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to essential facts touching party development which permits the author to dismiss the convention system with eighteen lines. The change from caucus to convention after Jackson's time is said to have been "radical and important." The "action of conventions was generally accepted as having the binding force of statute law," being henceforth "received with as ready acceptance, within their limits, as the Thirty-nine Articles or the Westminster Catechism. Loyalty to party has been demanded, as but slightly, if at all, less obligatory than allegiance to the government." Yet one does not find the explanation of the origin of the convention.

The book teems with inaccuracies of statement and inference which raise suspicions as to the author's familiarity with even the better secondary histories. For instance, the reasons for the "Bank Veto" are said to have been that Jackson was "adversely convinced upon all points," viz., "the solvency of the bank, as well as of its prudent and honest management; and this without reference to the validity of its charter." (P. 49.) Later (p. 55) appears the statement that the great Democratic apostle was zealous in upholding a protective tariff. The evidence produced was "the mighty oath," by which the threat to hang Calhoun was uttered. The great Compromise of 1833 is dismissed with barely three lines. The depression of 1837 is described as an "artificial panic;" the depression of 1857 is not mentioned; the People's Party is said to be a combination of the Greenback and Labor parties, with no apparent cause for existence, etc.

As a whole the work is rather a chronological table than a history. It certainly does not consider adequately the conditions attending the formation and development of the party system in the United States. The workmanship is hasty and deficient both in form and in analysis. The student of political science needs information in regard to the causes of the party system, the forces which have directed its growth and the machinery by which its functions are exercised. Such information is not contained in the book under review which adds little or nothing to statements formerly published. On the contrary, because of the lack of an adequate arrangement, some unreasonable prejudices are accentuated.

University of Pennsylvania.

WILLIAM H. ALLEN.

Die Wohnungsnot und Wohnungsreform in England. By DR. FELIX VON OPPENHEIMER. Pp. viii, 167. Price, 4 m. Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1900.

The movement for the improvement of the housing conditions of the poor has continued almost twenty years in Germany, and consid

erable has been accomplished there in the way of legislation, the construction of improved tenements, and education. During this time Austria has remained almost unaffected by the agitation at her side, although her capital city has time and again been shown to harbor frightful conditions. The publication, by an official in Vienna, of a description of English experience in reforming the domiciliary conditions of that country, seems to betoken the beginning of an awakened and enlightened interest in this question. Like so many of his fellow countrymen Dr. Oppenheimer has turned to England as the pioneer in the settlement of this momentous problem.

Although a number of books on the same subject have already been published in German this one finds its justification, if such is needed, in that it brings the story of England's experience down to date. But certainly the importance of the subject is more than enough to justify all such publications. Lord Shaftesbury, the greatest of English reformers in this field, after half a century of effort for social betterment, said: "I am certain that I speak the truth, and a truth which can be confirmed by the testimony of all . . . who are conversant with the working class, that until their domiciliary conditions are Christianized (I can use no less forcible term) all hope of moral or social improvement is utterly in vain." Bad housing conditions affect all phases of the social problem.

After stating briefly the causes of the Wohnungsnot, which causes he conceives to be primarily the English lease-system and the tearing down of old houses either for railway construction or municipal improvements, Dr. Oppenheimer turns to a consideration of the attempts at reform. The history of legislation specifically directed against domiciliary evils is briefly sketched down to the London Government Act of 1899. The practical attempts at reform made by the various English municipalities are also described. Model tenements and such educational movements as Miss Octavia Hill's plau of rent collecting are given a chapter, while another is devoted to municipal lodging houses. Municipal lodgings are found to be undesirable on the whole; in this respect the experience of the English municipalities has not differed from that of some of our American cities.

The measures described by the author in the first part of the book are calculated in the main to improve existing dwellings. They are clearly insufficient. The more serious evils can be met only by increasing the number of tenements or decreasing the number of tenement-house dwellers. This latter is the ideal of Dr. Oppenheimer, as it is of nearly all social reformers. The author accordingly treats of "Decentralization and the Railways" in the last chapter of his book, and advocates cheap rapid transit as the best solution. He, however,

offers no further suggestions or remedies of his own. In fact, the book is throughout without originality. While it forms a careful and intelligent sketch of English legislative experience in dealing with the housing problem, it contains nothing new. Nor does it appear from the volume that the author ever saw the inside of one of the tenements that are the subject of his discussions. The question is viewed wholly from the administrative and bureaucratic standpoint. The chief merit of the book lies in the fact that it gives the reader a concise, connected account of all English legislation down to date. But its purposethat of arousing a careless people to an intelligent interest in improved housing-must excuse any shortcomings in the book itself.

Oberlin College.

E. L. BOGART,

Elementary Physical Geography. By JACQUES W. REDWAY. Pp. vi, 383. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1900.

Taschen Atlas. By HERMANN HABENICHT. Pp. 68. Price, M. 2.40. Gotha: Justus Perthes, 1899.

Reader in Physical Geography.

