distress and Mr. Stanhope's bill to facilitate the sale of glebe lands. Parliament was not prorogued till December 24.

Proposed Reforms in the Constitution of the House of Lords. After the defeat of the motion of Lord Rosebery for a committee to inquire into the constitution of the House of Lords with a view to extensive reforms, Lord Dunraven presented a bill which was withdrawn after eliciting from the Government a promise to introduce at some future time a measure for facilitating the entrance of life peers into the House, and before the end of the session he brought in a tentative bill, which, however, found little support, and was not carried beyond a second reading. The Prime Minister also approved the proposition to give the Upper House the power that the House of Commons already possessed of expelling unworthy members. Lord Cadogan proposed a committee which should not only revise the standing orders and strike out such obsolete rules as that requiring the members of the House of Commons to stand uncovered while the Lords sit covered in joint session, but should also elaborate substantial changes in the constitution-such as making the age of entrance twenty-five instead of twenty-one years, disqualifying peers who do not attend the sittings of the House, increasing the number required for a quorum, which is at present three, and allowing peers to resign their seats. Resignation of Sir Charles Warren. In the autumn of 1888 a series of ghastly murders took place in London and its environs, at intervals usually of a few days, most of them in the densely populated Whitechapel district. The seven victims were all women of degraded lives, and their bodies were mutilated in a manner indicating that the murders were all the work of a single hand. The popular indignation at the inefficiency of the police was great, its chief objects being the Home Secretary, Henry Matthews, and the Chief Commissioner of the Police, Sir Charles Warren, who had distinguished himself as the leader of the Bechuanaland expedition, was afterward a commander of constabulary in Ireland, and was then placed at the head of the Metropolitan police, in which capacity he rendered himself obnoxious to the London democracy by taking vigorous measures to prevent a meeting of the unemployed in Trafalgar Square. He had differences with the Secretary of the Home Department because Sub-Commissioner Monro, who had charge of the detective force, consulted directly with the Secretary, and tendered his resignation, but withdrew it when Mr. Monro himself resigned. Mr. Matthews continued, however, to advise with the latter regarding criminal matters and the re-organization of the detective bureau. When accused of incompetency because the police failed to catch the Whitechapel murderer, Sir Charles Warren defended himself in a magazine article explaining that he was in no wise responsible for the organization or discipline of the detective force.

Secretary Matthews reprimanded him for publishing matter relating to the police, which was forbidden by a regulation issued from the Home Office. Warren replied that the Metropolitan police is governed by statute, and denied the authority of the Home Secretary to regulate the force, at the same time again offering his resignation, which was accepted on November 10.

The Sweating System.-A select committee of the House of Lords was appointed to inquire into the sweating system at the East End of London, and the scope of the inquiry was afterward extended to embrace the whole country. Many employers made concessions to their work-people as soon as the investigation was set on foot. The sweating system in its narrower sense is understood as meaning the employment of labor by sub-contractors, who, being without capital or commercial standing, can practice impositions on their employés with impunity. In a larger sense it is taken to comprehend all the methods by which, in house-labor, piece-work, and other forms of employment not protected by the regulations of trade unions or the factory acts, the hours of work are lengthened, the rate of production stimulated, and wages cut down to a minimum. The sub-contractors in the clothing industry of the East End of London are accustomed to hire unskilled hands at a shilling a day for sixteen hours' work, and women receive only seven shillings a dozen for finishing trousers, each pair taking four hours to finish. The merchants in clothing, furniture, shoes, and other articles produced with a considerable subdivision of labor make arrangements for their supply with contractors, who sometimes furnish the materials, and sometimes receive all or part of them from the merchants. The contractors have the articles made, either complete or in parts, by sub-contractors, who carry on the manufacture in their own houses or in ill-ventilated workshops, training children, youths, women, and foreign immigrants to perform each one some minute part of the process. In so far as women and children are employed, these sweaters' dens come within the purview of the factory and workshop act of 1878. There are, however, such legal formalities required to be gone through with before an inspector can gain entrance that when he arrives all evidence of evasions of the law can be removed. Many of the contracting tailors, shoemakers, and cigarmakers are Jews, and to some extent, though not as often as was supposed, their victims are immigrant Jews from the east of Europe. One effect of the subdivision of labor incident to the contract system by which the large retailers of London obtain their stock of goods is that the skilled tailors, shoemakers, and other tradesmen have been forced by the competition of sweaters to emigrate to other places, and the apprenticeship system has disappeared. The laborers that become skilled only in some single mechanical manipulation are not only reduced

to starvation wages, but when change of fashion or trade depression throws them out of work, they are less able to turn to other employments than they would be if they had learned their trade in all its branches.

