illustrates the international fairness of our Federal courts. The high worth and character of our national judiciary only serves to emphasize the arguments in favor of a law which shall remove from State to Federal jurisdiction all kinds of cases arising under our treaties with other powers, as for example the case of the New Orleans massacre of Italians. The unpartisan breadth of the Supreme Court has lately been shown in its very noteworthy decision sustaining the drastic anti-lottery postal laws enacted by the last Congress. Justice Lamar, with his supposed jealousy for the old "States rights" views, concurred with his colleagues in upholding this legislation, which had been denounced as violating the freedom of the press, the liberties of individuals, and the rights of States to regulate their own domestic institutions. One of the reasons why we have succeeded so well in maintaining the purity and dignity of the bench may be found in the tradition that the ambition of judges should lie within the field of judicial preferment. A Federal judge should under no circumstances be a candidate for political office. Chief-Justice Fuller has of late been mentioned somewhat prominently as a desirable presidential candidate for the Democratic party. But the country ought to be allowed to forget that the Chief-Justice ever belonged to one party or another. No precedent could be worse than that of the highest judicial position in the world CHIEF JUSTICE MELVILLE W. FULLER. (From a photograph by C. M Bell, Washington, D. C.) occupied only long enough to be used as a stepping stone to a party nomination for political office. The country sincerely hopes to see the Chief-Justice, as yet new to the bench and comparatively untried and unknown, make for himself a record equal in distinction and honor to that of his eminent predecessors. Silver-Mr. Mr. Knox. The perennial silver discussion was preBland and cipitated again in February by the Coinage Committee's adoption of Chairman Bland's free-silver bill and by Mr. Bland's report to the House. A minority of the committee adopted and reported an anti-silver argument prepared with great skill and force by Representative Williams (Democrat), of Massachusetts. Mr. Bland's bill goes further in dangerous proposals than any silver bill hitherto introduced. It not only makes the mints absolutely free to all comers for the conversion of seventy cents' worth of bullion into a coined dollar, but it compels the Government to receive silver bullion from all sources without limit and to give "coin notes" in exchange at the coinage value rather than the market value of silver. Moreover, it proposes by indirection to reduce all forms of paper money to the terms of these new notes; for it authorizes the retirement of the existing gold and silver notes and the substitution for them of the new "coin" paper. The whole effect of the project must be to transfer us to a monometallic silver basis, with a standard dollar reduced in purchasing power by about 30 per cent. from the existing one. It must not be supposed for a moment that this Congress can succeed in thus debasing the monetary system of the country, for the presidential veto cannot be overridden. But the Senate of late years has been even more reckless than the House in espousal of cheap-money heresies; and victory next November for a party whose presidential candidate is a socalled "silver man" might be followed within eighteen months by a most disastrous revolution in our monetary system. Mr. Bland is not to be held as other than an honest man who believes that the gold standard has been oppressive to the producing classes and that no wrong will be done to any class by his pet measures. Nor does he admit that anything resembling the predicted changes and disturbances will follow upon free silver coinage. But the weight of authoritative opinion is against him. One of the clearest expositors of sound monetary doctrines that this country has possessed in all its history was in February the victim of the prevailing maladies that have so greatly swelled the recent mortality list of distinguished men. John Jay Knox was the author of the revised coinage bill which in 1873 struck the silver dollar from the list of our coins. Much controversy has since arisen HON. RICHARD P. BLAND, CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE COM MITTEE ON COINAGE. THE LATE HON. JOHN JAY KNOX. concerning the circumstances under which silver was then "demonetized." Mr. Knox, whose long record as Control ler of the Currency was absolutely stainless, always remained highly sensitive to the charge that there was any. thing surreptitious in the drafting of the law of 1873. Congress could hardly find a wiser course to pursue than to adopt, literally and in detail, all the recent suggestions affecting the reform of currency and banking laws that Mr. Knox has made. On Good The Chilian Government's very conciliaTerms Again tory and friendly dispatch of explanation with Chili. and apology had already been sent on its northward way when President Harrison's message reviewing the Chilian complication was sent to Congress. The pretence that the so-called "warlike" message was sent after the President had actually received the demanded apology, and that it was sent for theatrical effect, has no justification. The President very promptly pronounced the Chilian dispatch satisfactory in tone and spirit, unequivocal in its expressions of regret for the Valparaiso incident and complete as a basis upon which good relations with Chili could be restored by amicable negotiations. Not the faintest suspicion of resentment