their origin, and there is no evidence of their ever having practiced affusion. For example, the Baptist church at Warrington was organized in 1522; the churches at Braintree, Eythorne, and Sutton, in 1550; those at Crowle and Epworth in 1599; those at Bridgewater, Oxford, and Wedmore in 1600. Let it be noted that, while there were those who called Baptists "new" and "upstart," after the abolition of the High Commission and Star Chamber made it safe for them to advocate their views, there is no record of any one's charging them with ever having changed their initiatory ordinance from sprinkling to immersion. Wherever there were Baptists they practiced immersion. Let it be borne in mind that positive evidence is not to be set aside by negative evidence. However many there were who, soon after 1641, did not know of the practice of immersion in England before that date, this does not set aside the testimony of even one who had such knowledge. The Irishman, in the story, who sought to offset the testimony of the two men who said they saw him take the horse, by producing twenty who did not see him take it, was very properly held for the crime. Hence if any of the testimony I have cited be valid, the thesis falls to the ground, that immersion was not practiced in England previous to 1641. It is absolutely necessary to that thesis that all the evidence to the contrary be proved to be invalid. LOUISVILLE, KY. T. T. EATON. ARTICLE XII. SOCIOLOGICAL NOTES AND REVIEWS. PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. THAT our legislative bodies in city and state are disgracefully bad in most places goes without the saying. Even where not positively corrupt, they are composed of incompetents, or of men who do not really represent the people, unless, indeed, we assume that the people are so bad as to make democratic government a failure. Even if we should be forced to believe with some that the mass of our citizens admire the corrupt buyer of franchises and evader of taxes, if he only become wealthy thereby and is kind to his neighbors, we must recognize that in all other matters we call to our service those better than the average. We do not want an average man for physician or attorney or business manager, if we can get a better man. There is a growing desire to have the state assume cooperative as well as coercive functions. Cities are more and more to be asked, and almost forced, to supervise the housing of the poor, sanitation, pure water, cheap gas and street car fares, bath-houses, parks, laundries, pawn-shops, savings-banks, and numerous other agencies for improving the condition of all. But at the threshold of such an advance we are confronted with the deplorable nature of our governmental machinery. While making direct personal appeals to all strong men to take a hand in making a better government, by becoming members of it, the question arises, whether by some change in the machinery of government we may not make it easier for our best citizens to enter our city councils and state legislatures and, once elected, to secure reelection, if satisfactory to a considerable number of voters. There is certainly precedent for the idea that a change in machinery will sometimes work wonders. Note the great improvement that has followed the civil service and the Australian ballot laws. So far as these laws have gone into effect, they have wonderfully improved political conditions. Yet human nature must be about the same as ten years ago. Such another change is now ably urged by a rapidly growing and enthusiastic class of citizens and with conspicuous force in a recent book by Professor Commons.1 1 Proportional Representation. Sociology in Syracuse University. Crowell & Co. 1896. $1.75. By John R. Commons, Professor of Under our present methods, only the two great parties have any chance of electing their candidates, and of these only the party in the majority in a district is really represented. Frequently a party casting 45 per cent of the votes secures only one-fourth of the members of a state legislature or city council. The way proportional representation would change this, and secure representation in proportion to the votes cast by any party, may be thus illustrated: Suppose that in a city or district of 60,000 population there are 12,000 voters at a certain election, where ten men are to be chosen. Let there be but one district, and allow every voter to have ten votes, of which only one can be given to a candidate. If there were any left after the voter had expressed as many individual preferences as he desired, they would be counted as belonging to the party designated by the voter with a cross. Suppose the 12,000 voters cast 120,000 votes, of which the Republican ticket received 55,000, the Democratic 45,000, a Citizens ticket 15,000, and the People's Party 5,000. Dividing the total votes cast, 120,000, by the number to be elected, gives 12,000, which is called the quota. This divided into the totals for each ticket gives four with a remainder of 7,000 for the Republicans, three with a remainder of 9,000 for the Democrats, one with a remainder of 3,000 for the Citizens ticket, and simply a remainder of 5,000 for the People's Party. At once four Republicans, three Democrats, and one independent from the Citizens ticket, would be declared elected. To get the other two, the parties would be selected having the largest remainders, which, in this case, would be the Republican and Democratic parties. The requisite number of individuals on each ticket, e. g. five Republicans, receiving the highest number of votes would be declared elected. The advantages and objections are obvious. Minorities would be more justly represented. Reform ideas could more easily find expression. Party dictation would be less felt, for a strong man might easily secure enough votes to be kept in power. Since bolting would be easy, even the old parties would have to put better men in nomination. Under these circumstances, able citizens would be more likely to receive and accept a call to public service. Thus a long step would be taken in the reform of our city council, which might then recover the powers it still enjoys in England, but which we have been forced to deprive it of here, because of its horrible character. If the council cannot be reformed in our large cities it seems likely that it will ultimately