RECENT LITERATURE.

The Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (for 1902-1903; Washington, 1907) contains the usual report of the Director, including a sketch of the late Head, J. W. Powell, who died in 1902. The volume is devoted mainly to the accompanying paper, which is upon the Games of the North American Indians, by Stewart Culin. The subject is very fully treated and is abundantly illustrated by twenty-one plates and over eight hundred figures. The author notes the usual character of primitive games: they are those of chance and of dexterity, including none that call for such skill and calculation as does, for example, chess.

The "Digest of City Charters," prepared under the direction of the Chicago Charter Convention by A. R. Hatton of the University of Chicago, is an admirable piece of work, which gathers together in one volume of 351 pages most valuable information which otherwise the special student of municipal government, or the framers of new charters, would have to search through many volumes to obtain. It is in no sense a book for popular reading, and the average man would find it bewildering. But the special student of the subject, after using it, will feel a deep sense of gratitude to the author for his scholarly and systematic labors. Its scope includes the United States, and Canada, Great Britain, Continental Europe and part of Australia. The four main divisions of the book are (1) the relation of the city to the State, (2) the part of the people in municipal government, (3) the city council, (4) the city executive. Under each head the matter is well digested and admirably arranged, so that the book is fairly easy to consult, although, for lack of time, as the author explains, it as yet lacks that indispensable adjunct, an index.

"Municipal Government of the City of New York," by Abby G. Baker and Abby H. Ware (Boston, Ginn & Co.), is an excellent text book, evidently prepared to carry out the efforts of The National Municipal League to promote the teaching of municipal government in schools and colleges. It was written especially for the highest grades of the New York grammar schools, but its pleasing style makes interesting reading for adults, who would learn much by a careful perusal. The historical part is treated with sufficient attention, but in the main it is a comprehensive description of the government of the metropolis, as it exists to-day. At the

end of each chapter are summaries of the contents which are helpful to the memory, while the admirable illustrations, 200 in number, make the book peculiarly attractive to a pupil who may at first find the subject distasteful.

James O. Pierce's "Studies in Constitutional History" (Minneapolis, H. W. Wilson Co., 1906) discusses in a clear and interesting way, and with a deep conviction that the hand of an "Overruling Providence" can be detected in the development of our country, various important constitutional questions from 1776 to the present. "The Princes of Achaia and the Chronicles of Morea, a Study of Greece in the Middle Ages," by Sir Rennell Rodd, in two volumes (London, Arnold, 1907; N. Y., Longmans, Green & Co.), is a book whose worth and dignity entitle it to a more extended ́ appreciation than can be given in the pages of this REVIEW. Anyone who, like the writer of the present notice, has had to toil through Hopf's pages in Ersch and Gruber, and has sought to collect and to utilize the scattered chronicles of medieval Greece, knows how great is the debt which English readers owe to the distinguished author for his scholarly labors. Beginning with the events of the fourth Crusade, which established princes from western Europe among the scenes of old Greek culture, he follows the fortunes of the feudal principalities through their adventurous career, and closes his narrative with the Greek restoration of the fifteenth century. Some of the most remarkable episodes of medieval history are comprised in the period of two centuries which the history covers. No writer of fiction could imagine wilder stories than those told by Villehardouin of the Fourth Crusade, and by Ramon Muntaner of the Catalan Company, "The conquering host of the Franks in Romania." The author has employed such leisure time as his diplomatic life allowed him for years past (he was appointed attaché at Athens first in 1888), to collect and study the authorities on the history of medieval Greece; he has shown excellent discrimination in analyzing his sources of information; and has constructed from them a story full of life and color. The reader can feel but one regret, that the author was forced to abandon his early plan of describing also the course of Venetian rule in the Greek world. Of the several parties to the Fourth Crusade and the partition following, most belonged to the past; the Papacy, the Greek Empire, feudalism itself, were all in their period of decline. Venice alone, representing commercialism, was the power with a future, and the full significance of the period appears only as the fortunes

of Venice are brought into contrast with those of her rivals in the struggle for existence. Perhaps we may still hope that Sir Rennell Rodd will find time and opportunity to continue the work of Heyd and others on the history of Venice in the Eastern Mediterranean.

In a volume of the American Social Progress Series, President Hadley publishes "Standards of Public Morality" (Macmillan, 1907), five lectures delivered on the John S. Kennedy Foundation. in the School of Philanthropy conducted by the Charity Organization Society of New York City. Some fifteen years ago President (then Professor) Hadley published in the first volume of this REVIEW two articles on "Ethics as a Political Science," in which he emphasized the close connection of subjects which have ordinarily been studied and taught as separate disciplines. Since then he has not ceased to insist on the necessity of viewing the great questions of to-day from the ethical as well as the economic and political standpoints, and the present volume shows again the fruits of his method. The formation of public opinion, the ethics of trade, the ethics of corporate management, the workings of our political machinery, the political duties of the citizen: such are the bare titles of the topics that he covers.

