1

2

-12

press the idea of excommunicating for a
secular purpose, was due to no one in par-
ticular, nor, in all probability, when a
word is finally adopted to express electric
traction in a briefer form, shall we know
why or how it captured the universal ear.
As for a veto, it is not lodged anywhere.
We doubt if the whole cultivated class in
combination could have ostracized the
words "bus" or "tram," any more than
the words "mob" or "sham " the latter
of unguessable origin—and they are even
now trying to keep out the word "masher " |
quite in vain. The "man in the street
chooses to have that word, and it will be
added to the language, as will some prob-
ably quite meaningless sound, when we
are all dragged about by the electric force.
It is not even a popular vote which de-
cides, for no vote is ever taken, however
informally; it is only the "man in the
street," the unknown individual who hits
on a sound to express a complex idea -
for example, a tram, though originally a
miners' word probably imported from
Dalecarlia, means, as now used for a
street or road car, a "carriage drawn upon
rails by any other means than steam, over
a road not levelled for the purpose -and
finds, when he has forgotten his own au-
thorship, that he has supplied a public
want. He has attached an audible sound
to an idea, just as an ancestor must have
frequently done before the Tower of Babel
was built; and his fellow-men who want
to communicate audibly, though never
grateful to him any more than they are
grateful to the man who discovered fire,
or to that early speculator who first delib.
erately sowed seed, are relieved by using
his suggestion. If there were ten Acade-
mies, they would go on using it, and care
no more about its origin than they care
for the fact that, in the majority of known
characters, the letter "s was originally
expressed by a snake in some attitude or
other. The idea, like the sound of the
letter, is expressed successfully, and there
they are content to leave it.

It is a very rough and inartistic method
of enriching a language, but we do not
know that it works badly. It bothers the
pundits horribly, quite spoiling their sci-
ence of philological origins; and it must
add something considerable to a foreign-
er's difficulty in acquiring any language,
by flinging at him a number of unaccount-
able vocables which puzzle him like new
slang; but those seem to be the limits of
the mischief. We at least, after much
pondering, cannot recall an unaccountable
word fairly admitted into English which

can be said to have injured the language.
It is very absurd, no doubt, to take a Latin
adjective describing one attribute of a
crowd, cut it in half, and then forever use
it as the English equivalent of the crowd
itself; but for all that, "mob" is a capital
word, with a precise shade of meaning of
its own, and we do not know that either
its arbitrariness or the accidental method
of its formation signifies a great deal.
Words must originally have been selected
with a good deal of arbitrariness, or they
could not have become so different among
races which originally spoke the same
tongue-e.g., the words for a lion used by
different branches of the Aryan family —
and if the sound is euphonious, and repre-
sents to all minds the same idea, we do
not know that we have any just claim to
seek for more. "Skedaddle" would have
been a capital word, and a much-wanted
one, even if there were not a Greek verb
which may be its origin with the sense of
retiring tumultuously; and the imperti-
nently intrusive "I"adds to it just that
flavor of the comic or ridiculous which
belongs naturally to people when they run
away in a fright. The unknown inventor
of that word increased the English, and
therefore the American, capacity of ex-
pression, and was so far a benefactor to
his species; and so have been the invent-
ors of many words the origin of which
nobody now ever discusses, such
"chaff." Our quarrel with the despotism
of the “man in the street," is not about
that, for he sometimes succeeds, and we
do not know that anybody else would.
The learned very seldom help us, except
as to scientific terminology, and in settling
that they are often abominably contemp-
tuous both of euphony and shortness. The
dictionary-makers are detestable author:-
ties, never by any chance knowing whether
a word is wanted or not, and having for
their sole apparent principle that the lan-
guage is never to be enriched. As to

as

the cultivated at large," just look at the mess they are making of their hunt for a short word to express the idea of electric traction, the atrocious barbarisms they are suggesting to us; the way they are spoiling useful old words-fancy stealing such a word as "to coil," and making it drive an electric launch!- and the complete way they are failing after all. Just look at this list of the suggested verbs sent to the Times on Tuesday

:

Volucer.
Glint.