Tithe Agitation in Wales.-The land troubles in Wales chiefly took the form of resistance to the tithe rent-charge, of which the Established Church and the English universities are the beneficiaries. The great majority of the Welsh are Nonconformists, and in many parts of the country the churches are empty, and the Establishment is a heavy and a useless burden for the people, who, as was the case in Ireland, have to support in addition their separate religious institutions. The present agitation is for a commutation of the tithes in view of the fall in the prices of agricultural produce, with the ultimate aim of the disestablishment of the Church of England in Wales and complete relief from the tribute exacted of the Welsh for a religion the English have vainly sought to impose on them, most of the ministers of which are strangers to the people and their language. A Welsh Land League was formed, and the farmers banded together to compel the Church Commissioners to resort to legal compulsion to collect the tithes. The latter attached cattle and movables in distraint proceedings, but wherever the law officers appeared they were confronted by crowds of farmers with stout sticks, and in the few cases in which property was seized there were disturbances, as at Meifod, Whitland, and Brynterifife.

Gold-Mining in Wales.—Gold has recently been discovered in certain parts of Wales, associated with silver, in ledges that are as rich as are found in California and Australia. The claim of the Crown to all precious metals found is a serious hindrance to mining in the United Kingdom. Alluvial gold was discovered in the south of Ireland during the political disturbances in the latter part of the last century, and many hundreds of men and women flocked to the locality and washed out gold-dust and nuggets deposited in the stream beds; but the military drove them away, and the Government as serted its right to the gold, and for some time guarded the field, which has not been worked to this day. One of the Welsh mines was opened in 1887 at great expense, and when a large amount of gold had been extracted and the value of the mine was confirmed, the Government interposed, demanding a royalty of one thirtieth of the product from the landholder, who had already leased the mining rights for thirty years for one fortieth royalty. The lessee found that he had no redress when his employés stole the gold, because, if the Crown did not assert its right to the property, it belonged to nobody.

The Crofters.-The Lewis island in the Hebrides was the scene of a deer raid, forcible seizures of lands, and collisions with the military and police toward the end of 1887. The land belongs to Lady Matheson. One half of

the surface has been leased to strangers as a deer-forest, and one half of the remainder converted into sheep-farms. There is consequently much overcrowding, and the crofters and cottars have to pay twenty and thirty shillings rent an acre for land that is so poor that no one would take it at any price if it were in England. The herring-fishery enabled them to pay the rent till this failed, leaving them destitute. Commissioners appointed to inquire into the condition of the people found them suffering already for lack of food, and threatened with starvation. The popula tion of the island was 25,487 in 1881. Sentences were passed at Edinburgh, on February 3, upon sixteen prisoners concerned in disturbances, who were condemned to from nine to fifteen months' imprisonment. The Crofters Commission, empowered by act of Parliament to revise rents in the Highlands, reduced rents on the island of Sanday nearly 49 per cent. and canceled 81 per cent. of the arrears. On other estates the reductions were from 30 to 60 per cent., and arrears were wiped out to the extent of from 40 to 80 per cent. On the estate of the Duke of Argyll, who participated in the newspaper controversy over the crofter question, the rents were largely reduced.

The Plan of Campaign.—The Plan of Campaign in Ireland was organized in 1886, and was sustained and encouraged by the members of the National League chiefly on the Luggacurren, Mitchelstown, Ponsonby, O'Grady, Brooke, and Leader estates. In each case the tenants, after presenting their demands regarding a reduction of rent, the amount of back-rent they are willing to pay, and other conditions, if they meet with a refusal, place the sum that they consider due in a common purse, which is committed to the custody of a trustee, usually either a politician or a priest. The trus tee notifies his willingness to settle with the landlord on the terms that have been concerted, expressing the determination otherwise to use the fund in defending the tenants against evictions or vexatious legal proceedings, and in supporting the evicted. The landlords formed a corporation or league for the purpose of combating the Plan of Campaign, by advancing money to embarrassed landlords and working vacant farms from which the tenants had been evicted. They also organized a subsidiary emergency committee, which undertook to furnish tenants or caretakers for evicted farms, and sheriffs' deputies to enforce writs of ejectment. In some cases new tenants were imported from the Protestant districts.

