contained very suggestive tables of "statistics of the wealth, taxation, and public indebtedness" of all the States in the Union. These formidable arrays of figures are very properly prefaced by the careful Superintendent of the Census, General Francis A. Walker, with a caveat as to the degree of confidence to be placed, especially in the estimates of the aggregate value of real and personal property throughout the country. These values are arrived at, under the provision of the Census Law, in two ways. First, by recording the assessed valuation of real estate and personal property in each, for purposes of local taxation; and secondly, by setting down the actual value of each description of property, as estimated by the Deputy Marshals empowered to take the census in each locality. It is the aggregate footings of the returns obtained by each of these processes which are made public in the volume of "social statistics" of the census of 1870.

As the sole value of all statistics whatever is dependent upon their accuracy, the careful student of these tables will be compelled to receive them with a large allowance of scepticism. Considering that no property, of any description, anywhere in the United States, is taxed at its real market value, and that in most States real estate is valued on the tax schedules at rates ludicrously remote from its real value, while the great bulk of personal property is scarcely invoiced at all, it is evident that we can put no faith in the first table of the census-that, namely, which gives the wealth of the States as assessed on the local tax duplicates. Not even the approximate value of property can thus be arrived at, since, in some States, large classes, both of real and of personal property, are exempted from taxation by law, while in other States the same kind of property is taxed. Moreover, in some States, taxed property is assessed at not more than a third of its selling price, while, in others, it is assessed at fifty, seventy-five, or even ninety per cent of its market value. This various usage of States is still further complicated by the diversity of system which prevails in county valuation and assessment within the same State. It is manifest, therefore, that the sole value of any estimate of our public wealth, founded on the figures of these assessments, is to furnish an approximate basis of a valuation of property for taxation merely.

As to the second table of estimates in our census, called the "true value," it being based upon the varying and imperfect judgment of men but little skilled in the work of valuing property, appointed for a temporary enumeration merely, and without any experience which could justly entitle them to be regarded as experts, we apprehend that it is chiefly guess-work, and very poor guess-work at that. Certainly the Superintendent of the Census puts the case none too strongly when he says of the results: "At the best, these figures represent but the opinion of one man, or of a body of men, in each State, acting under advice in the collection of material, and in the calculation of

the several elements of the public wealth." And he elsewhere cautiously expresses himself thus: “The result reached must, at best, be characterized rather as an impression than an opinion."

Let any one try his own hand at an estimate of the wealth of even a dozen of the men best known to him who may have property invested in varied ways, and see how he will come out. Possibly he may come approximately near the facts in some cases, but in others he will do well if he guesses within fifty per cent of the actual worth of the worldly possessions of his neighbors. How much more complicated with liability to error must be the chance estimates of men put to value the property of a whole ward or township, and to return the result in a very few days.

These reflections being premised, we come to the tables of wealth themselves; and the first notable fact about them is the extraordinary discrepancy between the comparative valuations by the census-takers in 1860 and 1870, as between the assessed values of property, and the estimated, or "true value." Thus, the aggregate assessed value of real and personal property in the United States and Territories was, in 1870, $14,178,986,732, while the estimated real value, as returned by the deputy marshals, aggregated $30,068,518,507. This, it will be perceived, is much more than double the assessed values for purposes of taxation. Now let us see what proportion the assessed values have to the census estimates of value in 1860. We find that the aggregate amount of real and personal property assessed that year was $12,084,560,005, and the "true value," as estimated by the census enumerators, was only $16,159,616,068. This gives a ratio of assessed value to real value of about three fourths, whereas in 1870 the census marshals make out a ratio of assessed value to "true value" of less than one half. This surprising result is not alluded to in the statement of the Superintendent of the Census; yet it is sufficient, unexplained, to throw a valid suspicion over the whole tables, considered as a basis of comparison between the years 1860 and 1870.

How much are the people of the United States worth? is a question incapable of accurate solution. The present attempted tabulation of public wealth (in the sense of the aggregate of private wealth) makes nowhere any estimate of the property of the general government, leaving the public lands, as well as all other national property, wholly out of the account. If the United States, without counting the government wealth, are worth, as the census-takers would have us believe, an aggregate of thirty thousand millions of dollars, then our national debt, formidable as it appears, is less than 7 per cent of the gross value of the property owned by our population. Can this be true? There are no figures known to us which can either prove or disprove it conclusively. But it seems sufficiently improbable at first sight.

If we turn from the United States to Great Britain, we are con

fronted by the fact, that while the British census makes no attempt at estimating the property of the people, the independent estimates of statistical writers vary hopelessly and irreconcilably. Mr. J. R. McCulloch lays it down as a dictum, that "sixty years is the shortest time in which the capital of an old and densely peopled country can be expected to be doubled." Yet Joseph Lowe assumes the wealth of the United Kingdom to have doubled in eighteen years, from 1823 to 1841; while George R. Porter, in his widely accredited book on the 'Progress of the Nation," and Leone Levi, a publicist of high reputation, make out (by combining their estimates) that the private wealth of England increased fifty per cent in seventeen years, at which rate it would double in about twenty-nine years, instead of sixty, as laid down by McCulloch. Mr. Levi calculates the aggregate private wealth of Great Britain in 1858 at $29,178,000,000, being a fraction less than the guesses of the census enumerators at the National wealth of the United States twelve years later, in 1870. Can one guess be said to be any nearer the fact than the other? May we not be pardoned for treating all estimates as utterly fallacious that are not based upon known facts and figures? Why do we hear so much of the "approximate correctness" of so many statistical tables, when in point of fact the primary data are incapable of proof, and the averages and conclusions built upon them are all assumed? "Statisticians," says one of the fraternity," are generally held to be eminently practical people: on the contrary, they are more given to theorizing than any other class of writers, and are generally less expert in it."

