560 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and the numerous countries which have re- 

 ceived her capital. Prominent among the 

 causes of business calamity he discusses the 

 recent increase of war expenditures, rural 

 depopulation, pauperism in England and 

 Ireland, bad agricultural policy, millionaires 

 as a cause of depression, speculation and 

 finance, adulteration and dishonesty. In 

 Part II several brief chapters are devoted 

 to the suggestion of remedies. 



The view taken by Mr. Wallace is broad 

 and very instructive. His facts are copious 

 and pertinent, and the reasoning cogent 

 and forcible. His ideas are far more ele- 

 vated and philosophical than we are ac- 

 customed to in treating this class of ques- 

 tions. This well appears in his closing 

 paragraphs. lie says : " In conclusion, I 

 wish to direct my readers' attention to a 

 very suggestive fact elicited by our present 

 inquiry, and which appears to me to express 

 the moral teaching of the whole subject. 

 In every case in which we have traced out 

 the efficient causes of the present depres- 

 sion, we have found it to originate in cus- 

 toms, laws, or modes of action which are 

 ethically unsound, if not positively immoral. 

 Wars and excessive war armaments, loans 

 to despots, or for war purposes, the accu- 

 mulation of vast wealth by individuals, ex- 

 cessive speculation, adulteration of manu- 

 factured goods, and lastly, our bad land 

 system, with its insecurity of tenure, cxces- 

 Bivc rents, confiscation of tenants' property, 

 its common-inclosures, evictions, and de- 

 population of the rural districts — all come 

 under this category ; while the one apparent 

 exception, the bad seasons, would has'c been 

 comparatively harmless (as instances here 

 quoted have shown) under a thoroughly 

 good system of land-tenure. 



" We thus see that the evils under which 

 we have suffered, and are still suffering, are 

 due to no recondite causes, to no laws of 

 inevitable fluctuation of trade, but wholly 

 to our own acts, and to those of other 

 civilized nations. Whenever we depart from 

 the great principles of truth and honesty, 

 of equal freedom and justice to all men, 

 whether in our relations with other states, 

 or in our dealings with our fellow-men, the 

 evil that we do surely comes back to us, 

 and the suffering and poverty and crime of 

 which we are the direct or indirect causes. 



help to impoverish ourselves. It is, then, 

 by applying the teachings of a higher mo- 

 rality to our commerce and manufactures, to 

 our laws and customs, and to our dealings 

 with all other nationalities, that we shall 

 find the only effective and permanent rem- 

 edy for depression of trade." 



Overpressure in Schools, pp. 11 ; Sani- 

 tary Science and Public Hygiene, 

 pp. 9. By W. S. Robertson, M. D. 

 Muscatine, Iowa. 



The author of these papers is President 

 of the Iowa State Board of Health, and in 

 the essays discusses two very important 

 points in public hygiene. The former pa- 

 per relates to the effects of overpressure 

 upon the health and progress of school-chil- 

 dren, and the signs by which its evil work- 

 ings may be discovered. The second paper 

 relates to the importance of diffusing sound 

 information among the people, in order that 

 they may recognize the value of sanitary 

 science, and may learn how to participate 

 j in its benefits. 



I AiiERiCAN Constitutions. By Horace Da- 



I VIS. Baltimore: N. Murray. Pp. 70. 



I Price, 50 cents. 



This is one of the Johns Hopkins Uni- 

 versity studies in historical and political 



I science. Its purpose is to follow the 

 changes in the relations of the three depart- 

 ments of government — legislative, executive* 

 and judicial — which have been silently go- 

 ing on in the United States for the past 

 century. In the State governments, un- 

 der numerous alterations in their Constitu- 

 tions, the powers of the Executive have been 

 steadily enlarged, and the functions of the 

 Legislature have been cramped and limited ; 

 in the Federal Government, Congress has 

 encroached upon the field of Executive pow- 

 er ; and everywhere, in both national and 

 State governments, the judiciary has gained 

 vastly in power and importance. The au- 

 thor believes that there have been three 

 distinct strata of government in the old 

 thirteen colonies. In the first or colonial 

 period, the Executive was too strong; in 

 the second, the Legislature; in the third, 

 the balance was restored, and our State Con- 

 stitutions are to-day, he believes, "as a 

 whole, the most perfect framework of gov- 

 ernment for men living in a democracy, 

 that human skill has ever devised." 



