allowed to use and charge for these sources at its own will. All that may be said about the inviolability of private property, that these sources are only made available through the application of private capital, or that enterprise should be fostered and encouraged, falls upon unheeding ears, because the simplest minded cannot fail to see that these claims must be made subordinate to the common welfare; and a community, through the proper authorities, must be allowed to protect itself. In other words, that selfprotection is the first law of nature for the body politic as for individuals.

Before referring to the proper method to accomplish this protection, let us for a moment point out what we deem the serious mistake committed by the Spring Valley Company. In a general way, this has been its extreme litigiousness—its constant disposition to stand upon what it has considered the strict letter of its legal rights; as noted above, Ensign and his associates, as private individuals—and this is to be particularly noted-obtained a franchise to lay down pipes in the streets; and also the privilege of having their water rates fixed by a board of arbitrators, in the choice of the members of which they had an equal voice with the city. Here was distinctly a contract between the State and Ensign, and his associates and assigns, which could not be impaired by any subsequent constitutions or legislation. The company succeeded to this contract, and stood in the shoes of Ensign, also protected against its impairment. Good judgment would have suggested that the company should have stood by this conBut about the year 1869, the city claimed that the Ensign act required his successors not only to furnish the water necessary to extinguish fires, but also for other "municipal purposes." The company, on the contrary, insisted that their duty was limited to the fire supply. The Supreme Court sustained the Company's construction of the act, but also held that the statute required that in case another company should introduce, or had introduced, water into the city after the passage of the Ensign act, then

tract.

Ensign and his successors would be obliged to furnish to the city, free of cost, their quota of whatever water the city might need for all purposes. The case went back to the lower court to be tried, when suddenly the Spring Valley Company shifted its ground; whether the fact that the old San Francisco Water Works by introducing water into the city had furnished the contingency which made it incumbent upon the Spring Valley Company to furnish free water to the city for all purposes, or whether some other reason was the moving cause, is not clear. All at once the water company itself took the point that the Ensign act was unconstitutional; because, in providing towards its close that the act should not take effect unless Ensign and his associates should, within sixty days after its passage, organize themselves into a corporation, it in effect created a corporation by a special law, which is forbidden in the Constitution. This point was strenuously urged by the company, and vigorously opposed by the city. The Supreme Court decided the act unconstitutional. In seeking to destroy the Ensign statute, the water company made a very serious, one might say fatal, mistake. It cut from under itself sure ground, upon which it might have stood; because the terms of the law furnished a contract which the subsequent change in the Constitution could not have affected. Of course it may be said that if the law was unconstitutional it could never furnish any protection; but it must be remembered that it was the company itself which, as it were, dug this point out of an obscure part of the law, and, through able counsel, pressed it upon the attention of the court. Now, courts do not go about hunting reasons to declare statutes unconstitutional; they decide a law to be in conflict with the fundamental pact reluctantly, and only when the point is distinctly presented. It is fair to presume that if the company had not thus forced the issue it would never have come to the front.

The company thought itself in a better position behind the general water act of 1858, under which it was incorporated.

THE controversy as to the respective status of the English and the American novel is in itself a flimsy one, and hardly worth noticing; but the subject controverted is by no means flimsy. It will be for generations one of the standard themes of criticism, like the Elizabethan development of the drama, or the drying-up of literary fountains after the Restoration; that is, the divergence in fictionwriting on the two sides of the Atlantic, with the growth of an unmistakably new school on this side, is, for good or ill, an epoch-making phenomenon, and as such must have an important place in literary history. England has long been looking for the American school of fiction that was to come; she expected it to be a sort of John Baptist, in camel's hair and with a leathern girdle-or rather, to suit his new environment, in war-paint and feathers; and while she said, "Lo, here, Fenimore Cooper," and "Lo, there, Bret Harte," the real American school was slowly developing itself through the American elements of Hawthorne, through Mrs. Stowe, through a host of magazine tale-writers-perhaps even through the fancy of the daily press for humorous realism; and in Howells and James finally took form to be seen and talked about as a school.

What is the "American school of fiction," then? It is not unfair to say that it includes every living American novelist or story-writer of what may be called first-class magazine rank. Its characteristic trait is usually set down roughly as "realism." But it has other essential qualities which make its realism different from that of the French or Russian, or of some English novels of the day. Its irreproachable morale, of course, is one distinction; but that is a quality it has in common with almost the whole body of American literature. Its seriousness of artistic intention is a far more characteristic trait; the most ordinary American magazine story is written in good faith to an artistic ideal, however crudely the ideal be realized. This is undoubtedly true of great work in all countries and times; the peculiarity is that in American fiction it should be true of small work; and this is one of the traits that gives great hopefulness to the prospects of this art among us. Another, and a still more characteristic trait, is the observation of human nature by its differences rather than by its resemblances. Local color counts for much with us; our stories might all be called studies of phases of human nature, of types of humanity. Indeed, "type" and "phase" have become such convenient words to the critic, such certain keys to the editor's or publisher's attention, that they are in danger of going the way of all too convenient words, and, like "culture," dropping as cant out of fastidi

ous vocabularies. He who can truthfully describe the human being of any special environment, either as to his inner character or his external diction, appearance, manner, he is our successful novelist. That the reader's pleasure consists in finding under these differences common human nature, there is no doubt; but the author's method is to specialize his types. All this is only saying that fiction of the American school consists strictly of "studies"-however faulty, however ridiculously far from a faithful copy of life, still studies.

