future is just as different from that of a private individual's bankruptcy on his business future as can be imagined. If an individual fails, the competition he had previously waged against others ceases. When a railroad fails, it is in the best possible condition to compete and underbid all rivals.

When, therefore, a shipper has demanded a lower rate because it was given by some other company, the truth often has been, as could be clearly proved if space permitted, that the unreasonable rate was that given by the lower-rate road. It is true from the shipper's point of view that he will suffer if the inequality is not corrected, and if the Government is to do anything in the way of making reasonable rates it should go much further than is proposed and prevent the making of unreasonable low ones.

Unreasonably low rates are made under three ordinary conditions,-by bankrupt railroads; by railroads possessing an inferior service, poorer cars, longer time, slower delivery, or other inferiority to their competitors; by railroads under peculiar conditions whereby a heavy cut is temporarily made to punish a rival or gain some advantage. Without going too far, it would be difficult to justify the acts of those who have declared such rates on any occasion. Shippers ought to be willing to pay a fair rate on their merchandise, for it is only a charge that they pass on to the consumers. Whatever wrong is done by the practice of things for which there is no defense, the wrong is slight compared with the excessive and disastrous competition between different companies, which, we repeat, the Government, if attempting to do anything in the way of making rates, should prevent. Surely, it is quite as clear a duty of the Government to make a reasonable rate that will secure a fair return to stockholders, and thus insure the solvency of their companies, as to insure the solvency and prosperity of their shippers. Both have equal rights in law.

NEEDLESS PARALLEL LINES.

In the case of railroads built, like the West Shore in New York State, not to be operated, but to be sold, Professor Bolles thinks it is a fair question whether any return at all ought to accrue to the stockholders, or whether, indeed, The such companies have any right to exist. New York Central was threatened with bankruptcy when the West Shore began to do business, and to prevent the sacrifice of its securities it had to buy the West Shore and increase its freight tariffs to make up for its losses. Commenting on the episode, Professor Bolles remarks:

This is the history of many of these parallel ventures; they ought not to have been built, and as independent enterprises are not entitled to the public protection or regard. Conceived in fraud, they are usually managed in the same spirit; and if solvent competing lines buy them to save themselves from ruin, are they to be blamed for making the public pay for its original dereliction of duty? The railroads that have thus been built to sell aggregate thousands of miles. What, we repeat, is a reasonable rate to charge in order to gain some return on the capital unwillingly invested under those conditions? And how does the Government propose, if regulating future rates, to guard existing companies against these unwelcome contingencies? Does it propose to suffer such adventurers to continue their work, and, when at last they are put out of the way at a heavy price, to prevent purchasers from making any advance to cover their unwilling action? If this should be the Government's policy, the ruin of the strongest railroad in the United States could be easily accomplished.

NOTHING thus far published in the very

entertaining "Reminiscences of a Long Life," by Carl Schurz, now running in McClure's Magazine, surpasses in interest the account of the author's university days at Bonn, which appears in the January number. Young Schurz was a member of the Burschenschaft Franconia, one of the many students' associations which had been organized at various universities after the wars of liberation early in the nineteenth century. The present narrative by Mr. Schurz covers the eventful winter of 1847-48,-a period of revolution in Europe and of special unrest in the German universities. The effect of the overturn in Paris on the German student imag ination is best described by Mr. Schurz in his own words:

One morning toward the end of February, 1848, I sat quietly in my attic chamber working hard at my trag

rushed breathlessly into the room, exclaiming: "What, you sitting here! Do you not know what has happened?"

"No; what?"

"The French have driven away Louis Philippe and proclaimed the Republic."

I threw down my pen-and that was the end of my Ulrich von Hutten. I never touched the manuscript again. We tore down the stairs into the street to the market square, the accustomed meeting-place for all the student societies after their midday dinner. Although it was still forenoon, the market was already crowded with young men talking excitedly. There was no shouting, no noise, only agitated conversation. What did we want there? This probably no one knew. But since the French had driven away Louis Philippe and proclaimed the Republic, something, of course, must happen here too. Some of the students had brought their rapiers along, as if it were necessary at once to make an attack or to defend ourselves. We were dominated by a vague feeling that a great outbreak of elemental forces had begun, as if an earthquake was im

instinctively crowded together. Thus we wandered about in numerous bands to the "Kneipe," where our restlessness, however, would not suffer us long to stay; then to other pleasure resorts, where we fell into conversation with all manner of strangers, to find in them the same confused, astonished, and expectant state of mind; then back to the market square to see what might be going on there; then again somewhere else, and so on without aim and end, until finally late in the night fatigue compelled us to find the way home.

The next morning there were the usual lectures to be attended. But how profitless! The voice of the professor sounded like a monotonous drone coming from far away. What he had to say did not seem to concern us. The pen that should have taken notes remained idle. At last we closed with a sigh the note-book and went away, impelled by a feeling that now we had something more important to do.-to devote ourselves to the affairs of the fatherland. And this we did by seeking as quickly as possible again the company of our friends, in order to discuss what had happened and what was to come. In these conversations, excited as they were, certain ideas and catchwords worked themselves to the surface which expressed more or less the feelings of the people. Now had arrived in Germany the day for the establishment of "German unity" and the founding of a great powerful national German Empire. In the first line the convocation of a national parliament. Then the demands for civil rights and liberties, free speech, free press, the right of free assem bly, equality before the law, a freely elected representation of the people with legislative power, responsibility of ministers, self-government of the communes, the right of the people to carry arms, the formation of a civic guard with self-elected officers, etc., etc.,-in short, that which was called a "constitutional form of government on a broad democratic basis."