The tenants on Lord Lansdowne's property at Luggacurren demanded a reduction of 20 per cent. The holders of 34 of the best farms, together with 20 sub-tenants, were evicted, and were maintained by the league in wooden huts, while their land was worked for the landlord by the Land Corporation. No tenants could be found willing to take the vacant farms, and a large force of emergency men and police was

ford, near the border of County Wicklow, there were eighty tenants, and of these all but ten were evicted. One of these, John Kinsella, took refuge on the farm of a man named Kavanagh, and some days afterward 18 emergency men with Freeman, the bailiff of the estate, made a raid for cattle on this farm. They were warned by the police that the intended seizure was illegal. Kavanagh, Kinsella, and many others of the evicted tenants were in the court-yard, and as the emergency men came up Kavanagh raised a pitchfork in a threatening manner. Upon that Freeman stepped forward, and, taking aim with a pistol, shot Kinsella dead, after which the emergency men entered the yard and drove off the cattle. One of the policemen went before the magistrate, Lord Courtown, to report the murder, but he refused to issue a warrant. At the inquest five witnesses swore to the killing of Kinsella by Freeman, and yet, when the matter was presented to the grand jury, that body ignored the bill. An indictment against Freeman was nevertheless tried, but the prosecuting attorney seemed to act in collusion with the defense, a pistol was produced as Freeman's which the bullet did not fit, the judge instructed the jury that Freeman did not fire the shot, and no steps were taken to find out who else could have been the murderer. The landlord of Coolgreany, Mr. Brooke, gained a victory by compelling the managers of the Plan to pull down the comfortable houses that had been erected for the evicted tenants in order to prevent their seizure for rent.

The Plan of Campaign was adopted on the Vandeleur estate in West Clare more recently than in the other cases. The reduction asked was 25 per cent. on judicial, and 35 per cent. on non-judicial rents. Several of the tenants went before the land court in 1888 and obtained reductions averaging 324 per cent. The rents had been raised 25 per cent. in 1874, out of revenge, it is said, for the landlord's defeat as a parliamentary candidate, and a considerable rent was exacted even for bog-land that the tenants had reclaimed. The tenants had taken the land originally in the wild state, and had brought it under cultivation and made all the improvements. The Plan of Campaign was adopted in the beginning of 1887, when 300 tenants put their money into the "war chest," 100 others joined the combination, and 120 were not admitted because they were insolvent and unable to pay their rent into the fund. The agent negotiated with the nine parish priests on the estate, headed by the Rev. Dr. M. Dinan, who insisted on the original demand. Proceedings were taken against 85 tenants, and writs of ejectment were procured in 24 cases, and carried out in July, 1888. The alarm was sounded with the church bells at the approach of the evicting party, and the people cut all the bridges on the road to Kilrush. A force of 200 police and military was employed to carry out the executions, who ef

fected an entrance into the barricaded houses by means of a battering-ram, and were received with showers of missiles and boiling water. The men who defended the houses were threatened with rifles if they would not come out, many were badly beaten with clubs, and the furniture in the houses was destroyed by the police. After the evictions the houses were demolished.

The Papal Rescript.-Since the nomination of Archbishop Walsh to the Irish primacy the hierarchy as well as the local clergy have been practically unanimous in the National cause, which Cardinal Manning and many of the English Catholic clergy embraced with Mr. Gladstone and his party. The Catholic landlord class, headed by the Duke of Norfolk, on the other hand, redoubled their efforts to secure the Church's condemnation of the Irish movement, especially the agrarian phase. The Duke of Norfolk was sent as the representative of the Catholic Union on the occasion of the Pope's sacerdotal jubilee. In January Pope Leo, in replying to some Irish pilgrims, said that no occasion can arise when public benefit can come from the violation of justice, which is the foundation of order and the common good. The view indicated by this pronouncement was called in question by Archbishop Walsh on the authority of private declarations of the Pope. On April 18, however, the Pope formally condemned the Plan of Campaign and boycotting, in an edict addressed to the Irish clergy, which was the result of the mission of Monsignor Persico to Ireland, and of the deliberations of the Congregation of the Inquisition on his report. The grounds of the condemnation are that it is unlawful to break a voluntary contract that has been freely made between landlord and tenant; that the land law has opened the courts to tenants who think that they have entered into inequitable contracts, although of their own free will; and that the funds collected for the prosecution of the Plan of Campaign are in many cases extorted from the contributors. Boycotting is declared to be opposed to the principles both of justice and of charity when it is used against people who are willing to pay a fair rent or who are desirous of exercising the legal right to take vacant farms. The Irish clergy and laity are advised and exhorted not to transgress the bounds of Christian charity and of justice while endeavoring to secure a remedy for the distress of the people.

Mr. Dillon, Mr. O'Brien, and other leaders in the Plan of Campaign raised their voices to protest against the conclusions of this decree even before it was circulated in Ireland, dwelling especially on the point that the contracts between landlords and tenants are far from being voluntary on the part of the latter. It failed of the effect that the Tories expected, and even the clergy largely disregarded the command, while the Irish leaders vehemently protested against the Papal interposition in politics. The

Irish bishops held a theological conference regarding the interpretation of the rescript, and refrained from promulgating it till they had learned from the Pope whether the condemnation was to be understood as conditional, limited by the reasons given by Cardinal Monaco for the prohibition of the Plan of Campaign. The answer came that it was absolute.