AND present English fiction? For a fair comparison, we must take only that which shows present tendency, not that which is the lingering remnant of past traits. In William Black, and in a less degree in Thomas Hardy, we see the same general artistic ideal as in the American school; yet even they write with much more waiving of realistic accuracy for the sake of effect than the best of the Americans; they strive for "atmosphere" and for situations. Putting these two men out of the question, what English pen is touched to paper today in fiction-writing with regard for the art as an art-as a poet would write, or an artist paint, or a musician compose? The names that in England correspond in rank to our American magazine story-writers are such as James Payn, F. W. Robertson, Mrs. Oliphant. That these are the typical English novelists of the present, as distinguished from even the immediate past, no one can deny; the great bulk (and it is enormous) of respectable, middle-class English fiction follows in their line. No neater expression was ever turned with regard to them than Charles Dudley Warner's hope that the patent for the English machine-novel would never be imported to America. These writers can turn out a given number of books in a given time; they do not seem to need any new characters, and no essentially new environments. Anthrony Trollope was probably the best of them, and among the earliest; but their evolution is not easy to understand. Dickens did not create them, nor Thackeray, nor George Eliot, nor even Charles Reade these are now of a past generation. In spite of a ludicrous recent criticism as to what a real artist like James Payn would have done with "The House of a Merchant Prince," they are almost absolutely devoid of the art spirit. Yet they are more quiet, sensible, unobjectionable, than a majority of the American stories. The two schools compare as the custom-made products of a good chromo factory and the studies from an art school that range from hopeless failure to genius.

No one will doubt that the future development of art lies rather with the community that has an art school than the community that has a good chromo factory. It will be a curious spectacle, and, as we have said, one of great significance in literary history, if the center of development of the art of fictionstill the youngest and least developed of the artsis to be moved, for a time at least, across the Atlantic, as the center of musical development has moved from Italy to Germany.

THE result of the Charter election in San Francisco is a great disappointment to all those who have been active in seeking to promote the welfare of the city. There are excellent features in the work of the fifteen freeholders. The one-dollar limit to taxation is an imperative incentive to economy, and the inhibition against incurring debts beyond the year's in come is a constant check upon the almost irresistible disposition of local bodies to run up liabilities without regard to available resources. Then again, the power given to any citizen to cause improper payments from the city treasury to be investigated, the reduction in the number of offices, and the civil service clauses are all distinctively in the direction of decent, and what is of vital moment, cheap, government. Moreover, the entire city press, with one or two exceptions, was in favor of the proposition. Yet it was apparent from the beginning of the labors of the freeholders that there was wide-spread apathy concerning their work. It is difficult to satisfactorily account for this frame of mind, unless it be that a very large number of the citizens do not care anything about municipal affairs; and we are inclined to think such is the case.

Now and then you can stir them up, but it is generally only when some personal question is involved. Most people can only take an interest in politics when it takes on, as it were, a concrete form-when some particular individual is to be discussed and voted for and against. An abstract proposition, such, for instance, as a complicated scheme for a city government, is "caviare to the general." Fifty out of every hundred will not bother their heads about it, and these fifty will most likely be of the more intelligent classes-the merchants of all grades, the master mechanics, the professional men. In truth, these classes have substantially abdicated in favor of

the classes which have the least property interest in the city. As it will be impossible to frame a charter fit to live under which will not contain some features which will excite the prejudices of those who control the politics of the city, it may be set down that San Francisco will not have a new charter for many years to come.

THE legislature, which has just adjourned as we write, was a fairly decent body of men. It is too early as yet to judge of its work critically. The Senate appears to have been the more conservative of the two houses, and to have had in it more men of talent. One could not but be struck, in looking at the personnel of the Assembly, with the youth of so many of its members: so very many of them appeared to be youngsters not very far away from their teens.

