apprehend, must be believers in the process of natural selection and the survival of the fittest, who object to any interference with the natural methods of evolution. " A third class believe that no reform is possible which is not carried out through party action alone and by the ordinary processes of partisan politics.” This view has a more practical air, inasmuch as it recommends a definite line of action; but it is difficult to see how it can lead to a Solution of the problem, since the main object of reform, as we understand it, is to get rid of the ordinary processes of partisan politics. If the suggestion really means, not the employment of exist ing party machinery, but the substitution of purer methods, this only brings us face to face with the main obstacle to reform, with out showing us how it is to be surmounted. That obstacle is not the internal vicious ness of existing party organizations, but the hold which they have obtained over the mass of the people, leaving no scope for outside action, no vantage-ground from which they can be assailed. English precedents will help us but little in grappling with this diffieulty. " Patronage,” in England, was an outgrowth of oligarchy, identified with class-privilege, part of a system which has been gradually losing all its supports, and which is apparently doomed to complete ex tinction at no very distant date. In other words, reform, both parliamentary and ad ministrative, has been only one of the steps of a constitutional revolution which is slowly but surely transforming England into a dem ocratic republic. English examples, therefore, can throw no light on the question most im portant for us—how reform is to be effected. The only point on which we shall ever need to consult foreign precedents and practice is the system best adapted to secure efliciency, economy and a steady improvement in the methods and processes of administrative la bor. In regard to this matter Mr. Eaton has collected a large mass of information, which, if better arranged and more clearly and suc cinctly presented, might have commanded considerable attention. As it is, the book will serve as a mine of facts and arguments whenever the subject shall come up for prac tical discussion. We have no doubt that it is thoroughly trustworthy, although we have noticed a blunder which, coming from a wri ter who is in correspondence with Sir Charles Trevelyan, strikes us as singular. “ How in terest in oflice,” Mr. Eaton writes, “may infuence the conduct of a legislator, and may cause even a great and pure man to make perhaps unconsciously, a damaging record against himself, is shown in the letters or Macaulay while a member of Parliament.’ The supposed “ damaging record" is a pas sage in which Macaulay says, “ There were points in the bill of which I did not approve, and I only refrained from stating these points because an office of my own was at stake."
The italics are Mr. Eaton’s. We can imagine Macaulay’s scorn if he had lived to see his conduct thus impugned and his language thus misinterpreted. One effect of the bill in question was to abolish a commissioner ship in the Bankruptcy Court held by Macaulay, yet not only did he vote for the measure, but, to avoid the least suspicion as to his motives, he refrained, as he says, from stating his objections to the points in it of which he did not approve.
Books Received.
Cousin Simon: A Novel. By the Hon. Mrs. Robert Marsham.—Mademoiselle de Mer sac: A Novel. By the Author of " Heaps of Money."—Memoirs of Madame de Rémusat, 1802-1808. (In Three Parts.) Ed ited by Paul de Rémusat. Translated by Mrs. Cashel Hoey and Mr. John Lillie. Friend and Lover: A Novel. By Iza Duffus Hardy.—The Return of the Princess. By Jacques Vincent. — Tom Singleton, Dragoon and Dramatist. By W. W. Follett Synge.—A Sylvan Queen. By the Author of “ Rachel's Secret," etc.—A Wayward Woman. By Arthur Griffiths. (Franklin Square Library.) New York: Harper & Brothers.
Brain and Mind; or, Mental Science considered in Accordance with the Principles of Phrenology and in Relation to Modern Physiology. By Henry S. Drayton and James McNeill. New York: S. R. Wells & Co.
Othello the Second. By F. W. Robinson.— Golden Rod: An Idyl of Mount Desert.— A Primer of American Literature. By Eugene Lawrence. (Harper's Half-Hour Series.) New York: Harper & Brothers.
Captain Fracasse. By Théophile Gautier. Translated by Ellen Murray Beam. (Transatlantic Novels.) New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
Four Lectures on Early Child-Culture. By W. N. Hailmann, A. M. Milwaukee : Carl Doerflinger.