should now be entertained toward the valiant little South American republic. Let us now endeavor to conquer the Chilians by courtesy and true neighborliness. So far as investigation may show that money payments ought to be made to the families of the victims of the riot, Chili will not be disposed to act in a niggardly way. It is now proper for us to remember that there are two sides to most disputes, and that the Chilians, whether right or wrong, really believed that they had serious griev ances against us. They believed that our pursuit of the Itata was in the active interest of Balmaceda, that the cutting of the cable at Iquique was due to the interference of our Government in the affairs of the American company that owns the line, that Admiral Brown had used his ship to reconnoiter in Balmaceda's interest, and that Mr. Egan, backed by the Department of State at Washington, was a thick-and-thin partisan and constant adviser of We Balmaceda against the "constitutional" party. believe that they totally misunderstood our sentiments and our attitude; and in any case it was our business to resent strongly an attack that was made expressly and intentionally upon the uniform of the United States. But now we can afford to look at the other side of the case, and above all to endeavor to show ourselves superior to everything petty. If in the course of a few weeks or months it should remain a clear and unmistakable fact that Mr. Egan is persona ingrata at Santiago, it would, be no injustice to that plucky Irishman, and only ordinary politeness to Chili, to transfer him to some other diplomatic or governmental post, and to send to Santiago some well-known American citizen who enjoys the highest confidence and esteem at home, and who would have the advantage of entire freedom from any past connection with Chilian affairs. We present here the portrait of the young Chilian Judge of Crimes, Henry Foster, who conducted the long official examination into the facts of the attack upon the Baltimore's men. Judge Foster is a son of Mr. Julio Foster, who, though still a citizen of the United States, has lived for nearly half a century in Chili, and who is intimately connected by intermarriage with the leading Chilian families. There is no reason to doubt the conscientious character of Judge Foster's inquiry. It appears somewhat difficult for the American press to get the public men of Chili properly placed. For instance, President Montt and Minister Montt, who are usually spoken of as brothers, belong to different families. President Montt, who was a young officer in the navy, was brought to the front by the circumstances of the late civil war. Minister Montt, now at Washington, is the son of a very distinguished Chilian who once held the presidency for ten years; and the young man grew up in the highest official circles, and has himself served ably in the Chilian Congress. The disappearance of the war-cloud is a thing, for which this country should be profoundly thankful. Nevertheless, the possibility of war had its value in that it compelled us to take account of the state of our defences; and it is to be hoped that the country is at last awake to the fact that our dig. nity, our safety, and the true cause of the world's peace and order require that we should possess a navy in some degree commensurate with our importance as a nation, and that our coasts and seaports should be made reasonably safe from attack. The Lottery's The principal owner of the Louisiana Funeral lottery, one Morris, wrote last month a Notice. letter couched in such terms of lofty patriotism and disinterested concern for the public weal as one finds in Washington's Farewell Address. Morris declares that the decision of the Supreme Court sustaining the anti-lottery postal laws will make it unprofitable for the lottery to continue. Moreover, he recognizes a seemingly invincible JUDGE HENRY FOSTER, OF CHILI. On opposition to the lottery on the part of certain of his misguided Louisiana neighbors. Since his chief concern in seeking the extension of the charter has been the welfare of the State of Louisiana, he now declares that, in view of the closing of the mails to lottery matter and of the anti-lottery agitation in Louisiana, the company would not accept the proposed charter extension even if ratified by a majority of the people in the April election. the strength of this letter, it has been attempted to reconcile the two antagonistic factions of the Louisi ana Democracy and to consider the lottery question a dead one. But the shrewder opinion is that Morris is "playing 'possum.' The only safe plan will be to treat the Morris letter as a trick and to carry the fight through to success in the approaching election. It is said that the company is expecting to secure a charter in Mexico if driven out of the United States. Meanwhile, the new postal laws, as relentlessly administered by the zealous Mr. Wanamaker, are undoubtedly hampering the lottery not a little. Congressman J. J. Little, of New York, has introduced in the House a bill for the taxation of lotteries which is ingeniously devised to extinguish them, independently of any action that Louisiana may take. His measure is one that deserves support. It would supplement the postal regulations and prob. ably complete the work in hand. Mortality in England. January and February were black months of death in England. The malarial fever which is called the influenza has become epidemic in Western Europe this winter, and there is little to record in the progress of the world in the first weeks of 1892 but the triumphal progress of Azrael, the Angel of Death. The