some, are paid to others, converting our debts to our fathers and mothers into credits to our children. The civil law obliges parents, fathers and children, the ascending and descending lines, to support each other reciprocally. The natural law extends beyond this circle of family duties. - The family is not the only collective being on which the responsibility rests of supporting its members. The same duty is imposed, in different measures and proportions, on numberless associations into which men are collected. There is a class of as The others without giving an equivalent therefor, | mutuality of obligations, which, contracted to arises from an honorable susceptibility, and answers to a respectable instinct of dignity, but is not always just. This acceptance, if confined strictly to its economic meaning, should be morally neutral, in spite of the idea of inferiority and dependence which it implies; it is right in some cases, but wrong in others, to make such gratuitous acceptance an expression of contempt. What is beyond all controversy, is, that we must not apply the harsh term beggar to all those who live by gift. The idea of mendicancy is connected with the idea of a permanent condition of solici-sociations, such as the societies of mutual aid, tation based on the allegation of entire helpless- whose capital, formed by means of individual ness to procure the necessaries of life in any other contributions, is intended for those of its members way. The man is not a mendicant who re- who are in distress or who reach a certain age, or ceives the donation without asking for it, espe- a certain time of service.. The assistance decially he is not one who receives it as a conse- manded in this case is not a donation, it is a quence of affection existing between him and the credit, a regular and foreseen employment of a donor, or as the satisfaction of an obligation con- common saving collected for this purpose. necting the donor with him. Beggary is con- party who receives aid here is in no way a parafounded with rapine and robbery when it exacts site, not even with regard to those particular assistance instead of requesting it. — Among those bodies, so long as he receives his share only after who receive without giving, and who live on the having fulfilled the conditions of his contract. substance of others without furnishing anything He becomes a parasite with reference to the assoof their own in return, must be reckoned nearly ciation, if, without having furnished his due, he all the human race during the period of childhood. receives from its bounty, instead of from his own Our first years are passed in absolute impotence | contribution, the assistance which is given him. as far as productive labor is concerned. This But the individual thus assisted is not a parasite time is devoted to physical, intellectual and moral on the rest of society, since he lives on resources development, destined, no doubt, to create in which the rest of society did not contribute to those who reach the age of maturity an imma- provide for him. A county undertakes the supterial capital of force and activity, but which may port of its poor. These are parasites with refnever have this result. The age of productive erence to it, but not to the rest of the country, labor is reached at different periods by different which is not called on to do anything for them. persons. Ordinarily it commences too early in The same must be said of individuals assisted the poor families of artisans and agricultural by private charity; which, by taking them in laborers, who hasten to employ their children in charge, relieves society in general to that extent. a lucrative occupation, while the more provident It is to be remarked, however, that, as the reor well-to-do families are not so hasty to consume sources of private charity are limited, the parasites the present at the expense of the future. The who exhaust it prevent it from being extended to quality of capitalist belongs to children only in others who need it as much or more than they; exceptional cases. The number of those who are and in this manner they contribute to increase the born with a fortune of their own and who can be number of the needy. It is a fundamental truth, supported and reared by means of their own prop- too little recognized, that, different from other erty, is extremely small, even in the wealthy class. duties, which have corresponding rights, there is If we consider children in individual isolation no right which corresponds to the duty of charity. only, they must be called parasites, for they live The rich man must relieve the poor without the solely on the resources of others given to them; poor having any right as against the rich. but they figure in society as members of the col- ligion has admirable doctrines on this subject lective being called the family, of which they which public law might profit by: while it teaches form an integral part by right; and the family charity to some, it commands gratitude and resigitself would become a parasite, if by impotence nation to others. Private charity is a debt of or bad will, it should allow the cost of their sub- conscience and love, and not a debt by right; it sistence to fall on others. The child lives at the does not obey precise rules, and is not governed expense of the family without giving any actual by the calculations of human prudence; it feels return, unless in affection, in happiness, in moral- that its most urgent cares, its most bountiful asity, in hopes, precious values indeed, but which sistance, its most affectionate consolations, should can not be measured. Later, the