Republican ideas were at first only sparingly expressed. But the word democracy was soon on many tongues, and many, too, thought it a matter of course that if the princes should try to withhold from the people the rights and liberties demanded force should take the place of mere petition. Of course, the regeneration of the fatherland must, if possible, be accom

CARL SCHURZ AT NINETEEN.

plished by peaceable means, but it must be accomplished at all events.

A few days after the outbreak of this commotion I reached my nineteenth birthday. I remember to have been so entirely absorbed by what was happening that I could hardly turn my thoughts to anything else. I, like all my friends, was dominated by the feeling that at last the great opportunity had arrived for giving to the German people the liberty which was their birthright, and to the German fatherland its unity and greatness, and that it was now the first duty of every German to do and to sacrifice everything for this sacred object. We were profoundly, solemnly, in earnest.

THE

MAYOR JOHNSON,

HE third election of Tom L. Johnson as mayor of Cleveland, by an increased plurality, makes especially timely the characterization of Mayor Johnson by Dr. E. W. Bemis in the December Arena. Mr. Johnson, himself a Democrat widely known as an advocate of the single tax, has achieved his victories in a strongly Republican city, where his ideas on taxation are distinctly unpopular. Dr. Bemis, who has served under him as head of the Cleveland water department, ascribes the mayor's success partly to his insistence on the destruction of special privi. lege, partly to his willingness to work for what is immediately attainable in municipal reform,

OF CLEVELAND.

In regard to Mayor Johnson's manner of conducting his office, Dr. Bemis says:

He has broad views of public policy and a keen desire for a clean, pure government, as well as for a government that can hold its own in the contest with special privileges. No man in Ohio has done so much as he against the spoils system and in favor of administrative efficiency. Referring to the matter at a time when disgruntled spoilsmen, were fiercely demanding a surrender, he said of the merit system: "I believe it is good politics; but anyway, it is decent." As evidence of his broad views, one may instance also that during

the past four and a half years in office he has effected

great improvements in street paving and cleaning, the construction of sewers, the popularization of parks, the

oracle forbade its reconstruction, the metal of the famous statue was sold by the conquering Arabs for what would be equal to $200,000 of our money to-day.

Beginning with Roman ascendency in Europe, we have more detailed and accurate information about lighthouses. The Roman lighthouse was characterized chiefly by its outside staircase, leading to the top, upon which an open wood fire was always kept burning.. Probably the most symmetrical of these Roman structures was the tower erected at Ostia, the seaport of Rome, at the mouth of the Tiber, and finished during the reign of the Emperor Nero. The mightiest

of Roman lighthouses, however, was the one built by the Emperor Caligula at Boulogne-surMer, on the British Channel, in memory of his visit to Britannia. This tower, with the one at Corunna, on the coast of Spain, are the best preserved of ancient lighthouses. From old paintings we are able to get an idea of the original construction of the latter tower, which is the only one, excepting the Pharos, which is in any degree of preservation to-day. At the end of the eighteenth century, the Spanish Government. restored this tower, and since that time it has served the shipping of the world without interruption.

THE HE typical features of American college and university architecture are described in a series of papers contributed to Appleton's Booklovers Magazine by Christian Brinton. In the January installment, the new buildings at Harvard and Yale are described, some excellent drawings by Vernon Howe Bailey accompanying the text. Mr. Brinton rejoices in the revival of what he concedes the true spirit of Harvard architecture, namely, the colonial, or Georgian, style, which predominates in the most recent

THE MEMORIAL VESTIBULE, YALE.

creations. An example of this reversion to the primitive simplicity of Harvard architecture is the new Harvard Union, which for years was the project of Colonel Higginson and was finally carried to a conclusion by Messrs. McKim, Mead & White. The Union is a great undergraduate and graduate club, which fulfills the social needs of university life in much the same degree as does Phillips Brooks' house the religious needs. YALE'S NEW BUILDINGS.

Unlike Harvard. Yale has practically done away with all of her old buildings, and has not cared to preserve their architectural type. The Yale of to-day, declares Mr. Brinton, is neither local nor Georgian, but displays an unconvincing compromise between the delicate classicism of Messrs. Carrére & Hastings and the somewhat matter-of-fact Collegiate Gothic of Mr. Haight. Of the old Brick Row, only one building-the famous South Middle-remains. The most satis factory architecture of modern Yale, according to Mr. Brinton, is to be found in the bicenten nial group of buildings, which owes its existence to the initiative of President Hadley. These buildings are the work of Messrs. Carrére & Hastings, of New York, and are suggestive of the Louis XVI. period. The portions thus far finished comprise the Memorial Vestibule and the Dining Hall, and the Woolsey Auditorium. Woodbridge Hall, Messrs. Howells & Stokes' new Administration Building, and Byers Memorial Hall (each of which, in a sense, belongs to the bicentennial group), are also in keeping with the general scheme as to style and construction. It would be difficult, says Mr. Brinton, to imagine anything more logical, more captivating, or more discreetly decorative" than this scheme,