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390 Record and Guide. March 31, 1888 restricting work, but would it not negative the results of labor- saving machinery ? Why not put a stop to invention at once ? If Mr. Gunton is right, then tbe ordinary labor cry for more wages and less work is the correct thing, and the fine-spun theories of the Socialists, Henry George, Karl Mars, and the pohtical economists are mere vain imaginings. E.—That certainly seems to be Mr. Gunton's contention. He proves from the factory legislation of Great Britain that tbe succes¬ sive shortening of the hours of labor in that country was accom¬ panied by an improvement of the condition of the working classes and by larger profits to everyone engaged in the industries affected by tbe legislation. It is a curious fact tbat it was a Tory, the Earl of Shaftsbury, who was the great champion of tbe various bills for reducing the hours of labor, wliile the most violent opponents to shorter hours were Richard Cobden and John Bright. They were sc backed up by manufacturers, by tbe press and by the educated rig. classes generally, but the evidence is overwhelming that every suc¬ tion ^essive reduction proved a benefit to every interest in the nation existed to the employers most of all. In 1803 sixteen hours a day was womie rule ; by successive bills tbe legal working hours of England to have ly are only nine hours and a half. for p- Sm 0.—Of course there is no contending agamst facts. We know womhat the physical, material and moral condition of tbe English people has vastly improved during the past century. It is also indis¬ putable tbat the horrors of the English factory system is one of tbe darkest pages in tbe liistory of the race. Tbis was wheu tbere was no legal restraint preventing the employer from exacting aU that he could in the way of time from the laborer. But tell us more of Mr. Gunton's eight-hoiu- panacea. E.—He says tbat according to the census of 1880 there were something like 10,500,000 wage receivers. In other words, about 34 per cent, of the whole population who actually participate in industrial pursuits. Cutting off two hours a day would bave the immediate effect of making a market for tbe labor of every tmem- ployed person in tbe country, and would force a higher average of wages in every iudusti-ial pursuit. This would increase the consum¬ ing power of the country enormously, which would of course beneflt every employer and every investor in all departments of business. Production would not be lessened, but under the stimu- . lus of higher prices would be increased, invention would be stimu¬ lated, and labor-saving machines be more in demand. The result would be cheaper production tn time without interfering with the prosperity of the country. giK 0.—All tbis is very fine, but if cutting off two hours would be so beneficial wby not say four hours? E._It is easy to apply the rule of reductioad absurdum to any proposition. Tlie Irisliman, when told that if he bought a certain stove he would save half the fuel orchnarily used, promptly declared he would buy two stoves and then save all of it. I hope the readers of The Record and Guide will get Mr. Gunton's book and study it carefully, for it contains a vast store of useful facts and sound deductions. Sir 0.—It vrill be of no use. Each employer is intentupon cheap production ; hence he is determined to get his labor at the lowest rate. He will not consider the other side of the problem ; though it is as clear as daylight that high wages for aU laborers is the prime condition of prosperous times. If the present effort to reduce the wages of labor succeeds, and I tbink it wiU, we must expect several years of harder times which wOl impoverish the laborers and em¬ ployers alike. Mayor Hewitt is a very pecuhar person. We have been praising him ever since he delivered that magnificent oration on the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge. Every act of Ms official career has been warmly commended in these columns, yet, because we criticised him for the part he took in tbe Lehigh Valley Coal Combination which provoked the strike he talked about suing us for libel. But, all the same, we admire aud support Mayor Hewitt. It is a refresh¬ ing novelty to have a public officer wbo does not fear the press and can speak bis miud freely even at the risk of offending power¬ ful organizations. He does not seem to care for the Irish or the Germans, the labor unions or the pension-hunting Grtind Army people. Tlie only other man who has been in pubhc life wbo resembles bim is Roscoe Conkling. We have always regretted this statesman's disappearance from pubhc hfe because of his unlikeness to tbe average American politician. He always respected himself too much to flatter or play tbe demagogue. The ex-Senator was not without bis faults, but it will be always remembered to his credit that though he was the leader of his party, and had at his command both power and patronage, he left his seat in the Senate a poor man. Abram S. Hewitt's future is a problem. He has made thousands of enthusiastic personal admirers; but wiU pohticians consider bim available as a candidate for any other office? Wfil they not fear the Irish, the labor unions and the Grand Army, as well as tbe newspaper editors whom be bas snubbed so cavaherly. The death offiChief Justice Waite ;and the great age of the other Justices of. the Supreme Court makes it possible tbat the pohtical complexion of that body wih be radically changed should Mr. Cleve¬ land be re-elected for another four years. It is of vital moment to the nation