average rate of mortality in London in the month of January for some years past has been 24 per 1,000. The rate for the first four weeks of this year was 42, 32.8, 40, and 46 per 1,000. The death-rate for that usually healthful winter suburb, Brighton, went up to 60.9 for the third week in January, while towns that had not been smitten by the scourge showed death-rates from 16 to 20 per 1,000. The deaths in London in the two middle weeks of January were 1,500 and 1,762 over the average of the corresponding weeks of the last ten years. In London alone, therefore, the epidemic may be regarded as having swept off 5,000 lives in January of those who, but for this visitation, would still have lived-five thousand dead, be it observed, killed outright and buried. How many have been invalided and are more or less in the condition of the wounded after a great battle, no one can compute. Disease Versus War. It is difficult, in looking at these figures, not to feel a passing sympathy with what may be described as the military view of indifference to life. Here is a miserable, sneezing, feverish cold that creeps into the midst of a great city, and in one month takes 5,000 lives, leaving at least ten times that number temporarily crippled. Five thousand lives, and nothing to show for them but newly-made graves, heavy doctors' bills, and general mourning! Yet no one raves about the destruction of human life. Every one composes himself calmly to the inevitable. If, however, one-tenth of these victims had perished on a hard-won field, stemming the inrushing tide of barbarism or smiting down the invader, what homilies would not have been preached! Gettysburg, one of the bloodiest battles of the civil war, cost the two combatants man for man hardly any more lives than perished in London last month. The Union army had 3,072 killed; the Confederate, 2, 592. But Gettysburg had something to show on the other side for its butcher's bill: Gettysburg saved the Union and abolished slavery. But for the deaths from influenza there is no compensation. The figures of mortality from disease throw those from battle far into the shade. Every year, Dr. Richardson calculates, 33,000,000 of the human race are transferred from the realm of the living to the pale shades of death—33, 000, 000 per annum or 62 per minute, by natural causes-the silent havoc of nature thus exceeding in one year all the carnage of all the wars of a hundred years. Nay, even the suicides of each succeeding year exceed the total number killed in the bloodiest of campaigns. Every month, on an average, 15,000 persons perish by their own hand. In the armies of the United States, in the war which began in 1861 and ended in 1865, there were only 110,000 men who were killed in action or died of wounds received in action-fewer by 70,000 than the annual death-roll of the suicides of the world. In nothing is life more wasted than in the leaving of it; and yet, if not all the lamentation, all the denunciation is reserved for those who make some use of death. Yet no reflections of this kind can for a moment be thought to justify the cruel horrors of needless war; and the lifting of a war-cloud in the Western world may well encourage the friends of human progress. The Death of the Prince. The epidemic, among its many victims in England, claimed none more highly placed and more universally lamented than the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, who died, after a brief attack of influenza, on January 14, at the age of 28. The Duke of Clarence, to give “Prince Eddy" his formal title, was to have been married before Lent to Princess May, and the sudden blow which substituted a funeral for a wedding came home to the common heart. The young man was his mother's favorite son; the Princess of Wales idolized him, and those who know her best are most uneasy as to the consequences of this sudden bereavement. Her hearing does not improve, and the loss of her first-born is not unlikely to lead her to take a more active part in the court, where the presence of a good woman and a true mother is indispensable. The universal expression of sympathy with the royal family and with Princess May in their affliction was very remarkable. In London, on the funeral day, more than half the shops were shut in the city. The theatres closed themselves without waiting for a recommendation when the news of the Duke's death was announced; they were also closed on the night of the funeral. Immense crowds filled St. Paul's and the Abbey. For days the newspapers could find room for nothing else but details of the business of the undertaker and of the arrival and despatch of messages or messengers of condolence and sympathy. The dramatic value of the sudden death of one who was preparing to go forth as a bridegroom to his bride fascinated the imagination of the public, and what Mr. Price Hughes called the "tender-heartedness" of the nation came conspicuously to the surface. Monarchy and British The universal and genuine sentiment expressed in the most democratic quarters Democracy. was in curious contrast to the usual semirepublicanism which prevails in many parts of London. At Liberal popular assemblies in the metropolis for some years past, a reference to the monarchy has seldom been ventured upon without fear of dissent. "The usual loyal toasts" have been often more honored in the breach than in the observance; and, taking it broadly, the "Marseillaise" would be better received in most of the gathering halls of the London democracy than “God Save the Queen." But no sooner does the hand of death display the royal family itself in grief than London |