child should be given to unmerited suffering, but it desires make a return for the assistance and services ren- to assist even those who have deserved their misdered it in advance. Its right to existence rests fortune by their faults. Thus, to extend its beon a two-fold foundation: on the duties which the nevolent duties, it is enough for charity to say instincts of our nature engrave on our hearts and that each man ought to feel his weakness to be dictate to the positive law; and on the continued such, that he should not arm himself arrogantly Re such as it has been organized by the universal consent of nations, the abasement and ruin of individuals, instead of finding in it a fruitful and efficient cause of their prosperity and development. A proposition which remains true in spite of the crookedness imparted to it by these sophisms, is this, that when suffering is born of the sins of society or governments and the vice of institutions and of laws, it is no longer a question of humanity, decency and wisdom, but of a strict obligation of the state to alleviate it. It is no longer a case of donation, but of credit. Society, being held to repair its own wrongs, is not obliged to correct those which individuals inflict on themselves, any more than those which they suffer from others or from undeserved misfortune. It would be to destroy the dignity, the liberty, the responsibility of individuals, to transfer to the social body the task belonging to each one of guarding, preserving and developing himself. What society owes its members, is, to protect and guarantee the free exercise of their rights with all its strength; its office is not to think, to will or to act for them. The more liberty a state insures to its citizens, the less attention it owes their interests, since it leaves these interests more completely to the management and responsibility of the citizens themselves; if it interferes in private life and exerts an influence in managing the property of individuals, its responsibility to individuals increases with every extension which it gives to its guardianship. For societies, as well as individuals, to do good, is a secondary duty; not to do wrong is the first. The wants of a wise administration counsel the state to assist the parasitic mass, but the obligations not to create parasites itself, an obligation a hundred times more serious and binding, is antecedent to this. It should not act like a surgeon who would first wound the passers by, and then offer them his services. Society creates paupers, and consequently parasites, when it turns from the straight road of justice, and, changing the noble office of guaranteeing and pro against indulgence. Charity has its eyes fixed, not on what it gives, but on what it has itself received. All men would be charitable if they would remember the large number of services which each one receives from his neighbors, no matter how brilliant his actual situation may be. There is not an individual who does not draw abundantly from this large capital of the universal domain transmitted and increased from generation to generation, and who does not take much more from it than he can ever return to it. We owe too much to others to be authorized to bargain our assistance to those whom it is possible for us to aid. - Public charity is governed by narrower and more worldly rules than private charity. Consequently, men correctly cease to call it charity, and give it the more modern name of public assistance. Charity, which is love, strips itself to give to others. When the state gives and assists, it strips itself of nothing; its action is limited to distributing in a certain fashion the contributions which it levies on its | citizens. Not every gift is charity; the assistance distributed by the state is only a branch of the public administration. The only parasites at the expense of the state should be the poor who can not be properly cared for by their families, associations or private charity. To live in a purely gratuitous manner at the expense of the state when not compelled to accept the gifts by which it supports the needy and unfortunate, is to belong to the worst class of parasites, to that class of people who are able not to be parasites, a perverse class, a public pest, whose close relationship with robbers we have previously pointed out, and to which we need not return. It only remains for us to speak of parasites who are really poor people. State donations, like private gifts, are essentially one-sided, in this sense, that the moral duty imposed on the donor does not suppose any right in the recipient. Where credit begins, donation ceases. It is the desire of humanity that human beings should not be left to perish of distress; it is the dictate of prudence that a mass of men ex-tecting property into a tyranny, takes possession of cited to disorder and crime by the spur of want should not be left to increase in the bosom of society; but the duty of the state to be humane and prudent creates no right to demand its assistance. | The destructive sophism which converts want into credit has been revived in our time under the names of the right to existence, the right to labor, the right to assistance. It has been frequently refuted in this cyclopædia. (See ATELIERS; CHARITY; COMMUNISM; LABOR, RIGHT TO.) The falsest sophisms are generally the exaggerations of a correct idea, or the improper generalization of a particular truth. The numerous varieties of the anti-social sophisms which parade the name of socialism, place their point of support on the undeniable theory of reparation of wrongs, but they draw strange