of their importations. That, and that only, so far as I can see, has been the result of a policy remorselesly pursued throughout the last four years, and which, at every stage of its progress, has been accompanied by bankruptcy of savings banks, insurance companies, and other moneyed institutions, to the utter ruin of thousands and tens of thousands of depositors and stockholders, men and women, wives and children; by a destruction of railroad property, and impoverishment of its holders that counts by thousands of millions; by a collapse of that coal region which had given to the Union, in the time of its greatest need, nearly all the force required for maintaining the blockade, for running our mills and furnaces, for enabling our people to contribute to the revenue; by a destruction of demand for labor, that causes hundreds of thousands of men and women to remain idle when they would desire to be employed; by an almost entire annihilation of that immigration to which we ought at this moment to be becoming daily more and more indebted for importation of working men and women whose annual value to the nation counted by hundreds of millions; by a decay of moral feeling consequent upon the daily increasing difficulty of obtaining food, clothing and shelter by any exertion of honest effort; by an almost entire disappearance of that activity and energy which prevailed among our people when they were animated by hope-by that faith in the future which has now, by aid of successive finance ministers who have followed in the footsteps of Secretary McCulloch, given way to an almost universal feeling of despair; and by a total disappearance of that national self-respect which had existed when, setting at defiance the threats of foreign bankers, our people in the days of its most serious trouble, gave to their government all the aid it needed, and thus established a monetary independence such as we never before had known, and whose destruction has, by Secretary McCulloch and his successors to the present hour, been since so sedulously sought. Moving steadily upward, we now find states, that until now have been only in default, enacting laws looking toward absolute repudiation of public debts, the tendency in that direction rapidly increasing as irredeemable tokens are made to take the place of an admirable fractional currency, and as, in default of the smaller greenbacks, business men find themselves more and more driven to the broker's shop, as the place where their exchanges must be made. How the advance in the direction now so obviously in progress has been brought about, and what are the prospects as regards its further progress from counties and cities to states, and from states to the nation, will be shown in a further paper.* HENRY C. CAREY. BOLLES' INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.t HE encyclopedic title-page belongs to a different work from THE that “Financial History of United States," of which Mr. Bolles recently favored us with the very interesting chapter on Robert Morris. It is a work of perhaps a more popular character and a wider range of interest; indeed, there is no American who will not find in it information of a sort which is not readily accessible elsewhere. We have been repeatedly asked where such a work was to be obtained, but we have never come upon any other which fills the place it occupies. The author has evidently aimed at being full, correct and clear, without attempting to be exhaustive. He has sought to hit the happy medium which will coincide with popular interest, without * As this sheet is passing through the press, the journals of the day bring advice that Missouri has added herself to the list of states that have, by legislative act, sanctioned repudiation of county obligations. Among the causes of this may, perhaps, be found the fact, as given us by Western journals, that in a single county of that state, the sheriff's advertisement of sales for the month of March embraced no less than three hundred and thirty farms and other bodies of land, the property of men who could neither pay taxes nor interest on their obligations. + BOLLES' INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time; being a complete survey of American Industries, embracing Agriculture and Horticulture, (including the cultivation of Cotton, Tobacco, Wheat); the raising of Horses, Neat Cattle, etc.; all the important Manufactures, Shipping and Fisheries, Railroads, Mines and Mining, and Oil; also a history of the Coal Miners and the Molly Maguires; Banks, Insurance, and Commerce; Trade Unions, Strikes and Eight-Ilour Movement; together with a description of Canadian Industries. In seven books. Copiously illustrated with about three hundred engravings by the most eminent artists. By Albert S. Bolles, Lecturer on Political Economy in Boston University, and Author of "The Conflict between Labor and Capital," and "Chapters in Political Economy." (Pp. x., 936; large 8vo.) Norwich, (Conn.): the Henry Bill Publishing Company. 1879. either wearying attention or leaving curiosity unsatisfied. Specialists may not find here the abundance of details they might desire; but neither will they be repelled by vague statements or inaccurate descriptions. The work is one which must have cost the author a vast amount of labor. We can assert this from experience, as we once were obliged to go over a part of the same ground, with the aid of the best library on such subjects in America, and with results far more meagre than he has to show. The first book is taken up with our agriculture, and some related topics. It traces the history from the Indian period to our own days, and gives some curious information about the state of things in the early Colonies,—such as the experiments in introducing European and even tropical plants in New England. We miss, in his account of cotton-growing in the South, the facts in regard to its importance as a substitute for indigo-growing, and the tariff so long imposed for its protection. These Mr. Edward Everett took pains to put in a strong light before his countrymen. The treatment of each of the great staples, as well as