1. In what year 'Necessity-Employment"? 2. Of what nature was the employment? (i. e., whether masonry in public buildings, digging in public grounds, office-work, etc., etc.)

3. What were the conditions under which you admitted workmen to the Necessity-Employment"?

(a) Did you admit only married men and women, or those who had others to support?

(b) From what age upward?

(c) Did you stipulate that they must be citizens of your town, or at least resident there?

(d) Did you admit persons who were already receiving a measure of support from the poor fund?

4. Did you pay for the work by the day, or did you also pay by the piece? 5. How many hours per day did you call a day's work?

6. Did the city provide the food for the 6. Did the city provide the food for the workers, wholly or partially? If par tially, was it breakfast and luncheon? And was either, or were both entirely free, or did the workmen pay a trifle ?

7. What were the entire expenses the city during the year named ?

of

To these questions the answers were, in the main, alike; but in the particulars in which they differed, the difference was very marked.

Aix-la-Chapelle, replying for the winter of 1902-1903, stipulates that, as a rule, only men who have lived in the town for

two years shall be employed; a stipulation that would appear to defeat the very end and aim of “Necessity-Employment,' since just the men who have lived the shortest time in a town are the men most likely to be in sudden need of work. Aix furthermore adds to its severity by decreeing that the payment of the wages take place only once a week. That is, a man begins, say, on Wednesday morning, and the wages are paid Saturday afternoon. In the meantime what are his starving family, what is he, himself, to do for food until Saturday night? Aix also precludes the young workman-which lives with his parents: that is, a young is, perhaps, not a bad idea-unless he the support of the family, may be emman under twenty, who contributes to ployed, but a boy of sixteen, save under very exceptional circumstances, may not apply for work. The preference is given to the old and enfeebled workmen, who are already in receipt of a measure of assistance from the public funds.

The work itself consisted in that winter, wood in the city's wood-yards. 1902-1903, of sawing, splitting and piling

The city of Cologne differs from Aixla-Chapelle in the kind of labor offered, which is stone-breaking, and in the fact that only members of the German Empire, and only subscribers to Cologne's Old-Age-Pension-Society shall be receivment"! Stipulations which excite one's ed as applicants for "Necessity-Employrisibles, but which are not quite so absurd as they at first appear, since almost every German town has its Old-AgePension-Society, which is a kind of Savings Bank for the Poor. But Cologne is evidently bent upon making it as difficult as possible for a man to obtain the work, and all the conditions accompanying it are marked by a spirit of pettiness and grudging hardness not flattering to the rich, Rhine-swept town. After supporters of families, who come first, and after men who have no homes and no relations, who come next, if superfluous work remains, young persons who have

'completed their sixteenth year" may have it given them to do, if they have lived "at least one year in Cologne"! As just the young man or boy who had come from a distance would be the workman most likely to be in need, the farmer's boy who had come from the province, the young clerk who had not yet secured a position-the stipulation amounts to a prohibition.

But Cologne goes further: it prescribes that even the "supporter of a family" who applies for work shall be able to show, first, a paper testifying to the fact that he is a workman; secondly, the receipt for his subscription to the just-mentioned Old-Age-Pension-Society; thirdly, a paper setting forth the date of his dismissal by his former employer; fourthly, a certificate-distinct from the other! testifying to the exact date on which he paid the last subscription to the said OldAge-Pension-Society!

These eminently German, and in the connection eminently ridiculous pedantries, show better than volumes of explanation could how far, how very far, behind in the refinements of education, in the humane instincts, is the middleclass German citizen; how impervious to appreciation of the complexities of modern civilization, which constantly cause distress and bitter need to thousands of men and women every winter of their lives. These human brothers and sisters of the stout wine-and-beer-drinking, well-fed, selfish, material shop-keepers and hotel-keepers of the Cologne bourgeoisie, who may never have had ten pfennig over their daily needs in all their lives; to whom a "karte" in the OldAge-Pension-Society, with all its abundant initial expenses and annual dues, would be as unattainable as a bankingaccount. How rarely would a man who had all such financial details and all the appurtenances of a life of comfort, in such extreme apple-pie order, be in desperate need of work! And "Necessity" work is just for those who have not all those pedantries vouched for.

