press the idea of excommunicating for a secular purpose, was due to no one in particular, 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 probably quite meaningless sound, when we are all dragged about by the electric force. It is not even a popular vote which decides, 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 authorship, 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 Academies, 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 science of philological origins; and it must add something considerable to a foreigner's difficulty in acquiring any language, by flinging at him a number of unaccountable 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 represents 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 impertinently 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 expression, and was so far a benefactor to his species; and so have been the inventors 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 contemptuous both of euphony and shortness. The dictionary-makers are detestable authorities, never by any chance knowing whether a word is wanted or not, and having for their sole apparent principle that the language is never to be enriched. As to 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: — as 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 word by attaching to it, nobody knows how, a dishonoring meaning. He has done this almost completely with the word The "man in the street" will beat the cul-"man in the street" positively degrades a tivated, we may be sure, in the end; and we only want to protest just now against his mischievousness in degrading words. It is his habit to take a good word, per-"mistress," which originally meant alceive its goodness, use it for everything, thereby destroying all its value as a sound intended to express a definite meaning, and then to leave it in a condition so degraded that it is of no use whatever. Who, after the usage to which it has been subjected, is to employ the really beautiful and expressive word "elegant" for any purpose whatever; or what can any one do with the adjective "ghastly," with its deep suggestion of the awe and horror that anything 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. ways, and still means in poetry, the woman 66 66 A SERIES of regulations with regard to patents and designs has just been issued in Japan. All inventors, whose discoveries are beneficial or are calculated to improve existing processes of manufacture, may apply for letters patent. No patents, however, will be granted in the case of articles of food or drink, or in case of medicines. Inventors who do not receive letters patent are powerless to sue in respect of piracy of their inventions. In order to register an invention, application must be made to the Patents Bureau, and if the officials are satisfied as to the genuineness of the invention, it is registered, on certain forms being complied with and certain fees paid. A curious omission occurs in the regulations, but it is not plain whether it is inten tional or not. Nothing whatever is said as to the rights of a foreigner to patent an invention, but it is presumed that he will not be able to do so. Nor has any provision been made for advertising applications for letters patent. The Patents Bureau is to be the sole judge of all cases submitted to it, and from its decision there is no appeal; but in certain cases, two judges sit with the Bureau and assist in deciding whether a patent should be granted or not. The duration of a patent is to be five, ten, or fifteen years, according to the amount paid in fees. The patent, of course, passes by assignment inter vivos, or to the patentee's heir, but nothing is provided for the cases of bankruptcy or marriage. 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. THE MOCKING-BIRD IN THE KLOOF. I. "Chick-a-wee-chick-a-wee!" The brown bird sang in the cedar-tree. The sunset smote the hills into flame, As down through the Kloof the Swazi came — And through the glare of each weary day And he sent for a token, unto his own, And a letter, whose tune was the old, old song, He lay, with his head on the sharp flint-stone, Three hours dying, and all alone. "They have taken the stone," he murmured low, "And my white Inkosi - he will not know!" And back and forth, through the poor, dull brain, Went visions worse than his dying pain. He saw, through the mist of his eyeballs dim, And heard the voice that he loved the best He moaned once more, in his pain and woe, 'My white Inkosi! he will not know." 66 And, all alone, on the mountain-side, And still, through the midnight joyously, II. Never foot of man, or hoof Of horse, durst pass through Waterberg Kloof. For at set of sun, when the dusk began, And for nigh a twelvemonth, far and wide, But the sun had dipt, and the darkness grew, And a low sound shuddered the still air through. It moaned through the boughs of the cedartrees; The grey horse trembled between his knees. Out of the air, above, around And shaped into words its moaning low And Dixon turned, drew not rein or breath, And rode like a man that flies from death. That night, in camp, they whispered apart, Of the fear that could shake an English heart. But they came and searched, by light of day, And found where the poor bones bleaching lay, And showed, as they whitened 'neath moon and sun, What the axe and the ironwood club had done. And Dixon muttered, under his breath, "I know, poor heart, thou wert true to death!" From The Contemporary Review. OUGHT THE REFERENDUM TO BE INTRO- 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. THE referendum may be roughly defined as the reference to all vote-possess. ing citizens of the Confederation for their acceptance or rejection, of laws passed by their representatives in the Federal Assembly.* Under the Swiss Constitution as amend ed 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 approved 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 Constitu tion 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, p. 579. The referendum, it should also be noted, is in this article treated of all but exclusively as a part of the 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 Zu rich, 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. |