Glance.

Gleam.

512

Hie.
Keppel.

Course.

Jove.

Whirl.

Shoot.

Launch.

Flare.

Eclair.
Whizz.

Whirr.
Crackle.
Wave.

Thor.

Blizz.

guage of its beauty and utility at once. If no word had a definite meaning, we might as well be dumb, and every derogation in the meaning of a word is a direct injury done to language. Sometimes, indeed, the The "man in the street" will beat the cul- "man in the strest" positively degrades a tivated, we may be sure, in the end; and word by attaching to it, nobody knows we only want to protest just now against how, a dishonoring meaning. He has his mischievousness in degrading words. done this almost completely with the word It is his habit to take a good word, per- "mistress," which originally meant alceive its goodness, use it for everything, ways, and still means in poetry, the woman thereby destroying all its value as a sound loved by the man spoken of; and is doing intended to express a definite meaning, it now with such words as "financier and then to leave it in a condition so de- and " politician." The original sense has graded that it is of no use whatever. Who, not quite left them; but a "financier "may after the usage to which it has been sub- now mean an adept in State finance or a jected, is to employ the really beautiful dishonest speculator in money, while a and expressive word "elegant" for any "politician" is rapidly coming into use to purpose whatever; or what can any one do describe, not a man who is immersed in with the adjective "ghastly," with its deep politics, but a man who trades in them. suggestion of the awe and horror that any-We do not know that there is any comthing disembodied must strike into the soul still clothed in flesh, now that it is used by half the young in the sense of contemptible"? According to Dr. Murray, the astounding popular habit of using the word "bloody" is merely an instance of this practice. The "man in the street" takes a word like "blood," in its sense of "pedigree;" and because he thinks pedigree important, makes an intensive adjective of it, then gradually forgets its meaning altogether, and finally uses it as a part blasphemous, part brutal, and part meaningless equivalent for "very." That is an extreme instance, no doubt; but he is always doing it about some word or other, till he takes out of it its greatest value, its peculiar definiteness, - thus, in fact, doing all that he can to deprive lan-nated meaning.

plete remedy against this practice, for not only is there no authoritative referee, but it is the English habit to declare that the value of a word depends on "usage; " but the collective body of journalists might, if they cared to do it, exercise a certain influence. If editors always cut out abominations like "stylist," "scientist," and "paragraphist," contributors would cease to use them; and as regards some at least of these expressions, contributors fill collectively the place of the "man in the street." It is quite hopeless to keep the language stationary, and not desirable either; but we might resist the introduction of useless and cacophonous barbarisms, and the degradation by too frequent use of words with a delicately discrimi

A SERIES of regulations with regard to tional or not. Nothing whatever is said as to patents and designs has just been issued in the rights of a foreigner to patent an invenJapan. All inventors, whose discoveries are tion, but it is presumed that he will not be beneficial or are calculated to improve exist- able to do so. Nor has any provision been ing processes of manufacture, may apply for made for advertising applications for letters letters patent. No patents, however, will be patent. The Patents Bureau is to be the sole granted in the case of articles of food or drink, judge of all cases submitted to it, and from its or in case of medicines. Inventors who do decision there is no appeal; but in certain not receive letters patent are powerless to sue cases, two judges sit with the Bureau and in respect of piracy of their inventions. In assist in deciding whether a patent should be order to register an invention, application granted or not. The duration of a patent is must be made to the Patents Bureau, and if to be five, ten, or fifteen years, according to the officials are satisfied as to the genuineness the amount paid in fees. The patent, of of the invention, it is registered, on certain course, passes by assignment inter vivos, or to forms being complied with and certain fees the patentee's heir, but nothing is provided paid. A curious omission occurs in the regu- for the cases of bankruptcy or marriage. lations, but it is not plain whether it is inten

Nature.

