the Jews in Roumania in the Treaty of Berlin as marking an event of great importance and an occasion of joy. The Rev. H. S. Jacobs of New York spoke of the great influence which America was destined to exercise in Jewish affairs, and of the interest which was felt in the United States in Jewish progress. A vote of thanks was given to the American delegates. The subject of education was prominent among the matters considered by the Convention, and whatever related to the establishinent and improvement of schools in the East was received with favor. A proposition was adopted to commemorate Jewish emancipation in the East by means of a medal. Propositions concerning the organization of the Alliance and modifications of its constitution were much debated, and a final decision upon them was postponed till the next year.

JULIO, E. D. B., a painter, born on the island of St. Helena, near the spot where the great Emperor lingered out his years of captivity, in 1843, died in Georgia, September 15, 1879. He was the son of an Italian father and a Scotch mother, and inherited his poetic and artistic tendencies from one and his indomitable perseverance from the other. At an early age he was sent to Paris, where he received a careful education. During the war he removed to America and settled at the North. The fragility of his constitution and his natural sympathies induced him to move South. He estabfished himself in New Orleans, and was successful as a portrait painter. Ambitious and

like every true artist, dissatisfied with his own powers of execution, he abandoned his career and went back to Paris to become a pupil of Bonnat. On his return to this country he began in New Orleans a school of art. His best known painting, engravings of which are widespread, is "The Last Meeting of Lee and Stonewall Jackson." It is a composition of considerable merit. The faces of the two Southern leaders are admirable likenesses. Though essentially a portrait-painter, Julio was ambitious of excelling in landscape. He painted many Louisiana scenes, but his work does not compare with that of the lamented Clague, who alone has caught the very trick of the indolent waving moss pendent from the wide-spreading branches of the live-oaks, the sharply defined shadows of the leaves, the transparent atmos phere, and the dark untroubled waters. Though Clague had no rival and left no successor, Julio bore some impress of his genius, and paid him the homage of sincere admiration. Unfortu nately his career was untimely nipped. To try change of air, he went to Georgia, but consumption was too far advanced. He left many unfinished works. His "Diana" is a striking and graceful figure. The coloring is defective, but the drawing is fine. He was a rapid and skillful draughtsman. His crayon sketches are meritorious. One of his pictures was exhibited at the Centennial and favorably criticised. It was entitled "Harvest Scene," and represented cane-cutting on a Louisiana sugar plantation.

Whereas, It is also charged that offers were made to pay large sums of money for votes for Senator, and members of this House; and, that in some cases these corrupt offers were made by

Whereas, The honor of the State, the integrity of this House, and the character of the Senate of the United States demand that a full and impartial investiga tion should be had of all the facts and circumstances connected with the aforesaid charges; therefore,

Resolved, That a committee of five members be appointed, whose duty it shall be to investigate all charges of bribery and corruption connected with the late Senatorial election, and all charges of corruption in office made against the recently elected Senator, to the end that the innocent may be vindicated, and all acts of bribery and corruption, if any, shall be found, exposed, and punished.

A similar resolution was adopted in the Senate, and for the sake of economy it was proposed to change the committee into a joint one, but the House refused to concur.

The committee of the House submitted three reports, one a majority and two minority. The chairman reported that the charge that acts of bribery and corruption were resorted to with intent to influence the votes of members of the House was sustained; but no acts of bribery and corruption were proven against Senator Ingalle

Another member of the committee reported

that the evidence submitted fully convinced him that Mr. James S. Merrett was a general manager in the interest of Senator Ingalls at Topeka during the pending of the late Senatorial election, and had general charge of his rooms and the direction of his affairs; that he was aided and assisted in his plans to reëlect Senator Ingalls, among others, by Mr. J. S. Danford and Mr. Calvin Hood; that Senator Ingalls and those parties employed corrupt and illegal means to secure the election of said J. J. Ingalls to the United States Senate, and but for said improper influences his election would not have been obtained.

The majority of the committee reported that they had examined about forty-five witnesses, and that they find from the testimony that John J. Ingalls, the recently elected United States Senator, used no corrupt means to secure his election to the United States Senate, and that neither of the late Senatorial candidates was guilty of bribery or corruption in the late Senatorial election; and they further said that Ingalls, the recently elected United States Senator, had not been guilty of any corruption in office; and that there was no evidence against any member or members of the House which would warrant or justify their expulsion. The House adopted the report of the majority by a vote of yeas 60, nays 44.