Are we then to conclude that there are no certainties in human affairs, no statistics capable of verification, no facts that are not to be suspected of being fictions? Are we to take the attitude of the blasé old worldling, and say with him, "there's nothing new nor true, and it's no matter"? Shall we echo, on a larger theatre of affairs, the complaint of that unhappy little girl we read of, who, on discovering beyond doubt or controversy that all things are not what they seem, seriously announced to her mamma, "The world is hollow, and my doll is stuffed with sawdust, and if you please, I would like to be a nun"? Let us hope that there are some things left that are real. In spite of the compound errors, blunders, and assump. tions of too many of the statisticians, it is not to be doubted that we stand on our feet, that the earth is our inheritance, that we live and love, and that problems insoluble by any arithmetic that we possess can afford to wait for their solution. There is a middle ground between the hard Pyrrhonism, which pushes the domain of doubt to such extremes as to lead one to question even his own existence, and that easy credulity that accepts as unquestioned whatever is written down. The true attitude is that of inquiry, of scepticism, not that invincible scepticism which refuses to yield to evidence however

sound, but that which answers to the primary meaning of the word— to weigh, to consider. Remembering that it is ever better to have no opinion at all of a matter than to have a false one, let us hold fast by the intellect, and prove all things before accepting them. Dogmatism, and assertion, and assumption may endure for a day, but the truth only is eternal, and will abide

"Till the earth grows old,

And the stars grow cold,

And the leaves of the judgment book unfold."

THE GERMAN IMPERIAL BANK (REICHSBANK).

[From Crump's English Manual of Banking, London, 1877.]

THE German Imperial Bank is under the supervision of the Government. The capital is 120,000,000 Reichsmarke (about $30,000,000), consisting of 40,000 shares of 3000 Rm. each. The bank buys and sells gold, discounts bills not having more than three months to run, and not less than three (exceptionally two) signatures; makes advances for not longer than three months on specie, on German Government securities up to three fourths of their value, on non-German Government securities up to one half of their value, on bills of exchange up to 90 per cent, or on merchandise up to two thirds of its value. It buys and sells stocks and shares on commission, makes payments and collections, receives money on deposit and valuables for safe custody. Part of its funds may be invested in German Government securities or German railway debentures.

The bank issues notes, of which one third must be covered by gold or German paper money, and two thirds in bills on Germany of not longer currency than three months. The bank is obliged to cash its notes at Berlin in legal money (gold or Reichskassenscheine), and to issue its notes against gold bars at the price of 1392 Rm. per 1 lb.

(2) One fifth of the remainder goes to the reserve fund till the latter reaches 23 per cent of the capital.

(3) Half of what then remains is divided among the shareholders; half goes to the Imperial treasury till the shareholders get 8 per cent. After that the shareholders get one fourth, and the treasury three fourths.

Should the profit be less than 4 per cent, it is brought up to this figure out of the reserve fund.

In 1875 there existed in Germany besides the Bank of Prussia, thirty-two other banks issuing notes under widely different charters. The law of 1875 forbade the circulation of these notes outside the state which had granted the charter, unless these barks submitted to certain rules, the most important of which were (1) always to keep one third of the notes covered by gold, and two thirds by three-months' bills, and (2) to pay the notes at Berlin or Frankfort. Eighteen banks (exclusive of the Reichsbank) submitted to these rules, and consequently their notes are allowed to circulate throughout the whole of the Empire. The other banks either gave up their circulations in favor of the Reichsbank, or continue a local issue.

The notes of the German banks are not legal tender, and the lowest denomination is 100 Reichsmarks ($25).

The German Imperial Bank is located at Berlin, and has 154 branches, scattered widely over Germany.

STRIKES, PAST AND PRESENT.

THE word "strike," as expressing the refusal of workmen to labor on terms offered by employers, is modern, though the act which it denotes is by no means so, as strikes occurred in England more than five centuries ago. Not long after the great plague of 1349, English laborers refused to work for the small wages then current; fruitful crops went to waste for want of harvesters; buildings in course of construction were left unfinished, and even workmen employed on the king's palace deserted their business. Labor could not be had in town or country, except at prices considered ruinous by employers. These strikes of the fourteenth century were succeeded by several repressive statutes rigorously suppressing all combinations of workmen, imposing fines and imprisonment as well as the pillory on all mechanics, servants, or laborers who refused to serve for the former wages. The "statute of labor" of Edward III. provided that every man and woman not possessed of landed property, or other means of livelihood, should work for any employer requiring their labor, at the old rate of wages.

But the general prevalence of strikes or combinations to raise the wages of labor may be said to belong distinctively to the present century. Though most prominent for the last forty years in Great Britain, they belong to no country. Hardly a nation in Europe has been free from striking combinations and trades-unions, and the year 1877 has witnessed the great power and disastrous effects of even suddenly organized strikes upon the great and varied interests of trade and transportation. Those easy-going theorists who fancied that the United States is the one country so favored with vast natural resources, abundant means of living, and good wages for all workers, as that we were insured for all time against the evil effects of strikes, have found reason to amend their opinions.

In Great Britain, where strikes and trades-unions have assumed a magnitude unknown in any other country, the most extensive movements of the workmen in combining against employers occurred between 1850 and 1860. In an account of the lock-out of Operative Engineers in 1851-52, by Thomas Hughes, it is stated that this move