most intelligent portion of which it receives support. The good or evil influence of an ably-conducted newspaper can hardly be measured, and I am glad again to bear testimony to the generally helpful tone of the papers in this community. They mold and lead and educate public opinion more than is possible by individual effort, although that means has been increased of late years by the frequent public speaking--an art well worth the while for all to cultivate who would exert their proper share of influence in helping the public to right opinions. Nothing so induces to conservative views of public policy as invested interests and the responsibilities of family ties. Every hamlet, village, town, city has its peculiar tone of public opinion, made and guided by the strongest minds therein. Business men are oftentimes content to attend to their own affairs and let the officials attend to the public interests; but it is not that they are without clear and definite opinions, which they sometimes manifest in a very emphatic way, though it may be only after long suffering. But once fairly aroused and apprehensive as to the drift of our legislators, and a change is sure to be made by the agents who are to represent them in the public counsels. The pulpit takes no small share in molding a healthy public opinion. Its influence is generally aggressive as against evil tendencies, and progressive in its direction. It may be, and sometimes is, narrow; but it is very sure to be pure and ennobling, so that one is certain of some good by attaching himself to the congregation of a learned and sincere clergyman of any denomination.

American Journal of Education, St. Louis. Ir is public opinion that most needs instruction and incitement.

National Republican, April 17.

PUBLIC opinion, the monarch who rules the world, and whose scepter is the only insignia of imperalism tolerated in this republic, will work out a peaceful solution of the capital and labor problem.

SCIENTIFIC.

DISCOVERIES AND INVENTIONS.

THE PACE OF METEORS.

In

ABOUT six weeks ago we referred to the fact of an extraordinarily brilliant meteor having flashed across the sky in this neighborhood, and we invited communications upon it from any who might have observed it. It seems that upon the same night a similar meteor was observed in England. Now, under ordinary circumstances, there was nothing notable in this, for meteors are known to be continually falling, it having been calculated that many millions of them fall annually upon the earth. But that one should fall of exceeding brilliancy, and be described in almost identical language by correspondents in the 7imes and by ourselves, is worthy of note and of further inquiry. We recorded that such a meteor appeared at 27 minutes past 12 in the direction east-south east from Cumballa Hill, from which place it was seen. It was subsequently reported from Rutnagherry that a meteor was seen there, but to the north. A correspondent wrote us from Mahableshwur, who reported that he saw a very bright meteor at half-past one (local time,) but the great difference in time pointed to some error in recording the exact appearance, or else proved that it was some other meteor that was seen. England there was a meteor which seems to have passed over London about 5.5 p. m., Greenwich time, or 9.55 p. m. Bombay time. And it appears to have been traveling eastward. It does not seem beyond the bounds of possibility that the meteor seen here and in England were the same. The absolute difference in time would thus be 2 hours 32 minutes, which is equal to the time taken to travel the distance between these two points. Assuming this distance to be about 5,500 miles, the rate at which the meteor was traveling was about 351⁄2 miles a minute in the earth's atmosphere. The rate at which meteors travel in interstellar space is about forty to fifty miles per second, So that the difference between these two rates of speed show the retardation due to the earth's atmosphere, always going upon the assumption that the meteor seen in England was the same as that seen here. To settle this point it will be of interest to know if any one between Bombay and London noticed the brilliant meteor of January 16, and it would also be interesting to know if any one saw it on the other side of India and further east. Though meteors or meteorites fall in such great numbers, it is very rarely that their history can be traced, and it appears that a service may be done to science by tracing out the path of this particular one, if so be that two points in its journey have been fixed.—Times, of India.

THE UNIVERSAL TELEMETER.

SOME interesting experiments were recently carried out on the Thames Embankment with the universal telemeter, a new surveying instrument, the invention of the Abbate Luigi Cerebotani, Professor of Astronomy and Mathematics at the University of Verona. The instrument consists mainly of two glasses capable of accurate adjustment, the one acting as the base line, the other the side of an angle. The direction of the glasses is gauged by a graded rule, by means of which the distance between the two glasses of observation and the point to be measured is registered, rendering the finding of the required length of line a matter of easy calculation. The stand on which the telemeter is fixed is provided with a drawing board, on which the objects measured can be dotted as the measurements are obtained, thus gradually forming a plan of the country surveyed. The whole is exceedingly simple, and can be worked by any one not possessing special knowledge. The telemeter has already been tested by Herr Foerster, of the Berlin Observatory, and one is now in use by the German War Office. The instrument seems well adapted to ordinary surveying, although it might possibly be urged that its utility may be somewhat handicapped by the shortness of its base line.-London Public Opinion.

ARTIFICIAL COCAINE.

W. MERCK has announced the artificial formation of cocaine, which is probably the first step towards cheapening the production of this important alkaloid. He tells us that cocaine may be prepared by heating benzoylecgonine, with a slight excess of methyl iodide and an equal volume of methyl alcohol, in a sealed tube at 100 deg. C. This is not, exactly speaking, an artificial formation of cocaine, but the conversion into this base of another substance contained in the cocoa leaves, which has hitherto been a by product of little or no value. Another chemist, Z. H. Skraup, has confirmed Merck's observation just alluded to. He also shows benzoylecgonine to be a by-product in the preparation of cocaine. It crystallises in transparent prisms. The acetate and sulphate also crystallise in prisms. By the action of hydrochloric acid in sealed tubes at 100 deg. C., it is decomposed into methyl chloride, benzoic acid, and ecgonine. This author also says that benzoylecgonine is converted into cocaine by the action of methyl iodide in the manner described above.

HOW FAR LIGHT PENETRATES DEEP-SEA DEPTHS.

THIS subject, referred to by one of your correspondents in your issue of March 20, has been carefully investigated by Messrs. Fol and Sarosin, of the Society of Physics and Natural History of Geneva, Switzerland. Without giving all the details, it was found that light penetrated fresh water (Lake Geneva) sufficiently to affect very sensitive photographic plates at depths of 170 meters (558 feet), and at that depth"the light at mid-day was about as strong as that of a clear, moonless night." Similar experiments carried on in the Mediterranean led to the following conclusions: In the month of March, in the middle of the day and in bright sunlight, the last glimmer of light comes at 400 meters (1,300 feet) below the surface." A full report of these investigations appeared in the Photographic Times of July Io and October 9, 1885.—G. C. Hodges, in Scientific American.

ARTIFICIAL LITHOGRAPHIC STONES.

THE Patent Blatt describes a process, introduced by M. Rosenthal, of Frankfort, for making artificial lithographic stones. The ingredients consist simply of cement,