conclusions from this. By attacking not only society, but also the law of sociality, the sacred foundation of society, they affect to see in the conditions of every-day life, property and labor, or injures them by its exactions: it creates paupers when it arrests or hampers the free exercise of moral, intellectual or physical activity, the natural expansion of labor, the legitimate acquisition or transmission of property; it also creates paupers when it offers a premium on vice, idleness and lack of courage, by too great a readiness to grant relief. Society, through the enormous power which it wields, feeds and increases the evil when it distributes imprudently what it believes to be its benefits. The moderation in public assistance commanded by prudence, rests also on another basis. The state, which can levy only on the services and the property of workmen and capitalists, should never forget that whatever it gives is necessarily taken from the goods of its citizens; generosity at the expense of others easily degenerates into spoliation. — The assistance given to parasites is an ex pedient rather than a remedy. Social progress and the cowards who wish to be, parasites, would consists, not in maintaining and supporting a greater number of parasites, but in decreasing and eliminating the parasites in existence. The perversion of manners, the extinction or abasement of the moral sense, makes most parasites. A bad book, a vicious sophism, an evil example, creates more misery than hail, fire or famine. If it is necessary, because they are men, to assist human beings who consume without producing and receive without giving, it is imperative to attempt their reformation and endeavor to make them acquire property through morality and labor. Next to the task of improving its institutions and its laws in order to free itself from participation in evil, society has no more important mission than to obtain good results from good laws by improving the morals of men. The amount of misery is enormous, and alarms the most civilized societies. The true problem would be to dry up or lessen the thousand impure channels through which it is formed and increased. Society should by law leave religion free to propagate its principles; it should open schools, make education and enlightenment general, honor letters, sciences and arts, elevate the moral sense, exalt disinterestedness, remunerate services rendered, give life to indolence, smooth obstacles, remove all obstructions of the market. Its firm and vigorous humanity should avoid, as far as possible, the degrading form of alms; it should without asperity, uniting prudence to kindness, never forget that severity is generally more merciful than weakness. The danger is great, when the instinct of natural dignity which finds unearned bread bitter, grows weak and loses its honorable sensitiveness. The loss of the feeling of responsibility in individuals toward themselves, in families and other collective bodies toward their members, throws into the ranks of parasites persons of equivocal morality who find it more convenient to receive aid than to work. In the train of idleness follows covetousness; then corruption, which, increasing more and more, impels all to live at the expense of all. The only efficacious and honorable means of combating the parasitic spirit, the last extremity of human abasement, and assisting pauperism, is a gradual increase of the freedom of labor and property. All other methods serve simply to conjure the neces-alty declared by the law and pronounced by the sities and dangers of to-day, without promising, but often preparing, a worse to-morrow. When workmen can display their activity in peace, when capitalists can with confidence accumulate and lay up their property, the products of which will enrich all, the class of parasites decreases and is quieted through the development of the other two classes. Just as workmen and capitalists prosper and suffer together, and as it would be to impel them to suicide and to mutual oppression, to arouse rivalry and envy between them, parasites should respect capitalists and laborers, not only on account of moral obligation and the command of positive law, but also from calculation of what is useful for themselves. Parasites in fact or in intention, the unfortunates who are, PARDON. Pardon is the remission, granted by the sovereign or head of the state to a sentenced person, of the penalty imposed on him by the courts. Such penalty is sometimes replaced by a less severe one. This is what is called a commutation of sentence. Pardon, in contradistinction to amnesty, abolishes neither the offense nor the sentence. The utility of the right of pardon has been questioned by some publicists, as for instance, Beccaria, Bentham and even Rousseau, who have contested the necessity of its intervention. Beccaria desired to introduce clemency into the law, but not into the execution of its judgments. He thought that the moderation of penalties and the "perfection of the law" would render pardons superfluous. "The right to remit the penalty imposed on the culprit," he said, "is a tacit disapprobation of the laws." This inflexible rule, which attributes the same weight and measure to all acts of the same nature, although in the infinite variety of human affairs they differ considerably one from the other, and never have the same moral value, has been condemned by experience, which has rejected the system of the fixity of penalties. J. J. Rousseau, although less absolute than Beccaria, reached almost the same conclusions. "The right of pardon," says Rousseau, or of exempting a culprit from the pen judge, belongs only to one who is above the judge and the law, that is, to the sovereign; moreover, the right of the sovereign to exercise the pardoning power is not quite clear, and the cases in which that power should be exercised are very rare. In a well-governed state there are but few punishments, not because pardon is very frequent, but because there are few criminals; the multitude of crimes insures their impunity when the state is in a condition of decay. * * Frequent cases' of pardon indicate that crimes will soon have no need of it."