The following resolution was also adopted by the House:

Whereas, The testimony taken by the Investigation Committee discloses the fact that certain members of this House did, during the late Senatorial contest, take especial pains to place themselves in position to be offered money to influence their votes, and did, in some instances, actually receive money, though not from either of the Senatorial candidates; therefore, be it Resolved, That the conduct of all such members is deserving of, and this House does administer upon them, its severest censure, committing them to their constituents for their ultimate condemnation, which they so justly deserve.

The vote was-yeas 51, nays 48.

A committee of the Senators in Congress subsequently investigated the charges against Senator Ingalls, and made a report entirely exonerating him, but condemning many of the proceedings at the election.

During this investigation a question was raised which is of far more importance than the matter then at issue. The committee summoned the telegraph operator to appear before them, and bring any original messages in his possession. The operator sent to them a communication stating that he was ready to appear, but that he had been instructed by the management of the Western Union Telegraph Company to decline to produce any original telegrams in his possession, as the custodian thereof for the company; and further, that the company had forwarded by mail a communication inclosing the answer which it desired him to make in its behalf in support of its right to withhold from any tribunal original messages, or the contents of original messages, intrusted

to it for transmission from one person to another. The operator by order of the House was arrested by the Sergeant-at-Arms, on an attachment "for a contempt in refusing or neglecting obedience to the summons (sub pœna duces tecum) before the investigating committee of the House of Representatives of the State of Kansas," and was imprisoned. Meantime the answer of the company was received. It presents their view of the legal aspect of the question of the inviolability of telegraphic messages of individuals, and is one step toward the final decision of the question which must ultimately be made. The points embraced in their answer were as follows:

The Telegraph Company distinctly disavows all partisan feeling or interest in the investigation ordered by the House, and which is being prosecuted before the committee appointed for that purpose. The company has no desire to hinder, defeat, or delay any investigation ordered or conducted by any tribunal for the discovery of any illegal act against the State, or against the rights of an individual. Their objection is, that the company ought not to violate the confidence of its patrons, and that to compel it to do so would be against public policy, and most dangerous to public and private security. The senders of twenty-five millions of messages a year, intrusted to the confidence of the Telegraph Company, representing as they do the capital, the enterprise, and the intelligence of the country in every department of human affairs, have a peculiar claim upon all departments or branches of Government for protection from the seizure of their private communications, and especially from any use of them which would be liable to intensify political excitement. The Telegraph Company has therefore adopted, as a rule for the guidance of all its officers, agents, and employees, that no messages, whether original or copy, in any office of such company, shall be taken or removed from the actual possession or control of the company without the consent or direction of the company's Executive Committee, or of its Board of Directors. The sacredness of this confidence is recognized in some States by statutes prescribing penalties for a voluntary betrayal-a security which the law has not given to those ordinary communications between private parties from which analogies are drawn supposed to justify the application of the sub pœna duces tecum to telegrams. During the period in which the law affecting them has been in process of adaptation from the law of evidence upon analogous topics, a disposition has been shown to apply to telegrams some of the considerations of public policy which impute sanctity to a letter confided to the post-office, and to demand the same protection to the same communication when confided to this quasi public agency, which holds a power over men's affairs through its possession obtains through the mere physical custody of sealed of their secrets exceeding that which any Government letters. Telegraph companies naturally desire to enhance the public confidence in the safety of communications intrusted to them, and they have strenuously endeavored to establish some ground, either of entire the contents of their files asserted by courts and legisexemption from, or of regulation of, the control over lative bodies. These ideas find support in some respectable places where neither the interest nor feelings of the telegrapher can be supposed to have in

fluence.

Judge Cooley, in the last edition of his work on "Constitutional Limitations," under the head of "Constitutional Protection of the Citizen against unreasonable Searches and Seizures," declares his solemn judgment that the agents of the telegraph can not be lawfully compelled to produce the messages confided to them for transmission over their wires under a sub

pana duces tecum, and clearly and emphatically ex

presses his opinion that certain decisions of some of the State courts, affirming their power to require the production of such messages, are founded upon erroneous doctrines and unsound reasoning.

The Telegraph Company is aware that in several instances decisions have been made adverse to the position herein contended for. These cases, or the principal ones, are the case of E. W. Barnes, before the lower House of Congress in January, 1877; the case of The State vs. Litchfield, 58 Maine, 267; the case of Henister vs. Freedman, 2 Parsons's "Selected Cases," 274; and the case of National Bank vs. National Bank, 7 West Virginia, 544.

