of the old "Monroe doctrine," the reply is that this doctrine does not touch the case, and the action of the Government proves it. The doctrine was proclaimed by Mr. Monroe to prevent European powers from "oppressing" or "controlling" in any way the young American republics, and it has been construed only as against the attempts of those powers to found new colonies or make territorial acquisitions on this side of the Atlantic. That it was not held by the Government to exclude foreign participation in the construction and protection of such a work as the Isthmus Canal, is attested by the fact that in 1835, long after its promulgation, the Congress of the United States resolved, and four years later the Senate of the United States re-resolved, "that the President be requested to open negotiations with other nations" for the purpose of "ascertaining the practicability of effecting a communication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by the construction of a ship-canal across the Isthmus, and of securing for ever, by suitable treaty stipulations, the free and equal right of navigating, such canal to all nations." This view was, moreover, embodied more than thirty years ago in a treaty of our Government with England, in which both parties agreed, with reference to any possible future ship communication across the Isthmus, that "they will guarantee the neutrality thereof so that the said canal may be for ever open and free"; that "vessels of the United States or Great Britain traversing the said canal, shall, in case of war between the contracting parties, be exempted from blockade detention or capture by either of the belligerents"; and furthermore, "that neither the one nor the other will obtain or maintain for itself any exclusive control over said ship-canal; agreeing that neither will ever erect or maintain any fortifications commanding the same or in the vicinity thereof."
Are we to understand, then, that there neither has been, nor is there intended to be, any departure from this deliberate, long-established, and honorable policy of the Government of the United States?
M. Delauney, a French savant, has been studying the problem of woman from an anthropological point of view to determine her intellectual status, which he maintains to be inferior to that of man. He intimates that "sentimental pretensions" being now made the basis of a political movement, it is necessary to deal with the subject scientifically. The investigation is of course a proper and an important one; but it has had a somewhat curious reception from the press—or those editors, perhaps, who suspect that the women may yet vote, and will remember things. These declare this article to be most horrible, but contrive, with a good deal of deprecation, to get as much of it before their readers as they seem to dare. We have had it translated for the benefit of such dauntless souls as are prepared to take their lives in their hands, and go through with it. Our own special trouble is, that in about six weeks we shall get a bushel, more or less, of answers to it, written very much alike, all in "hair-marks," and with very pale ink.
INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES, NO. XXXVI.
Suicide: an Essay on Comparative Moral Statistics. By Henry Morselli, M.D., Professor of Psychological Medicine in Royal University, Turin; Physician-in-Chief to the Royal Asylum for the Insane. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 388. Price, $1.75.
Some two or three years since, the author of this book contributed quite an elaborate work in Italian to the "International Scientific Series." It at once took high rank as an authoritative presentation of the subject,