It enters the field

By RICHARD E. DODGE. Pp. ix, 237. Price, 70 cents. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1900. Mr. Redway's book is most disappointing. against modern texts, written by men who have helped to establish the new science of Physiography, and whose work in elementary textbooks is constructive and thorough. The author has not been in this goodly company, and does not realize the significance of the revolution which has put the old static geography forever on the shelf. He has evidently done some reading in the new work, but his notions are hazy, and one is impressed at every turn with the fact that here is a geographer out of the old school of our fathers, attempting to adapt himself to the new teaching and making a lamentable failure of it. There are blunders by scores, in fact or by implication, and the list is increased in the diagrams and illustrations. The whole treatment of the River Valley is a pitiful failure. Mr. Redway's discerning friends can only regret that this volume was ever allowed to appear in print. Every reader and lover of fine maps will be glad to know of a series of little atlases issued by the well-known firm of Justus Perthes, of Gotha. They are just the right size for the pocket, and are marvels of neatness and completeness. There are at present five volumes in the series, selling at about M 2.40 apiece, the titles being as follows: "Taschen Atlas," 93 66 See-Atlas," "" Geschichts-Atlas," "Atlas Antiquus," and "Staatsbuerger Atlas."

The "Taschen Atlas" covers about the field of our ordinary atlas.

It has twenty-two pages of maps by the famous geographer Habenicht, and is supplemented by sixty pages of geographic statistics, brought down to date by H. Wichmann.

The maps are copper engravings of the highest artistic quality, and most exquisitely printed on the finest plate paper. The workmanship puts to blush anything ever brought out in this country. For fineness of line, accuracy of detail, mass of data entered, and for beauty of coloring, these maps are unsurpassed in atlases of any size.

The point of view in the presentation of geography has been materially changed in recent years, owing to the splendid work done in the study of the evolution of land forms and the consequent rise of the science of Physiography. This makes geography dynamic in contrast to the static conceptions of the science in the past. More and more the forces at work in physiography are seen to be ever present factors in shaping the course of human events, economic and historic. The new point of view is slowly coming into our education and our literature. The latest comer is a "Reader in Physical Geography," by Professor Richard E. Dodge. It is a book for beginners, intelligently written, and will make good reading for the laity in other lines, who wish to know the way in which a physiographer looks at his problems.

Philadelphia.

J. PAUL GOODE.

Social Justice. A Critical Essay. By WEstel WoodbuRY WILLOUGHBY, Ph. D. Pp. xii, 385. Price, $3.00. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1900.

The endeavor of Dr. Willoughby is to bring to the analysis of the concepts underlying our modern industrial and legal system the assistance of transcendental principles. The touchstone of the modern system is contained in the question, Is it just? The problem of social justice presents itself to the author as being concerned with (1) the proper distribution of economic goods; (2) the harmonizing of the principles of liberty and law, of freedom and coercion.

At the outset of his inquiry the author is concerned with the nature of the rights involved. He discards the antique lumber of natural rights and recognizes rights as relative. Since rights are relative it follows that the standards of social justice are to be obtained not from introspection, but from a study of social conditions. Of necessity his study of social conditions lays special stress on the economic phase. He considers the ideals of equality under the various headings of spiritual, natural, civil, political, social and economic. He finds that in the case of economic equality, as in the case of the other ideals that

have been advanced, there is an inherent fallacy and that the true principle of distributive justice is to be found in the idea of proportionality-"the proportioning of rewards in each particular case according to some ascertainable conditions of time, place or person.” The next problem attacked is that of the justification for the existence of property. Here the sum of the investigation is that expediency is the final criterion. The author does not believe in the distinction between distributive and corrective justice. Justice is concerned with desert, and all justice is distributive. In discussing the right of coercion exerted by society he finds its justification in social expediency. The chapter on punitive justice discusses the various theories-retributive, deterrent, preventive and reformatory. The retributive theory he wholly rejects. This theory predicates an exactness of knowledge with reference to the moral responsibility of the individual which is beyond the scope of any tribunal. Then again the theories of modern criminal sociology still further put the theory out of court, since they confront us with an instinctively criminal type. The other theoriesdeterrent, preventive and reformatory-so interact in practice that it is difficult to disentangle them.

The summing up of the matter is that the criterion of the justice of an existing institution is to be found in its social utility.

The work is not concerned with the development of theoretic principles alone. The author has in mind throughout the testing of his conclusions in the light of experience. It will at once appear that the position he occupies with reference to the relativity of rights is opposed to the acceptance of the tenets of those systems which, like socialism and the individualistic Georgian doctrine, predicate the existence of a body of natural rights. As regards state interference the author occupies a position of broadminded individualism. He is of opinion that the development of society will, of necessity, bring with it a constant increase of the scope of educational and regulative functions. The analysis of justice is not without its word on the great question of to-day; for it tells us that "it lies within the legitimate province of an enlightened nation to compel-if compulsion be the only and the best means available—the less civilized races to enter into that better social and political life, the advantage of which their own ignorance either prevents them from seeing, or securing if seen."

In the analysis of the author social expediency furnishes the criterion of existing systems. But there is also introduced the complexity of a duality of standard which is not essential While social expediency is accepted as the test it is also stated that the existence of the state is justifiable only in so far as it assists in the development of our

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