Cologne furthermore stipulates that a man, having gone through all the justmentioned preliminaries in order merely to be enrolled as seeking work-and fancy a hungry, heart-sick, middle-aged, self-respecting mechanic being tortured with such details-must then, in case the noble city of Cologne permits him to work, spend three days in so-called “lessons" in the art of breaking stones! A stonemason, let us say, through misfortune and illness, or through any other of the hundred accidents that may throw such a man out of employment, after tramping about, unable to pay carfare and refused by one insolent, domineering petty-official after another, finally is forced to apply at the "Necessity-Labor-Bureau," and having satisfied those equally domineering and more insolent petty-officials in all the aforesaid ramifications, is set down to "lessons in stone-breaking"!

Is it a wonder that Germany, from north to south, is one seething hot-bed of ultra-Socialism; that the heart of the German workman burns to assert its manhood, its part in the land, the air and the fruits of the earth?

But, as if to make the humiliation more galling, no "notice" of dismissal from the work is allowed; that is, the munificent city of Cologne reserves to itself the right to cast a man out, without a reason given, without appeal, and without a penny of pay over the day, or portion of a day, when, perchance, a brutal overseer chooses to make it impossible for him to remain. Also, lest an intelligent, quick or skilful man should get a little "ahead," Cologne stipulates that no workman may earn more than 87 cents a day. In other words, in Cologne the workman in the "Necessity-Employment" department may not earn as much as he can.

The labor is called day-labor, and— in rare cases-piece-work; but the pay, as before mentioned, is doled out once a week, with the express stipulation that "no advance" of any portion of the weekly wage will, under any circumstances, be made-"Vorschuss wird nicht gewährt."

divides into the Iron-Mining Works of Lorraine, and the Machine-Works and Small-Iron-Manufacturies of Alsatia. In his introduction, which sounds something like a warning, the author, Herr Otto Bossmann, quoting from Professor Schmoller, reminds Germans of the political-economic axiom, that production is based upon need, and need upon national and international intercourse; and that the last hour of Germany's prosperity in the iron industries would have sounded the moment her demand for arms, engines for commercial and war-ships, motors and the innumerable tools and forms of apparatus in daily and yearly use, ceased or diminished in perceptible degree. He institutes a comparison, in the need of iron in some form or other, of the inhabitants of Germany, per head, which shows the following rapid increase in the use of that ore since 1881, and the sudden and significant stoppage in the year 1901.

From 1861 to 1864 the consumption was at the rate of 25.2 kilo. to every individual German; in 1871 it was 33 kilo.; in 1890, 81.7 kilo.; in 1895, 105.1 kilo.; in 1900, 131.7 kilo.; but in 1901 it fell to 90.3 kilo.; and in 1902, to 76.6 kilo.; while in 1903 it rose again to 98.1 kilo. per head.

The cause of this amazing stoppage in the use of iron in the German Empire, and the complexities and uncertainties which, the author considers, are likely to beset it henceforth, have in the nature of the case altered the conditions of the miner and workman in manufactories; altered the demands which he feels himself entitled to make; altered the measure of independent action into which he finds himself forced by his own enlarged sphere of responsibility, and by the invitations which he receives to join the Socialistic unions growing up with amazing rapidity in every portion of the Empire.

Herr Bossmann lays strong emphasis on the fact, too often lost sight of by employés, that the price for which a manufacture is sold, and its value in exchange,

is not fixed by the cost of producing it, but by the quantity in which it has to be produced. In other words, the value of manufactures does not depend upon the length of time or the amount of labor expended upon them, but on the proper distribution of the labor.

