GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. 299 



practitioners ; a second, the examination of druggists and compound- 

 ing clerks, as precedent to entering into business ; while a third regu- 

 lates the practice of dentistry. Various enactments prescribe the toll 

 to be exacted for grinding wheat ; when one man may slay his neigh- 

 bor's dog with impunity ; how railway companies must maintain their 

 waiting-rooms at their stopping-places for passengers ; the hours of 

 labor, and the employment of women and children ; the maximum 

 time for which locomotive engineers and firemen may be continuously 

 employed ; what books shall be used in the public schools; forbidding 

 "raffles" at church fairs under "frightful penalties," and making it a 

 crime to give away a lottery-ticket, and a misdemeanor " to even pub- 

 lish an account of a lottery, no matter when or where it has been con- 

 ducted." Among bills introduced, and which found considerable sup- 

 port, but were not enacted, was one forbidding persons of different sexes 

 to skate together, or even be present at the same hour on the rink 

 floor ; and another to license drinkers, which provided that no person 

 should be permitted to use intoxicants or purchase liquors of any kind 

 without having first obtained a public license. 



The result of such a conflict of tariffs as has prevailed in Euro^je 

 since 18TT-'78 has entailed so much of commercial friction, such a 

 series of retaliatory measures, and such an arrest of material develop- 

 ment, that there are now many signs that the continuation of this state 

 of affaii's will not be much longer endurable. In this conflict, Austria, 

 which was the first country that broke in ujDon the International Com- 

 mercial Union that prevailed among the Continental states prior to 

 1878, has suffered most severely ; her exports and imports having nota- 

 bly decreased, while her customs taxes have risen in recent years from 

 \s. 8d. to 3s. 7c?, per head of her population, and her internal taxes on 

 consumption from 3s. 7d. to Gs. 8d. There has been a marked decline 

 in banking profit*, an increase in the mortgages on real property, and 

 a decline in the consumption both of meat and of farinaceous articles 

 of food. To such an extent has her fiscal policy invited reprisals that 

 she is described as " standing alone commercially," and reduced to the 

 position of consuming her own products through necessity. Russia 

 having sought to close her doors against the produce of other coun- 

 tries, they in their turn have curtailed their purchases of Russian 

 products, the falling off of Russian imports — comparing 1886 with 

 1883 — having been nearly 25 per cent, and of exports 28 per cent. Of 

 flax, which is one of the principal exports of Russia, the decline in 

 the value of shipments has been from $29,350,000 in 1884 to 619,250,- 

 000 in 1886. The German Chambers of Commerce, in their recent 

 reports, have, with very few exceptions, declared against the present 

 tariff policy as most injurious to the industry and commerce of the 

 empire. The recent prohibitory duties decreed by Russia on the im- 

 portation of iron and steel have closed numerous iron-furnaces in Si- 

 lesia, and the steam corn-mills of Northern Germany are complaining 



