SOCIOLOGICAL RECORD. UNDER this head we propose briefly to note, from time to time, such facts and figures as come to our notice which illustrate sociological principles, or bear on sociological questions. UNITED STATES. 1. LAWS-ENACTED. TRUE LEGISLATION. The National Congress has, by a nearly four-fifths vote, submitted the following amendments to the Constitution for ratification or rejection by the State legislatures: ARTICLE XIV. SECTION 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. SEC. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. SEC. 3. No person shall be a senator or representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability. SEC. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations, and claims, shall be held illegal and void. SEC. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. They are intended as a partial settlement of the questions growing out of the war. They have thus far not been rejected by a single legislature. Congress has passed : An amendment to the Appropriation bill, raising the pay of members of Congress to $5,000. The Speaker of the House will receive $8,000. A law regulating the choice of senators. It provides : SECTION 1. That the legislature of each State which shall be chosen next preceding the expiration of the time for which any senator was elected to represent said State in Congress, shall, on the second Tuesday after the meeting and organization thereof, proceed to elect a senator in Congress in the place of such senator so going out of office in the following manner: Each house shall openly, by a viva voce vote of each member, present the name of one person for senator in Congress from said State, and the name of the person so voted for who shall have a majority of the whole number of votes cast in each house shall be entered on the journal of each house by the clerk or secretary thereof; but if either house shall fail to give such majority to any person on said day, that too shall be entered on the journal. At 12 o'clock, meridian, of the day following that on which the proceedings are required to take place, as aforesaid, the members of the two houses shall convene in joint assembly, and the journal of each house shall then be read; and if the same person shall have received a majority of all the votes in each house, such person shall be declared duly elected senator to represent said State in the Congress of the United States; but if the same person shall not have received a majority of the votes in each house, or if either house shall have failed to take proceedings as required by this act, the joint assembly shall then proceed to choose by a viva voce vote of each member present a person for the purpose aforesaid, and the person having a majority of all the votes of the said joint assembly, a majority of all the members elected to both houses being present and voting, shall be declared duly elected; and in case no person shall receive such majority on the first day, the joint assembly shall meet at 12 o'clock each day during the session and take at least one vote until a senator be elected. SEC. 2. That whenever, on the meeting of the legislature of any State, a vacancy shall exist in the representation of such State in the Senate of the United States, said legislature shall proceed, on the second Tuesday after the commencement of its session, to elect a person to fill such vacancy in the manner hereinbefore provided for the election of a senator for a full term; and if a vacancy shall happen during the session of the legislature, then on the second Tuesday after the legislature shall have been organized, and shall have notice of such vacancy. SEC. 3. That it shall be the duty of the governor of the State from which any senator shall have been chosen as aforesaid to certify his election, under the seal of the State, to the President. of the Senate of the United States, which certificate shall be countersigned by the Secretary of State of the State. The day whereon senators must be chosen is now fixed, though not uniform, throughout the country. It is no longer allowable to choose senators for two or three terms at once. A minority can neither make nor prevent a choice. Providing for the voluntary introduction of the metric system of weights and measures. Providing for the codification of the customs laws. To protect the lives of passengers in steam-vessels. Declaring all the railroads in the country public highways, and authorizing them as such to carry mails, passengers, freight, &c. This strikes down the Camden and Amboy monopoly, but does not exempt the Illinois Central road from its bargain to carry soldiers and munitions of war free. Permitting the erection of telegraphs on all mail routes. Congress has adopted many of the suggestions of the Revenue Commission in the new tax law. OVER-LEGISLATION. A new Tariff, which contains the following provisions : The first section imposes a duty on cigars, cigarettes, and cheroots of one dollar fifty cents per pound weight and fifty per cent. ad valorem; on cotton, three cents per pound; on all compounds of which distilled spirits form a part, a duty not less than that imposed. The fourth section repeals the fishing bounties, and gives in lieu thereof a drawback on salt. Section five authorizes goods destined for the British Provinces or the Republic of Mexico to pass free through the Custom-Houses at Boston, New York, or other ports, subject to rules prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury. Section seven prescribes the conditions under which persons who have been overcharged by Collectors of Customs may receive the surplus. The tenth section allows the free importations of machinery for making beet-sugar for one year. The eleventh section adds the Internal Revenue tax to imported goods once exported, upon which a drawback was allowed at the time of exportation. The twelfth and last section authorizes the suspension of the collection of the direct tax in the Rebel States. The Legislature of Connecticut has established a State Board of Agriculture, which has elected T. S. Gold, of West Cornwall, Secretary. The Board consists of the Governor, four members at large, and one from each County Agricultural Society. The annual meeting will take place on the first Tuesday in June. The Secretary is to visit all fairs, and collect and diffuse valuable information. Congress has made an appropriation to pay expenses of exhibiting American productions at the World's Fair. 2. LAWS-PROPOSED. TRUE LEGISLATION. The House of Representatives has passed bills establishing Equal Suffrage in the Territories and the District of Columbia. In the latter an educational qualification was rejected. The bills were postponed by the Senate till next winter. Movements are making in Congress to render the civil service non-partisan by competitive examination and appointment dur ing good behavior. They have found shape in the following bill reported by the Judiciary Committee of the Senate; but this has not yet become a law: SECTION 1. That no officer of the United States appointed on the nomination of the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall be removable, except by the same agencies which concurred in his appointment; provided, that in cases of disability or misconduct, the President may suspend the disabled or defaulting officer, and designate some other to perform the duties until the Senate shall have had an opportunity of acting on it-the President to report the facts of the case to the Senate within thirty days after its next meeting. SEC. 2. No person appointed to an office, the time of which is limited by law to a fixed period, and until a successor shall be appointed and qualified, shall be permitted to hold or exercise the duties of such office exceeding thirty days after the fixed period for which he was appointed has expired; and, whenever practicable, it will be the duty of the appointing power to appoint a successor to take possession of the office at the termination of the fixed period. SEC. 3. Provides that in case of a vacancy during the recess of the Senate, the President shall nominate a person to fill said vacancy within thirty days after the meeting of the Senate succeeding the happening of the vacancy, and no such vacancy which has been held by granting a commission to expire at the end of the next session of the Senate shall be filled after the close of the session, except by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and the expiration of the commission as provided by the Constitution "at the end of the session," shall not be construed as creating a new vacancy which the President is authorized to fill without the advice and consent of the Senate. SEC. 4. Provides that the President shall not be authorized to fill vacancies during the recess of the Senate, unless they happen during the recess by death, resignation, expiration of term, or other casualty not depending on the will or action of the President. The House of Representatives has passed a National Bankrupt Law, which now awaits action by the Senate. Interested parties have made great efforts to defeat it, and have secured its postponement. Congress has passed laws admitting Colorado and Nebraska as States. The President has withheld his approval from both on |