A meeting of Irish members of Parliament to protest against the Papal rescript was followed on May 20 by a popular assemblage in Hyde Park, London, which numbered 6,000. Similar demonstrations took place all over Ireland. The Bishop of Limerick, Dr. O'Dwyer, was the only prelate who gave full effect to the Papal admonition in a pastoral letter, and vigorously denounced the agitation that was carried on by Roman Catholics against their Holy Father, the Pope. In his and some other dioceses the parish priests refrained from taking an open part in the meetings, yet even then they sent letters of regret expressive of sympathy. The feeling of the subordinate clergy was so rebellious that a schism was feared if the Vatican adhered to the position it had taken. The branches of the league and public boards throughout the country protested against the intervention of the Pope, a council of laymen that met in Dublin condemned the decree, and even bishops showed opposition and explained away its plain intent. The Pope listened to the remonstrances of the Irish hierarchy and the arguments of Archbishop Walsh, who visited Rome, and, without retracting his theological position regarding property rights and the binding force of contracts, while declaring his condemnation of boycotting and the Plan of Campaign to be unqualified and final, he was satisfied to see his decree become what the Irish politicians threatened to make it, a dead letter, and sent explanations which modified its application. At a meeting of the archbishops and bishops that was held at Conliffe College on May 30 resolutions were unanimously adopted declaring that the decree was intended to affect the domain of morals alone, and saying that assurances had just been received from the Pope displaying deep and paternal interest in the temporal welfare of the country, and showing that, so far from intending to injure the National movement, it was his intention to remove things that he feared might in the long run prove obstacles to its advancement. The resolutions conveyed a warning to the people against the use of hasty or irreverent language with reference to the Sovereign Pontiff or the sacred congregations, and a reminder to the leaders of the National movement that the Roman Pontiff has an inalienable and divine right to speak with authority on questions appertaining to faith and morals, which was accompanied with an expression of lasting gratitude to the Nationalist leaders for their services to religion and morality. This, the first formal acceptance by the prelates of the Pon

tificial injunction, beginning with the deprecatory announcement that it was given "in obedience to the commands of the Holy See," was praised by the Nationalist press for its "eloquent silence" in making no mention of the Plan of Campaign or boycotting.

At a general meeting of the archbishops and bishops, held in the College of Maynooth on June 27 and 28, the following statement was adopted: (1) The demand of the agricultural tenants in the matter of rent is in substance for the establishment of an impartial public tribunal to adjudicate between landlord and tenant. They do not claim the right to fix the rent themselves, but object to its being determined by the arbitrary will of the landlord. (2) The principle that tenants should be protected by law against exorbitant rents and eviction has been recognized by the British Parliament in the land act of 1881 and subsequent statutes. (3) The tenants ask the effective application of this principle and the removal of obstacles that have been allowed to remain, even where the right to have a fair rent fixed has been conferred by act of Parliament. (4) The most serious of these obstacles is the accumulation of arrears from exorbitant rents, which the courts have no power to reduce. The heavy indebtedness of tenants puts it in the power of harsh landlords to use the threat of eviction as a means of keeping back their tenants from applying to the Land Commission to have their rents adjusted. (5) Thousands of tenants have been deprived of the right of recourse to the courts and their legal status as tenants by having had notices of eviction served upon them. (6) No difficulty exists in providing a remedy. There is already an act in operation in Scotland applicable to arrears, under which rents have been judicially reduced 30 per cent. and arrears no less than 61 per cent., but Parliament has refused to extend the operation of the act to Ireland. (7) Unless Parliament at once applies some effective measure for the protection of Irish tenants from oppressive exactions and arbitrary eviction, consequences disastrous to public order and to the safety of the people must ensue.

Archbishop Walsh, in an address to the dean and chapter of his diocese in the early part of July, described the results of his interviews with Pope Leo, whom he had fully informed of the claims and aspirations of the Irish in regard both to national autonomy and the redress of agrarian grievances, and said that the people of Ireland may count on the entire sympathy of the Vatican on every legitimate effort, and that the foolish fiction that recent legislation has done justice to the people or to the tenants finds no footing there. The Pope, in July, addressed an encyclical letter to the Irish bishops, in which he condemned the conduct of the men who put themselves forward to upset his authority and the duties of religion. The priests absented themselves from public meetings in behalf of the Plan of Campaign