Notwithstanding this apparent callowness, there was really less of crudity in the debates than usual. This is a hopeful sign, a possible presage that the new generation is less possessed with cacathes loquendi than the older one. There is certainly a decay in the art of stump-speaking and its cognate art, legislative oratory. The Websterian and Clay legend is declining in potency. Legislative and other deliberative bodies now demand more directness, more practicalness, than in former times. Probably one reason, and a controlling one, for this change of taste is, that the powerful emotional element furnished by the slavery debates has been taken out of our politics. Nowadays, the emotional stimulus is furnished almost entirely by the alleged wickedness of the corporations. If you can make people believe that they are oppressed, or that a great wrong is being committed, you have material for an appeal to the passions. A very large number of people on this coast believe they are oppressed by the railroad corporations. This is sufficient to furnish the "burning question." It is not surprising, therefore, that the best speaking in the legislature was on the railroad questions, notably concerning the resolutions protesting against the consolidation of the Southern California and Texas railroads. Still, with all its talent, with all its budding promises, the people are very glad that our Constitution did not permit this body of statesmen to draw pay beyond sixty days.

Bancroft's Mexico.1

In accordance with Mr. Bancroft's plan of chronological order in his histories, this first volume of the History of Mexico follows next upon the first volume of the History of Central America. It will be seen by the briefness of the period-five years covered by this volume of seven hundred pages, that the single subject of the Spanish Conquest has been sufficient to fill this and extend over into a future volume. The aboriginal history of Mexico, covering the whole ground up to this point, was included in the "Native Races."

It will be remembered by those who have read any of the many published accounts of the Bancroft Library, that it is specially complete in Mexican material, owing to the purchase of various collections, The prefixed bibliography, accordingly, though abou ninety pages in length, is condensed by the omission of all minor authorities, and of all mentioned or to be mentioned in the bibliographies of the other volumes on Mexico.

The existence already of one standard work in English on the period covered by this volume makes the work of the historian more difficult; and it is probable that Mr. Bancroft would not have taken up the Conquest of Mexico had it not been naturally and necessarily included in his series. As it is, the necessary reference to the comparison with Pres cott's work into which his own must come is courteous ly made: "Prescott's opportunities for consulting new material were vastly superior to those of his predecessors. If mine have been correspondingly greater, it may perhaps to some extent be due to the example set by him in his earnest researches, and because since the publication of his volumes private individuals and learned societies have striven with increased enthusiasm to bring to light hidden material."

The

Specialists in this same line of research will undoubtedly be able to find minor points of inaccuracy in this as in the Central America; as a whole, it will stand its ground as the completest epitome of research on the subject now available. It must be regarded simply as a recital of facts: the estimates of character, though fair, are not profound; and philosophy of history, as the modern school of historianssay Freeman-understand it, there is none. whole philosophy conveyed by the occasionally interspersed "reflections" in the volume may be summed up about as follows: The Aztecs deserved destruction for the cruelties of their religion and the tyranny of their government; yet by the cruelties of the conquest, Cortes showed his Christianity to be no 1 The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft. Vol. IX. History of Mexico, Vol. I. 1516-1521.

better-rather worse; nevertheless, all that did happen was inevitably incident to the possession of this continent by medieval Christianity. This impartial distribution of blame to Aztec, Spaniard, and destiny would doubtless be acquiesced in by the profoundest philosopher, as far as it goes; and to add that the philosopher would not stop there is hardly pertinent; for in the face of Mr. Bancroft's repeated declaration that he attempts nothing but a compendium of the facts gathered from his collections, it is absurd to insist upon criticising his deficiency in that which he has never undertaken to do. One must look elsewhere for the study of history as a branch of the study of evolution, the consideration of human society almost as an organism instead of an organization, developing to this, experiencing that, by the inevitable play of deep forces.

As a

A thing for which the author should be held responsible, however, is the literary style of his book. There certainly is not to be found here either the narrative charm, the vividness, vigor, or fluency of the best historical literature; but the account is, as a whole, simple, straightforward, business-like. whole, we say: occasionally, as in previous volumes, one finds himself face to face with a sentence-rarely a paragraph-of the unfortunate "fine writing," every word of which should have been sternly elided before the work was ever allowed to go to press. Probably this is as bad as any: "For in the vast evolvings of their fast, unfathomable destiny, they were now all like sea-gulls poised in mid-air while following a swiftly flying ship." Araçat

This branch of our criticism we can hardly touch candidly without taking into account Mr. Bancroft's methods of compilation, and the somewhat exaggerated newspaper controversy that has been going on about them. To the reviewer, indeed, it makes little difference whether the author has written a given sentence directly or by proxy; by accepting it as his own, and so publishing it, he has made himself responsible for it. But, on the other hand, it is not true that the method of doing literary work-whether Hawthorne's or Bancroft's-is none of the critic's business. One might as well say, like Horace Greeley, that, having the modern languages ready-made to our use, it is none of our business to pry into the dead ones that produced them or into their process of growth. Such inquiries are in much better taste when posthumous than when contemporary; but once opened, they should be pursued to a fair conclusion. Where a man, retiring from business, devotes his whole time as it is well known in San Francisco Mr. Bancroft does-to organizing, training, and supervising a corps of writers, whose work, however