304 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in one place and a form of instruction in the other is maintained in 

 order that the incomes appropriated to their support may not be sacri- 

 ficed. The clergyman lives ten, fifteen, or twenty miles distant. He 

 has no parish, and in some instances no congregation, but he comes to 

 the church and goes through a form of religious service once or twice 

 on Sunday. In one instance it was discovered that one man consti- 

 tuted the entire audience, and that he was paid a certain sum each 

 week for playing congregation while the clergyman conducted the 

 service ! 



In the city of London there are several parishes whose limits do 

 not extend beyond the walls of the church-building — but which are in 

 receipt of very generous incomes. In an article on the Bank of Eng- 

 land, by Henry May, in the " Fortnightly Review," we are told that 

 " this edifice " (the Bank) " was greatly enlarged between the years 

 1770 and 178G, and was completed pretty much as it now stands in 

 178G ; an act having been procured in 1780 to enable the directors 

 to buy the adjoining church, land, and parsonage — in fact, the whole 

 parish of Christopher Le Stock — to the rector of which non-existent 

 parish the bank pays four hundred pounds sterling per year to this 

 day." 



I am not aware of anything in America which parallels this con- 

 dition of affairs. Our country is not as yet old enough for this ; our 

 conservatism is not of the right type, nor our veneration for such a 

 class of " vested rights " sufficiently pronounced to afford favorable 

 conditions for the existence of such abuses. I do not think it prob- 

 able that they could maintain an assured footing among us. But we 

 may be well warned against a system which tends in this direction, 

 which is in itself vicious, and which must ultimately involve us in 

 greater embarrassments. 



The efficiency and success of a municii^al government depend in a 

 great measure upon its police establishment. The protection of life 

 and property, the security of peace and good order, the suppression of 

 crime and the arrest of criminals, are the special care of this depart- 

 ment. Failure in these particulars is a fatal defect. Success in this 

 branch of the government would palliate and atone for many short- 

 comings elsewhere. So far as I am able to learn, our American cities 

 have no well-organized and well-sustained police force. Almost 

 everywhere the police organization is used as a partisan political ma- 

 chine. If we recall the events of the past eighteen months, the state- 

 ment will be confirmed, and we will find that the Republicans of Cin- 

 cinnati and the Democrats of Chicago seem to vie with each other for 

 an unenviable supremacy in this direction, and that each seems likely 

 enough in its turn to surpass the other. The difficulty is fundamental, 

 and relates to the theory of organization. Appointments to the po- 

 lice force, and promotions in the service, are made at the dictation 

 of professional politicians, and as a reward for partisan services. A 