In the case of Barnes, a local telegraph manager at New Orleans, the witness was subpoenaed to produce telegrams before a committee appointed in December, 1876, by the lower House of Congress, to investigate the alleged frauds in the Presidential election in Louisiana. Barnes declined to produce the messages. His answer was referred to the Judiciary Committee, and that committee, on the strength of the cases The State vs. Litchfield and Henister vs. Freedman, above cited, decided that the witness must produce the messages. It is believed, however, that the opinion of Judge Cooley, already quoted, and which was written as a direct reply to the arguments presented in the case from Maine, far outweighs the reasoning of the Court. The cases of Henister vs. Freedman and National Bank vs. National Bank are no stronger than the case from Maine, and are therefore fully met and answered by the convincing reasoning of Judge Cooley.

As against the decision of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives in the Barnes case, we may cite the opinions of Senators Conkling and Sherman in the case of Turner, a telegraph operator who was subpoenaed before a committee appointed by the United States Senate to investigate certain alleged frauds in Oregon shortly after the Presidential election of 1876. In the discussion before the Senate, as to the power and authority of the Senate to compel the witness to produce certain telegraph messages, Mr. Conkling, although interested politically in supporting the investigation then on foot, believed that an abuse of power was involved, and that a precedent dangerous to private rights would result; and Mr. Sherman said he thought there ought to be a statute defining the nature of the testimony which may be brought out in such cases, the limits within which it can be called for, and the circumstances or foundation which should be laid, before telegrams should be produced. The opinions of these eminent statesmen, and eminent lawyers as well, ought to have great weight in determining a question so momentous as that involved in the question of the power of this House to compel the Telegraph Company to open up to the whole world the secret affairs of every citizen, whether personal, business, or political.

The case of Babcock, before Judge Dillon (3 Dil. Ct. Ct. R., 566), has also been quoted as adverse to the claim of inviolability for telegraph messages. But this question was not raised in that case, as will appear in the opinion of Judge Dillon, page 569, where he says: "No objection is made on the ground that these messages are privileged, confidential communications; that is, the Telegraph Company does not insist that they stand in any different relation from what private persons would if they had custody of the same papers." The only question decided was whether the sub pana duces tecum sufficiently described the messages. The case was decided in 1876, before the Presidential election of that year. The question of the inviolability of the confidence existing between the sender or receiver of a message and the Telegraph Company had not then been much discussed nor much considered. Since that time the question, by reason of the momentous interests involved in its decision, has challenged the attention of the reading public throughout Europe and America, and it is not too much to say that careful, thoughtful, prudent men everywhere are fast reaching the conclusion that the best interests of the government and the people de

mand that the seal of confidence reposed in the telegraph companies by their patrons shall not be violated. The operator was released in this instance without the production of the messages. The following resolution was adopted in the Senate-yeas 22, nays 12:

instructed, and the Representatives in Congress are That the Senators of the State of Kansas are hereby requested, to make all reasonable efforts to secure such a change in the Federal judiciary system as will take from the United States courts all civil jurisdiction, whether by original action or removal from State courts, except by appeal or writ of error from State courts of final resort in cases as now authorized.

of one mill on the dollar for school purposes. An act was passed to repeal the annual levy This was an important tax for the welfare of the schools, and the constitutionality of the act was finally sustained by the State Supreme stitution, among other things, provides that the Court. Section 3 of Article VI. of the Coninterest on the sale of public lands "and such other means as the Legislature may provide by tax or otherwise shall be inviolably appropriated to the support of common schools." In pursuance of this provision of the Constitution, the Legislature in 1861 passed a law (section 5, chapter 76) declaring, "There is hereby levied and assessed annually one mill on the dollar for the support of the common schools of the State." This law was reenacted in section 76, chapter 92, general statutes of 1868. The proceeds of this tax were distributed semi-annually, in March and July, by the State Superintendent, to the several school districts in the State, in proportion to the number of school children therein. In the year 1878 the one-mill tax amounted to $138,698, or sixty cents to each. child of school age in the State. For the year 1879 the amount would have been about the same per capita. For years the constitutionality of this law has been questioned, it being held that an annual levy, year after year, is in violation of section 24, Article II., of the Constitution, which reads, "No money shall be drawn from the Treasury except in pursuance of a specific appropriation made by law, and no appropriation shall be for a longer time than two years" (under the old provision, one year. Because of the uncertainty of the levy under the Constitution, and because it was claimed by many that the eastern portion of the State, with the greater part of the taxable property of the State, was paying for the education of the children of the west, the Legislature attempted to repeal the law. This bill for the repeal of the school-tax levy was first introduced in the House. After its passage there it was discovered that the law of 1868 had been reenacted in 1876, and that in the opinion of many of the members, if the bill should become a law, it would be of no effect. sequently, the bill never reached the Senate: but the same provisions were inserted in the revenue act and became a law. Its effect is to strike off about one month's salary of teachers in each city or school district in the State.

Con