Review of Periodicals Divorce. See Marriage and Divorce. European Politics. "The Year in France." By Stoddard Dewey. Atlantic, v. 104, p. 245 (Aug.). "The year in France—from May, 1908, to May, 1909,—has seen two events such as mark the turning of the tides of history. "One is the Agreement between Germany and France concerning Morocco. While it leaves Germany unhampered in her domina tion of Central Europe as far as Constanti nople, it comes as a final recognition of the immense colonial dominion which France has won for herself during the past quarter of a century. "The other is the strike of 'state function aries,' and their relations with the revolu tionary General Confederation of Labor. It is one sign among many of the disorganizing of the Parliamentary Republic in France, and, perhaps, of a spontaneous reorganizing of society in depths which factitious political government has reached only to trouble." Examination of Prisoners. "The 'Third Degree'—Its Origin and History." 18 Bench and Bar 9 (July). "While we are not ready to go to the length of advocating the prohibition of all prelimi nary examination by officers of the peace, the license now permitted ought, in our judg ment, to be curtailed. The practice should be placed under such definite statutory re strictions that the natural and constitutional rights of the weakest and most ignorant prisoner may be adequately protected." Government. "The Cult of the Unfit." By E. B. Iwan-Muller. Fortnightly Review, v. 86, p. 207 (Aug.). Of leading importance as a study of the proper functions of the government in rela tion to the private citizen, and one of the most notable of the magazine articles of the month, is this article giving a drastic exposi tion of the extent to which the age sets a premium on mediocrity and inefficiency. Its tonic plea for the substitution of more enlight ened opinions for the false metaphysical idealism ruling so much of our politics and jurisprudence should not pass unheeded. "When the future of his own race is in question," says this writer, "man ignores the teaching of nature and leaves the fitness of future generations to Providence or to chance. As with the physical body, so with the bodypolitic. . . . The development of the doctor and of the politician is subject to the same conditions. But there is a marked difference in the rate of progress. Both pass, or should pass, through the different stages of empir icism, metaphysics, and science. . . . We are emerging from the purely empirical stage and are just entering the metaphysical, the land of the mirage, the home of the ideologue. The political empiric applied his remedies after the fashion of the primitive herbalist. He administered to his patient what experience had taught him 'would do him good.' . . .
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In his track came the ideologue, with his unproved, untried, and often imaginary scheme of causes and effects, related in his mind by a nexus which no amount of experience would ever break. Talleyrand tells us that during the Consulate he was astonished to see some of the most violent of the Jacobins leaving the study of Napoleon. Napoleon said, 'Ah, you do not know the Jacobin. There are two classes of them—les sucris et les sale's. The one you just saw come out was a saU; with these I do what I wish : no one better fit to defend all the daring acts of a new Power. Sometimes it is necessary to stop them, but with a little management it is soon done; but the sucris Jacobins—they are ungovern able. With their metaphysics they would ruin any Government.' Today is the day of the sucri Jacobin. He is particularly inter ested in the problem of poverty and the inequality of wealth. His fellow, the saU Jacobin, would solve the problem of in equality by rushing at his neighbor with a bludgeon in his hand and shouting, 'Sois mon frhe, ou je te tue"; and he would settle the unequal distribution of wealth on the same simple and effective principle. The other, however, being cursed with a political conscience, seeks to justify the same ends by metaphysical reasons. The mental process is not very recondite. The problem which pre sents itself may be stated thus: Poverty and its attendant miseries are due to the struggle for life. If there were no struggle there would be no resultant evil. Inequality in like manner is due to competition, a phase inci dent to the struggle; if there were no competi tion there would be no inferiority. ... "The new trades-unionism consciously or unconsciously aims at the establishment and endowment of mediocrity by the elimination of competition. . . . Upon a thousand plat forms orators declaim as if the whole policy of a great Empire ought to be determined solely by the duty of administering to the wants of its less fit and, therefore, of its less efficient members." This writer condemns what he calls "the cult of the unfit, as taught by our Radical Socialists, and as translated into practice by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer." Closely correlated with the foregoing topic is the question of an elective or appointed judiciary. Needless to say, the elective judi ciary is less certain to succeed in maintaining the rigirne of competition and more likely to set up an idealistic construction of statutes, where class interests are supposed to be in volved, than a judiciary less directly reflective of public opinion. The qualities of an elec tive judiciary are discussed in— "The Elective Judiciary and Democracy." By Hal W. Greer. 43 American Law Review 516 July-Aug.). "Popular judges render popular decisions; popular decisions reflect transitory popular sentiment—the antithesis to law and justice. "That we have inadequate laws when some of our citizens are permitted fraudulently
