the "landlord" families; but there "were many instances where the tribal families were averse to handling the plough, or, at any rate, would only perform the lightest part of agricultural labor with their own hands."1 This matter of a subordinate cultivating class requires further investigation. In the central Punjab there are many villages which have been created by comparatively recent colonization and the multiplication of the founder's family,2 and some where there was once a superior proprietary body over the cultivators which disappeared during the harsh Sikh rule. But over the greater part of the country there undoubtedly are strong co-sharing village groups, which may, for all we know, have existed in their present shape for some centuries. There are, however, still faint traces of tribal divisions. Moreover, the village groups are strongest when they are composed of men of the same tribe, and especially where these tribes, like the Gujars and Jats, still occupy large areas undisturbed by alien elements.5 But we are still very much in the dark as to the inner life of these Jat and Gujar villages. The official classification and statistics of the Punjab are more defective, perhaps, than those of any other part of India : at present "they entirely fail to give us any insight into the really interesting details of tenure." To sum up. The striking fact about India, from our present point of view, is the total absence, over all but a small fraction of its vast extent, of anything at all resembling the village community of current theory in any of its essential features. There is, indeed, an archaic element in the joint landlord groups of the Northwest Provinces; but that element is the strength of the family tie and village-ownership and familyownership, frequently as they are confused together, are yet two phenomena which for scientific purposes must be kept distinct. In a small part of the India under British rule- say 1 II, 642. Cf. II, 655: “The Babars, democratic as they are, are yet exclusive, and ordinarily do not themselves cultivate." 2 II, 666, note. See the map opposite II, 671. 8 II, 675. 4 II, 668. one-thirtieth-viz., on the northwest frontier of the Punjáb there are peasant communities, but they are the creatures of British rule during the last half century; their own earlier usages belonged to the tribal and not to the village stage. Finally, in a portion of another part of the Punjáb, viz., the tribal areas of the central districts, in what we may think of as about onefortieth or one-fiftieth of British India, we do at last seem to track down the archaic village community. But that is perhaps the part of India concerning which we have least information. In any case we must, as at present advised, regard the village community of theory, not as characteristic of India as a whole, but as "due to the special custom of particular tribes — distinct from the Aryan race that overspread India" 2— which settled in a tiny corner of the peninsula. And the moral to be drawn from this inquiry- for even a scientific inquiry may have its lessons is twofold: for India, and for further investigation in general. We want far more abundant and precise information about the Punjáb than we possess at present. And we want to know far more than we now do about the various forms of an institution which much more certainly existed than the village community; and that is, the tribe. But this is a lesson which is being impressed upon us from every side. HARVARD UNIVERSITY. W. J. ASHLEY. 1 If we reckon the whole Punjáb as about an eighth. 2 I, 141. Abraham Lincoln. Statesmen Series. & Co., 1893. Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin Two vols., 12mo; vi, 387, vi, 373 pp. Evidently Mr. Morse has not aimed to write a critical biography. He seems to have confined his studies mainly to previous accounts of Lincoln's life and to a comparatively few kindred works, reviewing their reasoning and judgments, and rewriting the whole story in a tone in harmony with the mellow sympathies but fading superstitions of to-day. Without harshly attacking any of his predecessors, he has gracefully brought Lincoln down from the bewildering altitude where they tried to place him; and we begin to see that the president's qualities, however strange and superior, were always human. Although this biography is mainly subjective, it carefully excludes all fanciful claims and special pleas; so that when Mr. Morse acknowledges that Lincoln blundered or was mistaken, he has no need to apologize for his frankness. His temper is so good that he will win and hold the confidence of most readers, whatever their previous views of Lincoln. This is because every chapter shows that Mr. Morse has a philosophical confidence, rare among biographers, that his hero's good qualities are so positive and predominant as to warrant absolute candor in respect to his failings. Excepting, possibly, Mr. Schurz's Henry Clay, there has been no biography in this excellent series that will do so much toward cultivating a wholesome taste for historical studies, and at the same time toward showing that biography may be not only choice literature, but also the most fascinating literature. Those who have read the previous biographies of Lincoln will find little new here, except a rare literary art and a good judgment; but they are the readers who will be quickest to appreciate Mr. Morse's merits. Biography may be either an art or a science, but it is generally neither. With Mr. Morse