tion was submitted to a popular vote on May 18th, when it was adopted by 196,197 to 177,263 votes. The cantons of Zürich, Bern, Basel City, Basel Country, Thurgau, Neufchâtel, and Geneva voted against it.

In December the Federal Assembly elected Dr. Welti of Aargau as President, and M. Anderwelt of Thurgau as Vice-President of the Swiss Confederation for 1880.

An important decision was given by the Fed

T

TAYLOR, General RICHARD, the only son of General Zachary Taylor, born January 27, 1826, died in New York, April 12th. His ancestor, James Taylor, emigrated from England in 1682, and settled in southern Virginia. From him were descended two Presidents of the United States, James Madison and Zachary Taylor. Another distinguished scion, Richard Taylor, was lieutenant-colonel of the 9th Virginia regiment during the Revolutionary war. He married into the Strother family, and in 1791 removed to Kentucky. It was at his homestead, Springfield, near Louisville, Kentucky, that his grandson Richard Taylor, the subject of this sketch, was born. In the following spring he was taken to New Orleans, and the childhood of Richard Taylor was passed there or in frontier forts. His introduction to school life was at Fort Snelling, where he was the only white child in a school of half-breeds taught by a missionary. Soon after he was installed in the family of a life-long friend of his father, William C. Bullitt, with whose sons he attended the school of Robert N. Smith in Jefferson County, Kentucky. To that able and rigid instructor he was indebted for the foundation of his education. At the age of fifteen he was sent to Lancaster, Massachusetts, to be prepared for admission to Yale College. He entered the junior class in 1843, and graduated in 1845.

At the opening of the Mexican war in 1846 he joined his father, who was in command of the forces on the American frontier. Appointed his private secretary and aide-de-camp, he accompanied him through the campaign. He took part in the battles of Monterey, Resaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Buena Vista, and others, where his father earned that military prestige which bore him triumphantly into the Presidential chair. During this period Richard Taylor went abroad. He was received everywhere with the highest distinction, which honors he accepted as intended for his country. His elegance of manner and conversational talent would anywhere, without adventitious aid, have secured his social success.

He afterward resided for some time near Rodney, Mississippi, on a plantation belonging to his father. In 1849 he removed to a sugar estate, Fashion Plantation, St. Charles Parish,

eral Council in an appealed case on July 26th. The government of the Canton of Zürich in 1878 combined the Reformed and Catholic primary schools in one of its villages. The Catholic school officers appealed to the Federal Council against this action as unconstitutional. The Council disallowed the appeal, as the Federal Constitution simply provides that the public schools shall be open to children of all religious denominations.

twenty miles above New Orleans, on the Mississippi River. In 1851 he married Miss Myrthé Bringier. The family of Bringier de Lacadière are of noble French blood. They emigrated to Louisiana, where they possessed the Houmas and other estates, more extensive and valuable than many European pricipalities. The lady whom Richard Taylor married shared with fortitude the fortunes of her husband during the civil war. Their property was confiscated after the fall of New Orleans in 1862. While a refugee, escaping before the advancing army with her little ones, they were stricken by scarlet fever. One of her boys died on the way, the other only lived to reach Shreveport. In 1875 she died in New Orleans, leaving three surviving daughters, her four sons having preceded her to the grave.

For many years Taylor lived the easy, hospitable life of a Southern planter. He was fond of society, a voracious reader, and singularly unambitious. Several minor offices he filled with credit to himself and the State, but he was indifferent to political preferment, which was clearly within his grasp. The events of 1860 roused him from his lethargy. He went as delegate to the National Democratic Convention held in Charleston in that year, and endeavored to bind together the discordant elements of the party. After the split in the Convention he was a delegate to Baltimore. In 1861 he was Senator from the parish of St. Charles in the State Legislature, and assisted in framing the act calling a State Convention, which met in March and passed the secession ordinance. Taylor was chairman of the Committee on Federal Relations and Defense, a difficult position under a Governor like Moore, economical of public money and wholly incredulous of the possibility of war.

After the investment of Fort Pickens, Taylor joined General Eragg at Pensacola. While there he was appointed colonel of the 9th Louisiana regiment. Hurried on to Richmond, the regiment arrived on the field the day after the first battle of Manassas. It was placed in the brigade of General Walker, who was soon after transferred to a Georgia brigade. Taylor was passed over the heads of the senior colonels and made brigadier-general. He unwill ingly accepted this promotion, which was un

popular with the brigade. Camp exposure had brought on an illness from which he was slowly recovering, and he had seen no service. The promotion was attributed to the partiality of President Davis toward the brother of his first wife, who was a daughter of Zachary Taylor. At the instance of General Joseph E. Johnston, Taylor went to Richmond to urge the adoption of that General's plan of army organization. During the Valley campain of 1862 Taylor fought under Stonewall Jackson. The brigade bore its part well in many a fray, at Luray, Port Republic, Front Royal, and Winchester. On one occasion they captured a battery and turned it upon the enemy. General Jackson, in recompense of their gallantry, presented the battery to the brigade. When Jackson marched to the Peninsula, Taylor's command, still in Ewell's division, confronted McClellan, and was engaged in the seven days' fight around Richmond. Jackson recommended him for promotion. He received his grade of major-general while in Richmond, stricken with paralysis. Taylor was then assigned to command in Louisiana.