The whole pamphlet, which is one of three compiled under the supervision of Professor Schmoller, Professor Francke, and other men of note, is full of striking comments and is eminently enlightening as to the iron industry of Alsace and Lorraine.

It has been said that no science, if it may as yet be called a science, is so contradictory as Political Economy; and certainly it would appear as if the deeper one dives into the problems of our modern civilization, the less clear one becomes as to the relations of causes to effects. This bewilderment was felt by more than one visitor to the exhibition of Home-Industries, held in Berlin, in the building of the Old Academy of Sciences. Among the innumerable articles made at home, which are badly, alas! how badly paid, were several which are normally, and in two or three cases, well paid; but these are not always articles of higher value, either to middleman or to shopkeeper, nor yet such as require skilled labor. For instance, for the manufacture of cheap silk ribbons in the neighborhood of Crefeld, workmen and workwomen receive from 36 to 40 pfennig per hour; while for fine silk stuffs, by the yard, they are paid in Crefeld itself only 17 to 19 pfennig per hour. Why?

Again, the coarser qualities of underclothing pay the workers better than the finer qualities; and the same apparent discrepancy appears in the manufacture of shoes.

In the fabrication of beautiful articles in leather, the most complicated of which require delicate skill, acquired by years of practice, men are paid, in Offenbach, the center of that industry, at the rate of 23 pfennig, or not quite 6 cents an hour.

In Saxony women and girls weave

straw hats for not quite 24 cents per hour; for fine pearl hat-passementeries, and for hats composed entirely of chiffon, they receive not quite 3 cents per hour. In the manufacture of toys, however, “grinding the face of the poor" attains its height. For twelve dozen doll's wardrobes the workman is paid 12 pfennig; and it takes one family of three to four persons, four hours and a half to produce

one dozen. That is, for twelve of these pretty little pieces of doll's furniture from three to four people work more than half a day, for 2 cents!

Is it not time that the world awoke to the miseries of civilization and ceased to drain the blood of its brothers in cruelties such as these? MAYNARD BUTLER.

Berlin, Prussia

As

S AN accompaniment to each of the half dozen or more attempts to secure statehood for Utah, there has been some discussion upon the desirability of so amending the Federal Constitution as to give Congress power to legislate upon the subject of polygamy and kindred offenses. Owing to a conviction in the minds of many that the Mormon leaders have broken their pledges concerning the cessation of polygamy and unlawful cohabitation, which pledges were made to secure Statehood and a return of the escheated church property, such an agitation has been revived.

The legislatures of New York and Iowa, one branch of the legislature of New Jersey, Democratic state conventions in Idaho, several general assemblies of the Presbyterian Church, the Interdenominational Council of Women, the National Congress of Mothers, and the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, have each demanded that the Constitution of the United States be so amended as to give Congress power to suppress polygamy. Thousands of petitions have been sent to Washington making the same demand, and resolutions to that end have been introduced in Congress, and numerous members have proclaimed their support.

Surely such an array of public sentiment

demands a careful investigation of the question raised.

Unfortunately the Mormons, who might naturally be expected to oppose such actions, are apparently forced into acquiescence with the demands of their enemies by the fear that their opposition will be construed as an admission of bad faith when they claim to have repudiated polygamy. Furthermore, their opposition would be taken by the country as an evidence of the necessity for the Constitutional Amendment. The final disposition of the case of Senator Smoot, of course, will not solve the Mormon problem. The immediate result will only be to intensify Mormon zealots, and to convince the anti-Mormon agitators that something more is needed, and in their distress, no doubt, they will redouble their efforts to secure a constitutional amendment as the only means of avenging the wrong to their disappointed reformatory intentions.

It is time therefore that the public be given some accurate information as to the past and present extent of Mormon polygamy. Such information will disillusionize many who believe that all Mormons are polygamists, as well as those who believe that Mormon polygamic families are a matter of purely ancient history.