-More recently than Rousseau's time clemency in the execution of penalties found new adversaries. Mr. Livingston, an American, opposed it in principle, and proposed at least to restrict its application to certain cases. "The presses the minds of the people with the spectacle of power and greatness, and at the same time disarms the parties. "Monarchs," says Montesquieu, "have so much to gain by clemency, they derive so much glory from it, that in almost every instance it is for them a piece of good fortune to have an opportunity to exercise clemency. - How many examples are there, on the contrary, of powers pursued to death by the cry of blood uselessly spilt, and which have perished for not having pardoned in time! But when should we punish and when pardon?" Montesquieu proposed that question to himself, which it is not an easy task to solve. Clemency, says he, should not degenerate into weakness, nor should it bring the prince who exercises it into contempt. Clemency, it is true, may have its dangers, but neither is implacable severity without its dangers; the latter produces terror, which offers but an unsteady basis to power: Non diuturni timor magister officii, and provokes retaliation. If we can not help going to extremes it is better to sin by an excess of clemency. It is not certain that this is not the better policy, even as far as duration is concerned; and posterity, which admires the victor, gives its love to the indulgent.* EMILE CHÉDIEU. pardoning power," said he, "should not be exercised except in cases in which the innocence of the prisoner is discovered after he has been condemned, or in case of his sincere and complete reformation." These few words give utterance to several errors: first, if a person condemned is found to be innocent after his condemnation, there can be no such thing as pardon; the judicial error should be corrected, and the sentence of condemnation annulled. Then, it is not correct to say that the reformation of the person condemned and his moral amendment should of themselves constitute a motive for the intervention of the pardoning power. Mr. Livingston, whom we have just cited, would, without doubt, have expressed himself differently had he borne political crimes and offenses in mind. We do not deny that repentance and the return to moral sentiments may, in the case of ordinary crimes, be made a condition of pardon. The thief and the murderer should not be allowed to re-enter society without giving it a pledge for their moral behavior. But political crimes and offenses have a special char acter: they do not manifest in their author the same degree of perversity as common crimes, and conscience does not express the same reprobation for them. This class of offenses, in most cases, constitutes just as serious a violation of a moral law as ordinary offenses, but not of the same law. Common crimes are crimes everywhere; political acts are crimes only in a variable and, in a sense, conditional manner. It might be said that circumstances make and unmake them. "The immorality of political offenses," says Guizot, "is neither as clear nor as immutable as that of ordinary crimes; it is always crossed or obscured by the vicissitudes of human affairs; it varies with the time, with events and with the rights and merits of power. - Public conscience is subject to reaction in favor of persons condemned for political offenses; it can not be so subject in favor of persons condemned for ordinary crimes. lic conscience amnesties the former, it pardons the latter, but it never amnesties them; it forgives but does not forget them. - How, then, can we subordinate the right of pardon in matters political to conditions of reformation and private morality, as has been proposed by Mr. Livingston? What makes repression necessary in cases of this kind is not the immorality and perversity of the person committing the offense, but political causes which must be subjected in their action to the general principles of justice and of right; the opportuneness, sometimes even the necessity, of pardon, depends on the same causes. Circumstances which change, occasions which pass away, passions which become abated, parties which are dissolved: all of these contribute toward diminishing the importance of a person condemned for a political offense.' (Théorie du Code pénal, by MM. Chauveau et Faustin Hélie.) - In politics, the pardon granted the culprit (who sometimes is but a vanquished adversary) produces the happiest legislature to prescribe regulations in these cases. And see Pub effect in favor of the power granting it; it im PARIS MONETARY CONFERENCE. Under this title will be given a sketch of the three international monetary conferences held in the city of Paris in the years 1867, 1878 and 1881. Bimetallism in the abstract having been considered in the article on MONEY, that subject will be treated here only in the narrative form as it was presented in the discussions of the conferences. Conference of 1867. This conference was brought together on the invitation of the French govern ment, which was moved thereto by the successful