The "Centraal Bureau voor Sociale Adviezen" has begun the publication of a series of studies entitled "Kleinindustrieën ten Platten Lande," describing conditions in the country industries of the Netherlands. The first study, by Mr. E. M. Meijers (Zwolle, 1906), is a pamphlet of some seventy pages, containing besides a general introduction to the series, a description of the manufacture of mattings in the northern part of Overijssel. The little book is an admirable piece of work. It traces the technical processes, from the cultivation of the rushes which form the raw material of the industry, to the weaving which makes the matting ready for the market; it describes the organization of the manufacture and trade in mattings; it discusses the conditions of labor, and the possibility of effecting an improvement in them. A feature of the pamphlet worthy of special commendation is the photographic reproduction of characteristic scenes of the matting industry.

Among the recent publications of the United States Department of Agriculture, bulletin 42 is a valuable contribution to the literature upon the wheat industry. In a monograph of 103 pages entitled "Russia's Wheat Surplus," Dr. I. M. Rubinow, economic expert in the division of Foreign Markets, presents a report concerning the growth of the "king of cereals" in Russia. Such topics as the

physical conditions of soil and climate, ownership of land, agricultural methods, cost of production, distribution of the wheat areas, yield per acre, etc., are clearly discussed. Special attention is given to the "actual and potential" export of wheat from Russia to the great markets of Europe, as also to the competition it now gives or may be expected to give to the wheat and flour exports of the United States. This bulletin is one of a series, already prepared or in process of preparation, in which a study is made of the principal competitors of the United States in the matter of the disposal of surplus farm products.

"A History of the American Whale Fishery," by Walter S. Tower (University of Pennsylvania Publications, 1907), is intended to give a comprehensive review of the origin and development of the whaling industry from colonial times to the present. The volume has its particular value in the fact that it is the only complete history of its kind both as regards time and treatment. As the author pointed out, the latest work on the subject in question appeared in 1876 but the discussion was superficial, especially of the whole period after 1815. The present writer, unlike his predecessors, gives his work an economic bearing. Moreover, the social influence of this once important but now practically extinct enterprise is clearly presented. An appropriate setting is given to the early American industry by a chapter on the origin of whaling in Europe.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

BARNARD, J. LYNN. Factory Legislation in Pennsylvania. Publications of the University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, 1907.

BOUDIN, LOUIS B. The Theoretical System of Karl Marx in the Light of Recent Criticism. Chicago, Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1907.

BREYSIG, KURT. Die Völker Ewiger Urzeit. Erster Band. Berlin, Georg Bondi, 1907.

The Columbia University Press, 1907.

BRISCO, NORRIS A. The Economic Policy of Robert Walpole. Columbia University Studies in Political Science, Vol. XXVII, No. 1. New York, Bureau of American Ethnology. Twenty-fourth Annual Report. By W. H. Holmes, Chief. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1907. Commissioner of Corporations. Report on the Petroleum Industry. Part 1. Position of the Standard Oil Company in the Petroleum Industry. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1907.

Commissioner of Education. Report for the year ending June 30, 1905. 2 vols. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1907.

Department of Commerce and Labor. Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor. No. 70, May, 1907. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1907. DUNCAN, W. STEWART. The Evolution of Matter, Life and Mind. Philadelphia, Index Publishing Co., 1907.

EDGETT, GEORGE W. A New Study of Nature.

ENGELS, FREDERICK. Landmarks of Socialism. Translated and edited by Austin Lewis. Chicago, Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1907.

HADLEY, ARTHUR TWINING. Standards of Public Morality. New York, The Macmillan Co., 1907.

HARCOURT, L. W. VERNON. His Grace the Steward and Trial of Peers. London, Longmans, Green & Co., 1907.

Library of Congress. Select List of Books Relating to Iron and Steel in Commerce. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1907.

Library of Congress. Select List of Books on Reciprocity with Canada. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1907.

MACROSTY, HENRY W. The Trust Movement in British Industry. London, Longmans, Green & Co., 1907.

Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor. Bulletins No. 49, May, 1907; No. 50, June, 1907. Boston, Wright and Potter Printing Co., 1907. Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor. Labor and Industrial Chronology of Massachusetts for the year ending September 30, 1906. Boston, Wright and Potter Printing Co., 1907

Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor. Strikes and Lockouts in Massachusetts, 1906. Part 1 of the Annual Report for 1907. Boston, Wright & Potter Printing Co., 1907.

MORGAN, LEWIS H. Ancient Society. New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1907. MORGENROTH, WILLI. Die Exportpolitik der Kartelle. Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot, 1907.

L'Office du Travail de Belgique. Revue du Travail, 30 Avril, 15 Mai, 31 Mai, 15 Juin, 1907. Bruxelles, 1907.