During the siege of Vicksburg, the Indianola, a heavily armed ironclad, passed the town and controlled the Mississippi River. The only boats at Taylor's disposal were the towboat Webb and an ordinary river-steamer, the Queen of the West, recently captured from the Northeners. The Indianola, with a coal-barge lashed on each side, was lying off a point sixty miles below Vicksburg. The attack was made at night. Both the vessels suffered severely, but the Indianola was struck four times, and then surrendered in a sinking condition. In a battle with General Banks at Mansfield, 2,500 prisoners, 200 wagons, and 20 pieces of artillery, besides side-arms and colors, were captured by Taylor. This success was speedily followed by the fight at Pleasant Hill, at which Banks and Taylor each claimed the victory. The report of Admiral Porter, bearing date April 14, 1864, says: "The army here has met a great defeat, no matter what the generals try to make of it. With the defeat has come demoralization, and it will take some time to reorganize and make up the deficiencies in killed and prisoners." General Grant from Virginia reported to Halleck in Washington: "You can see from General Brayman's dispatch to me something of General Banks's disaster."

At the close of the Red River campaign, General Taylor, believing that further operations in this quarter would accomplish nothing, asked to be relieved from duty. He was promoted to lieutenant-general and placed in command of Alabama and Mississippi. At Meridian Forrest reported to him, and was sent to impede Sherman's communications north of the Tennessee, and thus relieve Hood's army, then west of Atlanta. In December Taylor went to Tupelo to take command of the remnant of Hood's Army of Tennessee. The soldiers were moved as speedily as possible to re

enforce Johnston in North Carolina. Taylor was left confronting Canby and hard pressed by Wilson's cavalry. On the 8th of May, 1865, he surrendered to Canby at Citronelle, and his military career terminated.

After four years' absence, he returned to New Orleans penniless. This lord of many acres now called nothing his own but his horses. These he sold for $350, with which he began life afresh. He took charge of some important public works, among others of the Carondelet Canal. In January, 1873, he again visited Washington in the interest of his State, then torn in two by two rival Governors and Legislatures, and with the military overriding the civil power. His intervention proved vain. In May he was sent to Europe in the interest of some Northern capitalists, and was again received with the same kindness as when in the heyday of his father's glory he visited England. After the death of his wife, convinced that Louisiana was permanently blighted, he removed his family to Winchester, Virginia, the residence of Mrs. Dandridge, his sole surviving sister. He turned his attention to literature, and became a frequent contributor to periodicals, both French and English. He spoke both tongues with equal facility, and was wont to boast that he acquired "French in Louisiana, English at Fort Snelling, and American in the Old Dominion." Unfortunately, his sparkling wit and fund of anecdote are without record. His work on the war, "Destruction and Reconstruction," was written when the hand of disease was already upon him. He was in New York supervising its publication, when fatal symptoms manifested themselves.

TENNESSEE. The General Assembly met January 9th. The first question considered was that of reducing the emoluments of many of the officers of the State and counties. Functionaries who were paid by fees and perquisites were required to pay over to the State Comptroller, or to the County Trustee if a county officer, the amount of these fees which was in excess of $2,000 per annum. Many opposed this measure on constitutional grounds, as embodying an unauthorized mode of taxation. Many officers receiving stated salaries had their stipends reduced. A bill requiring insurance companies to pay the full amount of insurance named in the policy in the case of the total destruction of property by fire, and to pay on the basis of the value named in the policy in the case of partial destruction, was vetoed by the Governor, cn the grounds that in the first instance named it would prove an incentive to incendiarism, negligence, and fraud, and was thus opposed to public policy, and that in the second class of cases it would prove prejudicial to policy-holders, as they usually undervalue their property in insurance policies.