improvements in agricultural implements, from the rude Indian hoe to the latest plows and reapers, are noticed and illustrated, as are the improved breeds of cattle and other stock. The second book occupies about a third of the whole work, and is devoted to our manufactures, beginning with those of Iron and Steel. "There appears to be no other country so fortunately endowed with respect to iron and coal. England, now the resource of Europe and Asia, and once of America, supplies at present half the iron and coal of the world; but her mines are deep and difficult, costly to work, while in the United States they lie upon the top of the ground or near it." The manufacture began in Virginia before the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth. It was early attempted in Massachusetts and other states, the Catalan forge, as improved in Alsatia, being used. Pennsylvania, so marvellously stored with materials for iron-making, did not begin the manufacture till 1717, the year before William Penn's death." Forty years of repression of the manufacture, by English legislation, helped to form a sentiment in favor of independence, by stopping its growth. But when independence was achieved, the general government "had no power to initiate a policy of the proper sort; and a period of six years followed, during which the country was flooded with cheap manufactures from England." In the first Congress of the United States, "the first law passed was one in relation to official oaths; the second, an act for the protection of American industries and for revenue." "The history of iron-making from 1789 down to 1878 might be divided into eras coinciding with the changes in the principle on which the tariff has been framed. . . . . . These changes brought about periods of alternate depression and prosperity in the iron-industry. . . . Whenever the tariff has been lowered, the fires have gone out in scores of furnace-stacks and rolling mills throughout the country, and workingmen have been thrown out of employment. Several times, as in 1820, the business has been in a state of ruin." We quote these sentences as samples of the tone and character of the work. We have not room to dwell on the clear and satisfactory account of the various manufactures from metals, including machinery. He notices the growing taste for solid silverware in the United States, and the splendid orders received for it, whose influence is reflected in Tiffany's unexpected triumphs in Paris. Passing to textile fabrics, we are especially interested in the account of our woolen manufacture. Every great war has found us unable to clothe our own troops. In the Revolution, leather was used to some extent; in later struggles, including that of the Rebellion, we have had recourse to the looms of Europe. (The very flags under which the struggle for the Union was fought, were of English material, and English manufacture throughout.) But under the present tariff, this reproach has been taken away. The temporary suspension of cotton weaving, stimulated that of woolens. In this department our own state now stands second, only Massachusetts producing more. The manufacture of linen is conspicuous by its absence. The third book, on Shipping and Railroads, is much briefer. includes a chapter on Fisheries, in which we are glad to see the infamous Halifax award properly characterized. That on Railroads is very properly illustrated from the greatest and best managed line in the world, the Pennsylvania Railroad. The fourth book, on Mines and Mining, is perhaps the most attractive to the general reader. No other industry is so fascinating, both for the mysterious dangers with which the miner's life is sur rounded, and from the risks and possibilities of vast gains which accompany it. Mr. Bolles makes good use of these points of interest. The fifth and sixth books are occupied with Banking, Insurance and Commerce, and with Trades Unions and the Eight Hour Movement. In these, Mr. Bolles is on his own special ground, appropriated by long study. Of course he confines himself to the historical aspects of these subjects, reserving theoretical discussions to a more appropriate place. And no one who is at all interested in them, will fail to learn something from his narrative. The last book is very brief, as it is occupied merely with the peculiar features of Canada's undeveloped industries, The statistical part of the work is very full and carefully prepared. It furnishes, in many cases, food for reflective thought, as in the exhibit that 208,344,263 acres of our soil have been voted by Congress to railroads, since the first example of this bad practice was set in the charter of the Illinois Central, in 1850. But the fact that less than a fifth of these lands have been patented, suggests the hope that some of them may be reclaimed by expiration of time. Similarly suggestive are the figures of American tonnage engaged in the foreign trade, showing the falling off in the period 1861-5, because of the transfer of American vessels to foreign flags. The whole book seems to us most valuable and suggestive, as a survey of what we are accomplishing, and an exhibit of our deficiencies. It is the only American book we know of which holds the mirror up to our natural industries, and, by leading to a comparison with those of other lands, points the way to still farther achievements. It embodies more of the nation's real history than do many more pretentious works; for, after all, the story of American life has been transacted in the work-shop, rather than in the forum or on the battle-field. The national energy has borne fruit in great inventions, and in the accumulations of patient and silent toil. Our greatest names are those of the great inventors,-the one nobility before whom the nation bows. We do not say that this is the best and highest life for a nation, but it is our life as yet. It may reach greater heights of achievement, but these were worth the ascent. Out of the work-shop may come forth philosophers, as from those of Greece; artists, as from those of Italy; moral teachers, as from those of England. But the workshop, even without |