For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage.

Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co.

Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents.

From The Contemporary Review. OUGHT THE REFERENDUM TO BE INTRODUCED INTO ENGLAND?

BY PROFESSOR A. V. DICEY.

It is a question for us Englishmen to consider whether it would be possible and advantageous to introduce the referendum at home. For instance, it might well be that such a vexatious question as Home Rule for Ireland could once for all be settled one way or the other, by a vote of the whole electoral body in the United Kingdom. We merely throw this out as a suggestion, but of course the conditions of Great Britain are very different from those of Switzerland, where the nation is so eminently democratic, and where the referendum has been habitually employed for a variety

of local matters.*

I.

515

THE referendum may be roughly defined as the reference to all vote-possessing citizens of the Confederation for their acceptance or rejection, of laws passed by their representatives in the Federal As sembly.*

Under the Swiss Constitution as amended or re-enacted in 1874, all legislation of the Federal Parliament is or may be subject to the referendum,† but an important distinction is drawn between laws which do, and laws which do not, effect changes in the Constitution.

In Switzerland, as in England, the Constitution can always be revised or altered by the National Parliament. But in Switzerland no law which revises the Constitution, either wholly or in part, can come into force until it has been regularly submitted by means of the referendum to the vote of the people, and has been ap proved both by a majority of the citizens who on the particular occasion give their votes, and also by a majority of the Cantons. With the elaborate provisions which secure that under certain circumstances a vote of the people shall be taken, not only on the question whether a particular amendment or revision of the Constitution approved by the Federal Assembly shall or shall not come into force, but also on the preliminary question whether any revision or reform of the Constitution shall take place at all, we need for our

These are the words of the only Englishman who has treated of modern Swiss politics both with adequate knowledge and with perfect impartiality. They will not in the long run fall unheeded on the public ear. The British Constitution, while preserving its monarchical form, has for all intents and purposes become a Parliamentary democracy. When this fact with all its bearings is once clearly perceived by Englishmen, theorists and politicians will assuredly ask themselves what may be the effect, for good or bad, of transplanting to England the newest and the most popular among the institutions of the single European State where the experiment of democratic government has, though tested by every possible difficulty, turned out a striking, and, to all appear-present purpose hardly trouble ourselves.

ance, a permanent, success.

My aim in this article is (following out the line of thought suggested by Sir Francis Adams), to examine three questions: first, what is the nature of the Swiss referendum? secondly, whether it be possible to introduce the principle of the referendum into the world of English politics; and, thirdly, whether such introduction would be beneficial to the nation? †

Adams, Swiss Confederation, p. 87.

↑ The referendum is throughout this article described only in its broadest outline, for Englishmen are much more concerned with the principle of the Swiss institution than with the particular constitutional mechanism by which effect is given to the principle in Switzerland. Whoever desires further information should consult, among other authorities, Adams's "Swiss Confederation," cap. vi.; Orelli's "Das Staaterecht der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft, pp. 79, 80, 83-88; Con

What Englishmen should note is that when any law, or as we should say bill, amending the Constitution has passed the

stitution Fédérale, arts. 89, 90, and 121; and also a notice of Adams's work in the LIVING AGE, No. 2384, this article treated of all but exclusively as a part of the p. 579. The referendum, it should also be noted, is in Swiss Federal or National Constitution. It exists, however, and flourishes as a local institution in all but one or two Cantons. A competent English observer who should report minutely upon the working of the referendum as a cantonal institution, and especially at Zurich, would render a service of inestimable value to all students of political science.

See Adams, p. 76.

† See Constitution Fédérale, arts. 89, 118-121. Swiss authorities do not apparently apply the term "referendum" to the popular sanction required for the validity of any revision of the Constitution under Const. Fed., art. 121. It is, however, clear that the popular assent which is required for all constitutional amendments partakes of the nature of a referendum.