be abolished, and all power be concentrated in a despotic mayor as the lesser of two evils. The plan of representation very much as above outlined is in successful and rapidly extending operation in Switzerland, and is now being urged by some of the leading thinkers of England and America. The objections to the plan do not appear at all conclusive. Some object to the abandonment of district representation. But in a large city there might be a division into three or four districts, leaving, however, ten of fifteen representatives to be elected in each. This might also occur in a state, while, even without such a provision, party expediency would surely lead to the placing on the ticket of men from different sections. This demand for district representation is largely a foolish survival of the time when there were only small communities in which every one had identical interests. To-day, one's interests are far more bound up with kindred spirits in every part of a city or state than with those living in the same ward or voting precinct. Class rather than local interests now need representation. It is also urged that proportional representation has been tried and has broken down in Illinois and elsewhere. But no true system of this kind has been tried, nothing that is worthy of the name. It was a mistake for reformers to lend any countenance to these makeshifts. Others fear that minority representation would lead to the election of "faddists," but the latter would not be so dangerous when subjected to the sobering influence of public discussion and actual participation in public business. The probability is that proportional representation would be chiefly useful to large reform movements. There seems to be only one serious objection. That is the fear that third parties would be placed in position to hold the balance of power, and force one of the two larger parties to terms, thus destroying party responsibility. To this, Professor Commons, whose admirable ideas have been used in almost all of this discussion, makes several replies. He suggests that in city politics, at least, we have already accepted the idea of third parties and independent tickets. He assumes that almost all matters of legislation are best settled by compromise, such as minority representation would encourage. Since the individual responsibility of every member would be increased, and the main parties would be put on their good behavior, most people would be quite willing, it would seem, to forego a possible loss of a little of the so-called party responsibility which to-day seems utterly unable to prevent the most shameless abuses of trust by our parties. It is well known that there are no politics in boodle. Yet the author admits that questions relating directly to the political power of parties, such as the election of senators by state legislatures, or the division of the offices under the spoils system and questions connected therewith, cannot be compromised. This would imply that the proposed method of minority representation cannot well be extended to state politics as long as we elect our senators through the legislature a method that ought to give way in any event to election by the people. The spoils system also must go, before proportional representa tion can be easily applied in city politics. This, however, is only a question of time. Already in some Eastern cities, notably in Massachusetts, this absurd spoils system has apparently received its death blow. Professor Commons gives a suggestive criticism of the initiative and the referendum, which, he thinks, will not be so much needed as now appears, after proportional representation has been secured. Taken all in all, the work which has called forth these comments, is the best contribution to the subject since the work of the famous Hare, and is far more replete with practical suggestions and illustrations from recent American politics. E. W. B. THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENT. THE most encouraging sign of municipal progress of the past year has been the third annual convention of The American Society of Municipal Improvements, held in Chicago in October last. Composed almost exclusively of city engineers, from perhaps a hundred different cities, and with D. L. Fulton, of Allegheny, Pa., as secretary, this society seems to be the first effort of our city engineers to unite in a scientific study of city problems. The movement has had no inspiration from outside writers and theorists, and is on that very account the more significant. In many cases the membership fee and the expenses of the delegates to the conventions are borne by the city governments whose engineers thus come together. The methods and costs of various kinds of street paving and lighting, street cleaning, disposal of garbage, sewerage, water-works construction, water purification, municipal control and inspection of street-railways and electric light, methods of raising, appropriating, and spending money for public works, these were the vital questions discussed informally and in elaborate papers at this three-days' convention. Among the facts brought out, two may be here referred to. It appeared that two years ago an outside electrical company offered to erect a thousand electric lights for Minneapolis and sell the plant to the city for one dollar at the end of five years, if, meantime, it might receive $150 a year per light, which was the price the old company was getting. It was found by the city engineer, after a careful investigation, that the new company could afford to make this proposition. But, such was the influence of the old company on the press and council, and such the ignorance of the public, that the contract with the old company was renewed for five years at the old price of $150! The greatest interest of the convention seemed to center in the problem of securing pure water in the larger cities. One of the best papers on this subject was by Mr. John W. Hill, the consulting engineer of Cincinnati, O., who indorsed the opinion of the Massachusetts Board of Health that ninety-nine per cent of the deaths from typhoid fever are due to bad water. Now the average deaths from typhoid fever per one hundred thousand of the population in ten large European cities in 1895, where great attention is paid to water purification, was only six, and in ten large |