it is an art. Biography of any kind except that which is objective and critical may be the truth, but it can never be or even represent the whole truth. It involves no retraction of what has been said of the work under review, to show how it has failed where a biography of the objective sort might have succeeded. The first question that is likely to occur to the thoughtful reader after finishing these volumes is this: Was Lincoln, then, a dictator, an absolute ruler, however benevolent, during those four years? An affirmative answer is not only implied in nearly every chapter of Mr. Morse's narrative, but is directly asserted, in a mild way, in one or two places (vol. ii, 209–210). But such an answer is not justified by the facts. There was a one-man power, but it was only nominal and official, not real. Of all our presidents of vigorous mind, there has never been one whose acts were so often and so completely the resultant of the reasonings of his ablest contemporaries. Lincoln welcomed suggestions from all thoughtful men, and the final opinion which he made the basis of action embraced the best parts of what each one had offered. That is why he differed from all; and it proves that he was the reverse of a dictator as surely as it shows that he was one of the safest of chief magistrates. It was the difference between one and e pluribus unum. As a direct result of this idea of the one-man power of the theory that Lincoln was original and independent in his thoughtall other men of the time are but slightly referred to, or passed without mention. Mr. Morse pays hardly more attention to Stanton than if the great secretary of war had been merely a whimsical doorkeeper to the president. Many have criticised Stanton's personal traits, but I know of no one who has ever before so completely ignored his importance. Mr. Morse rarely mentions Seward's name except when he can point to one of his blunders or failings. He has ample space for the particulars of Seward's dreadful proposition of April 1, 1861, and for the ill-advised wording of a draught for a certain despatch; but there is not a syllable about the vital changes which Lincoln accepted from Seward in the draught of the first inaugural address. Had not Seward practically insisted upon those changes, the so-called Lincoln border-state policy - which Seward had actually worked out weeks before Lincoln came to Washington - would have been absolutely impossible. But Mr. Morse describes the policy as appearing some months later and as being the product of Lincoln's foresight. Those who know how intimate Charles Sumner's relations were with Lincoln, and how welcome and at times influential his opinions were at the White House, will think it incredible that his name is mentioned but twice after 1858: once merely in a list of names, and again in a two line foot-note. Yet, Lincoln was with Stanton or Seward almost every minute when other duties would permit, and no other member of Congress had as great an influence over him as Sumner. There is no possible room for the plea of lack of space, in accounting for these strange omissions; for the volumes might well have been larger or the military narrative might have yielded to more particulars about politics and persons. Nor will it answer to say that biographies of these men will appear later in this series, and that it is desirable that the narratives should not overlap. The lives of these men were actually intertwined with that of Lincoln, and therefore they deserve specific, if not full, mention in his biography. Otherwise the reader receives a grossly inaccurate impression. Mr. Morse's sins are purely of omission; for where he expresses an opinion we feel sure that he means to be fair. His treatment, at great length, of McClellan is the most positive evidence of this. Nor does he show a restless ambition to give all the glory to Lincoln. We therefore infer that these damaging oversights are probably due to two facts: first, that Mr. Morse has no minute knowledge of the position and influence of Chase, Sumner, Seward and Stanton during these years; and, secondly, that it did not occur to him to test and enlarge upon his authorities where their opinions or their silence did not affect Lincoln personally. COLUMBIA College. FREDERIC BANCROFT. Practical Essays on American Government. By ALBERT BUSHNell Hart, Ph.D. New York, Longmans, Green & Co., 1893. 300 pp. This is a collection of eleven essays, which, with a single exception, have been published in various magazines since 1887. The author, in the preface, characterizes the book as studies of detached phases in the actual working of the government of the United States. He says that his aim has been rather to describe things as they are than to suggest what they ought to be. The reader must not accept too literally this last statement. It is true that a large part of the book is occupied with a careful and painstaking description of things as they are, or have been, in the practical working of the government; yet there can be no mistake in assuming that in the preparation of these essays the writer was actuated by a patriotic desire to improve our politics. In the essay on "Civil Service Reform" the author states that he believes the evils of political appointments to be such as will eventually destroy popular government if they are not checked. The essay, however, is not in form devoted to a discussion of methods of checking this evil. It is rather an analysis of the difficulties under |