conclusion of the treaty of Dec. 23, 1865, between France, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland, constituting what is commonly known as the Latin monetary union. The letter of invitation transmitted by the French government inclosed a copy of this treaty, and suggested the holding of an international conference "to consider the question of uniformity of coinage and to seek for the basis of *No attempt has been made in the above to give the actual law, constitutional and other, relative to the pardoning power; this Cyclopædia being one of politics and political economy, mainly, and not of law. In the United States the power to pardon offenders is vested by the several state constitutions in the governor. It is not, however, a power which necessarily inheres in the executive. (State vs. Dunning, 9 Ind., 22.) And several of the state constitutions have provided that it shall be exercised under such regulations as shall be prescribed by law. There are provisions more or less broad to this purport in those of Kansas, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, Oregon, Indiana, Iowa and Virginia. In State vs. Dunning, 9 Ind., 20, an act of the legislature requiring the applicant for the remission of a fine or forfeiture to forward to the governor, with his application, the opinion of certain county officers as to the propriety of the remission, was sustained as an act within the power conferred by the constitution upon the Branham vs. Lange, 16 Ind., 500. The power to reprieve is not included in the power to pardon. (Cooley.) At common denominator. England and Sweden voted against this proposition; Prussia, Bavaria, Baden, Würtemberg and Belgium did not vote. It was voted also that gold coins with the common denominator of five francs should have legal circulation in the countries agreeing to the action of the conference, and that it would be expedient to coin gold pieces of the dimensions of twentyfive francs for international circulation. — At the seventh session it was voted to refer the decisions of the conference to the several states for diplo matic action; that the answers of the several states should be transmitted to the French government, which should have power to reassemble the conference; and that it was desirable that the answers should be received before Feb. 15, 1868. The conference adjourned July 6, and was not reassembled. - Conference of 1878. By the coinage revision act of Feb. 12, 1873, the gold dollar of twenty-five and eight-tenths grains nine-tenths ulterior negotiations." The conference assembled June 17, under the presidency of Marquis de Moustier, minister of foreign affairs, the following named countries being represented: Austria, Baden, Bavaria, Belgium, Denmark, the United States, France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, Sweden and Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, and Würtemberg. The United States were represented by Mr. Samuel B. Ruggles of New York, and Great Britain by Mr. Thomas Graham and Mr. Rivers Wilson. The most eminent of the French representatives, as an economist and financier, was Mr. E. de Parieu. A committee was appointed to formulate the work of the conference. the second session (June 19) the committee reported a “* questionnaire" or series of interrogatories to be debated by the conference. These were twelve in number, all having relation to the possibility of establishing a universal monetary unit, either by adopting some existing unit or by mak-fine was declared to be the unit of value in the ing a new one approximating to existing units, and to the means of securing the practical adoption of the same. The conference voted unanimously against the adoption of an entirely new system, and in favor of “the mutual co-ordi- | nation of existing systems."-At the third session a vote was taken on the question whether the standard of the proposed unit should be silver exclusively. It was decided in the negative unanimously. When this vote was taken, Mr. Feer-Herzog (Switzerland) noted it as a fact of much significance, that the representatives of Prussia and Sweden, countries having the silver standard, should have voted in effect in favor of the gold standard. The conference then voted unanimously (with the exception of The Netherlands) in favor of the single gold standard, "leaving each state the liberty to keep its silver standard temporarily.”— At the fourth session, on the motion of Baron de Hock (Austria), the conference voted that the advantage of internationality, which the proposed gold unit would have, would not be sufficient to keep the coins in circulation in states having the silver standard or the double standard, unless suitable measures should be adopted regarding the ratio between the two metals. At the fifth session (which was presided over by Prince Napoleon) the question, what unit should be adopted, came up for discussion. Rivers Wilson, on behalf of Great Britain, read a paper saying that his government had been glad to participate in the conference, regarding it as a means of enlightening public opinion on an important question, but could not hold out the expectation that it would abandon its own monetary unit or assimilate it to that of any continental system. The conference voted that an international coinage should consist of "types with a common denominator for weight, in gold coins of identical fineness," and that the fineness should be nine-tenths. At the sixth session the confer ence voted by thirteen to two in favor of the five-franc gold piece (equal to 964 cents) as the Mr. United States, and the silver dollar was omitted |