The question which engrossed the attention of the Legislature to the exclusion of all others for a great part of the session, and on which steps were taken for an adjustment for the first

time, was that of the settlement of the State debt. The interest on the bonds of the State has been in default since 1870, when the tax tariff was reduced from 60 to 20 mills on a dollar. In 1877 the creditors of the State agreed to compromise the debt at the rate of 60 cents on a dollar, at 6 per cent. interest. This was not accepted. The question of the adjustment of the debt finally became a political issue. Party lines were not strictly drawn, though the Republicans generally favored payment in full, or acceptance of the bondholders' proposed compromise at first, and afterward the settlement proposed by the Legislature at 50 cents and 4 per cent. interest. When the Legislature met, it was expected that the matter would be adjusted in some way. One party favored the acceptance of the bondholders' proposition; another, a settlement on the basis of 50 cents on the dollar at 6 per cent. interest; another advocated the basis of 333 cents; and a fourth party declared itself in favor of total repudiation. This was made the leading issue of the popular elections, and many members of the Assembly had been elected upon it. Soon after the Legislature met, the question was taken up. It was referred to the Committee on Finance, Ways, and Means. Mr. Savage, chairman of the committee, submitted the majority report on the proposition regarding the settlement of the State debt on the 11th of March. The report was in the form of a bill embodying the following provisions :

1. That the Capitol bonds, amounting to $493,000, the Hermitage bonds, amounting to $35,000, the Agricultural bonds, amounting to $18,000, the bonds held by Mrs. Polk, amounting to $29,000, and the bonds held by the educational institutions of the State, upon which interest has been paid under a resolution of the last General Assembly, be settled and funded, with the accrued interest, at the rate of 60 cents to the dollar, at 4 per cent. per annum interest.

2. That the Union Bank bonds, amounting to $125,000, the Bank of Tennessee bonds, amounting to $214,000, the turnpike bonds, amounting to $728,000, the Hiawassee Railroad bonds, amounting to $280,000, the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad bonds, amounting to $144,000, the La Grange and Memphis Railroad bonds, amounting to $68,000-all the above bonds, except bonds belonging to educational institutions, being bonds of the State debt proper-and the bonds issued under the internal improvement act of 1852 and amendments thereto, known as the ante-war railroad bonds, amounting to 88,583,000, be settled and funded, with accrued interest, at 50 cents to the dollar, at 4 per cent. per annum interest.

3. That the bonds funded under the act of 1868, amounting to $569,000, and the bonds funded under the act of 1873, amounting to $4,867,000, be settled and funded with accrued interest at 334 cents to the dollar, at 4 per cent. per annum interest.

4. That the Mineral Home bonds, amounting to $63,000, and the bonds funded under the act of 1866, supposed to cover the war interest, amounting to $2,246,000, be rejected and not paid. 5. That the railroad bonds issued since the war, amounting to $2,268,000 now outstanding with accrued interest, be settled at the rate of 383 cents to the dollar, and paid in the non-interest-bearing Treasury warrants of the State, in the denominations $5, $10, 820, and 850, neatly printed on good paper, which shall be receivable for taxes and all other dues to and from the State.

The new issue of bonds was to run nineteen years and be redeemable at the end of five years, the interest to be payable once a year at Nashville. The act was to be submitted to the people, who should vote upon it in a special election the first Thursday in August, and then passed upon finally by the Legislature after having received the popular approval. The committee gave the amount and character of the debt and the acts under which the several classes of bonds were issued, making a distinction between what they called the State debt proper, amounting to $2,105,000, and the bonds issued under and subsequent to the act of 1852 and posterior acts, including the funding acts. As to the nature and extent of the State's obligation for the rest of the debt incurred by the State, they declared, if there was any obligation, it was secondary, as endorsers, as to $11,221,000. Of these the law required certain conditions precedent and subsequent, which, in nearly every instance, were not observed. The greater part of the present debt they declared to be the result of a vicious policy and corrupt legislation. They denounced the acts for the sale of the railways and the payment of the purchase-money in bonds of any series, as having been procured by interested combinations. Setting out the requirements of the act of 1852, they concluded that seven of these were conditions precedent, and legal notice to purchasers of the bonds, and, having been violated, that $11,221,000 of bonds issued in aid of railways under the act of 1852 were void, and any settlement thereof by the State rests not in a valid contract, but upon consideration of State policy.

Senator Clapp prepared a minority report, in which he contested the grounds advanced in favor of the rejection of any part of the bondof scaling down the debt included, besides, that ed debt. The arguments put forward in favor of the inability of the State to raise the taxes necessary to discharge the obligations in full. The report assumes that the liability of the State upon bonds issued in her name rests for its decision on the law and facts of the case, as in a controversy between private persons. If the Legislature has not inherent power to make contracts, it can not communicate such power to its creatures, private and public corporations. The State is the primary and only party liable for its bonds. As a legal proposition, the report can not understand upon what ground the State expects to escape liability as surety or guarantor on its railroad bonds as the maker of a negotiable instrument. As to funding the war interest, the minority knows of no principle of international law that suspends interest on interest-bearing debt due by one of the belligerents to the other. As to the charge of voidness of post-war bonds because of corrupt legislation and illegality of the government, he showed that the vested rights acquired would not be invalidated were the charge proved; but he insisted that the proof

fails to show more than presumptive bribery and undue means, or to trace them to any member of the Legislature.

