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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Book Company, 40 cents and 50 cents). 

 Both are by Edward Eggleston, who has 

 aimed to lighten the labor of learning to 

 read by presenting stories containing enough 

 spirit and movement to interest the young. 

 He has also seized the opportunity to implant 

 a love of America in the American child by 

 drawing his subjects from what might be 

 called the heroic age of the United States. 

 We are glad to see such a master hand in 

 writing " true stories " enlisted in the service 

 of the young. The only improvement we 

 could suggest would be to combine a love of 

 Nature with a love of country. A combina- 

 tion of Eggleston and Burroughs, for exam- 

 ple, would yield a product well-nigh perfect. 



The Eighth Biennial Report of the Bureau 

 of Labor Statistics of Illinois is devoted to 

 taxation, and it shows how large property 

 owners, especially in the chief city of the 

 State, throw an unfair portion of the bur- 

 den of taxation upon their poorer neighbors. 

 This is accomplished by undervaluations 

 often grotesquely small, and by assessing 

 vacant land lower than land of equal value 

 bearing improvements. While Chicago real 

 estate receives most attention, considerable 

 information concerning the property of rail- 

 road and other corporations in the State is 

 presented. The Bureau recommends that 

 State taxes be levied solely on site values of 

 land, and advocates several changes in ad- 

 ministration. An appendix contains infor- 

 mation concerning the coal-miners' strike in 

 1894, and the decision of the State Supreme 

 Court on the Sweat-shop Act. A compila- 

 tion of the Labor Laws of the State of Illi- 

 nois is included in the same volume. 



In Statesman and Demagog, a pamphlet 

 by Jlphonse Allman, of San Francisco, a 

 dynamical theory of money is presented, 

 with many mechanical analogies and dia- 

 grams. Unfortunately, his analogies seem 

 to run away with him in places, and in 

 making his theory plain to those versed in 

 mechanical principles he has obscured it 

 from every one else. 



In Bilder aus der deutschen Litteratur 

 the student is given a bird's-eye view of the 

 field, with many favorite ballads, some ex- 

 tracts from longer pieces, and the outlines 

 of the chief prose works, but without too 

 many dates and statistics. The author, Prof. 



I. Keller, of the Normal College, New York, 

 has aimed to use language which the stu- 

 dent can read at sight (American Book 

 Company, 75 cents). 



The Secret of Mankind (Putnams, $3) 

 belongs to a class of books to which the 

 name Utopian might be given, as it presents 

 the (anonymous) author's ideal of human so- 

 ciety in the form of a description of an im- 

 aginary state. Another favorite form of 

 writing with a certain class of writers con- 

 versations with the shades of the departed 

 great is also used. Metaphysics, ethics, 

 government, and education are the chief 

 topics discussed. 



Under the title Light on Current Topics 

 (Massachusetts New Church Union, Boston, 

 $1) a series of lectures setting forth the 

 teaching of the Swedenborgian Church on 

 certain topics of present interest has been 

 issued in book form. Among the subjects 

 treated by various lecturers are, Theosophy 

 and Religion, The Relation of the Church to 

 the State and to Secular Affairs, and Pauper- 

 ism and Crime. 



The Interstate Commerce Commission has 

 issued its seventh annual volume of Statistics 

 of Railways in the United States, giving in- 

 formation about mileage, capital, earnings 

 and other income, expenditures, and charges 

 against income on account of capital cover- 

 ing the year ending with June, 1894. The 

 year was exceptional in several ways. It 

 included the last four months of the Colum- 

 bian Exposition, which had an important in- 

 fluence on the passenger traffic, and it covered 

 a part of the period of the recent business 

 depression. The latter fact is apparent in all 

 the tables, and especially in the unequaled 

 percentage of the mileage of the country in 

 the hands of receivers. 



In its Report on Coal in Ulinois for 1894, 

 the Board of Commissioners of Laborof that 

 State has presented statistics on the output of 

 mines, value of the coal, cost of mining, num- 

 ber of employees, days of active operation, 

 wages, the use of powder, casualties, and the 

 ventilation of mines. This information is 

 arranged both according to districts as re- 

 ported by the several State inspectors of 

 mines and in summary form. An appendix 

 contains statistics of the coal-miners' strike 

 of 1894 and of the world's production of 