tbat the Judges of our Court of last resort should be broad-minded jurists with statesmanhke habits of mind. The danger is that President Cleveland wiU appoint lawyers who repre¬ sent the State's right and strict construction of the Constitution school. Speaker Carlisle has been mentioned for Cliief Justice. He is an able man in his way and honest, but his speeches show him to be an extremely narrow legist. There is no evidence tbat he is aware of the changes made by tbe civil war, or the progress through¬ out the world in using governmental authority for tbe good of the community. Judge Cooley has also been mentioned, but he too is a strict constructionist, as his book on " Constitutional Limitations" shows. There is danger that our lawyer rulers will keep us behind other nations in their adherence to precedents and old modes of thought and action. The Grand Jury's presentment on tbe subject of filegal voting was a very disquieting document to all good citizens. Reading between tbe lines and putting it into plain language the implication seems to be tbat there was a conspiracy between tbe criminal classes and the poUce to elect John R. Fellows District-Attorney. Judging from the way things were going we said, previous to the election last November, tliat it made no difference bow our citizens voted. Fel¬ lows was sure to be declared elected. It is even said that we are indebted to the same sinister influences for the very excellent Mayor New York uow possesses. There are hundreds of people who beheve that Heni-y George got tbe plurahty vote forMayor in the election of 1886, but the machine interests were so overpowering that Abram S. Hewitt was counted in in his place. A few elections like the last two, as described by the Grand Jury, migbt result in a Vigilance Committee. ——«—------- Men and TMags. *** J, S. Moore, otherwise known as the Parsee merchant, recently gave a dinner in Washington to Speaker Carlisle and other noted Democratic Con¬ gressmen. The Tribunecorrespondentintimatestliatthe dinner was paid for by British gold, and that Mr. Moore is in the pay of the English free traders. This is a very unhandsome thing to say, but there is certainly a good deal of mystery about this Parsee merchant. He is a German Jew who, it is reported, faded in business in India. Soon after he arrived in this country he obtained employment in the Custom House as an expert in the value of certain specialties. He seemed to have plenty of leisure, and was always on hand in Washington whenever any changes in the tariff were suggested. Although appointed and kept in offlce by a Protectionist Repubhcan administration he was openly an avowed free trader, and was aUowed to write his able and witty Parsee letters in the World newsjiaper of Manton Marble's time without losing his position. It is not believed that Moore is his real name. He has wi-itten a great deal lately for the New York Times on the tariff question, and he is evidently an authority with the Democratic Ways and Means Committee. He was at one tfane associated with James R. Keene in the Silver Cliff and other mining enterprises. Altogether he is a remarkable man, very genial in social intercourse, witty when he wishes to be so in articles contributed to the press, whUe his statis¬ tical abilities and knowledge of the value of manufactured products is something quite remarkable. *** , , We have not scrupled to condemn Jay G-ould when he has been in the wrong. He has done many things which ought to have landed him in States prison. But there are certain features of this Kansas Paciflc bond trust business which looks as if in that case, at least, certain persons were trying to blackmail hira. His own acts have beeu so questionable in the past tbat he is marked out as a prey for adventurous and dishonest legal harpies. Jay Gfould's influence in our courts is waning. There was a time when he couid do as he pleased with our judges, but several years ago he discharged his corps of able and unscrupulous and very costly lawyers as a matter of economy, and now tbe chances are all against him when he goes into court. The '' whirhgig of time brings its revenges," and it is not at all unlikely that the same legal machinery which be has so often used to work injustice to others may yet be manipulated to punish him on some false issue like that raised in this Kansas Pacific bond suit. *** Sales of pictures are tbe rage just at present. Of course Spencer coUec- tions do not make their appearance every season; they are the accidents of a decade. Of the numerous paintings now to be seen, the American Art Galleries pi-esent a fair sample, and the Christian H. Wolff coUection is worth visiting, containing as it does many works of merit. The Jordan L. Mott—Edward Kearney—exhibition was above the general average, the two productions of Bougereau, that of Rosa Bonheur and a few others being wefi worthy of purchase. Many of the pictm-es in these sales brought absurdly low figures. Johnson's rooms on 5th. avenue contain some very good works of the Prench masters, amongst them being " The Ii-onworker's Strike," by Lubin, which was inspired by the French poem, " La Grfevedes Forg^rons." *** If we should ever have Woman's Suft'rage our pohtical canvassers wfil become very personal. This is shown by an episode in connection witb the present gathering of women at Washington to commemorate the beginning of the Woman's Suffrage agitation. It seems that Mrs. Ashton Dilke aud Miss Helen Taylor were both invited to participate. The latter declined, after having first accepted, objecting to th compaQionship of Mr a m m