The bill, as it was afterward modified by amendments, embraced the proposition of funding the greater part of the debt at the rate of 50 cents on the dollar, with 4 per cent. interest. This settlement was to be subject to the acceptance of the bondholders and the approval of the people. The bill as amended was finally passed by a close vote on the 28th of March. Before the vote was taken the Governor had transmitted a message to the Assembly announcing a proposition from the managers of the different railroads to waive the immunity from taxation extended to the railroads in their charters, and contribute to the State taxes from $80,000 to $100,000 annually for the extinction of the principal and interest of the State debt. In accordance with this the actual burden of the debt would be reduced to 40 cents on the dollar and 4 per cent. interest if the compromise at 50 cents should be effected.

Governor Marks appointed B. A. Euloe and Nathaniel Baxter, Jr., to communicate with the holders of the State bonds and procure their acceptance of the compromise voted by the Legislature. Ex-Governors Porter and Brown and others were deputed by a mass-meeting of citizens to present the case to the creditors and citizens of the East. At a dinner in New York in the middle of April they received the approval of many bondholders, merchants, and bankers of the proposed settlement. The provisions of the bill required that the Governor should secure the acceptance of bondholders possessing an equal amount of bonds with those who had agreed to the proposition of 60 cents with 6 per cent. interest, before calling for a popular vote on the question. After fulfilling this condition, Governor Marks ordered the popular vote to be taken. On the 7th of August, the day appointed for this purpose, the proposed settlement was rejected by a large majority, 30,920 voting against it and 19,669 in its favor. This action of the people left the question of the final settlement still unresolved. Although understood to have been an expression of a popular sentiment in favor of total repudiation, it had only the effect of postponing the decision of the question, which belongs to the State Legislature.

The following is a statement of the funded debt and registered debt of the State on December 21, 1878: Registered (act of 1873), $14,665,000, at 6 per cent. interest; $292,300, at 5 per cent.; $397,000, at 6 per cent., not required to be registered; and $4,867,000 at 6 per cent. in funding bonds (1873). On the same day the unpaid interest amounted to $4,201,902.50. The bonded debt, including unpaid interest under the present laws, would amount to about $25,676,500 on January 1, 1880. This sum does not include the schoolfund certificates ($2,512,000), the railroad debt

due to the United States ($671,045.45), the outstanding notes and debts of the Bank of Tennessee, or the debts due to laborers on delinquent railroads while the State government was running them. The last three items mentioned amount to about $2,700,000. Should these sums be added to the State debt proper, it would amount to about $31,560,000. By the improvement act of 1852 bonds of the State, which constitute the greater portion of its present debt, were issued and loaned to the railroad companies on the condition of the completion of stipulated portions of their roads, as a credit to encourage improvements of public benefit. By the original act these bonds were made a primary lien on the railroad property. This lien was removed by subsequent action of the Legislature, and the railroads were permitted to redeem the bonds by delivering into the Treasury State bonds of equal amount of any series. At a time when the securities of the State were sold in the market at a discount of 60 per cent. and over, several of the railroads availed themselves of this permission and redeemed their obligations to the State by returning bonds of other series. Other roads were afterward foreclosed upon by the State authorities and resold to other parties. Many of the holders of the Tennessee internal improvement bonds, while the matter was awaiting the decision of the people and the Legislature, brought as a test case a suit of foreclosure against the railroads, upon the advice of Charles O'Conor of New York, upon the ground that the lien on the railroad property was a part of the original contract contained in the bonds, and could not constitutionally be revoked by any subsequent action of the Legislature. The following is the amount of bonds claimed to be secured by a lien on the railroads named under the act mentioned, and which are still outstanding against those roads: Roads operated under what is known as the Wilson system of railways-Cincinnati, Cumberland Gap, and Charleston, $377,000; East Tennessee and Georgia, $1,102,000; East Tennessee and Virginia, $1,237,000; Memphis and Charleston, $841,000; total, $3,557,000. Roads included under the name of the Louisville and Nashville and Great Southern Railroad-Louisville and Nashville, inain stem, $308,000; Memphis, Clarksville, and Louisville, $819,000; Memphis and Ohio, $1,199,000; Tennessee and Alabama, $479,000; Central Southern, $364,000; total, $3,169,000. Roads now embraced under the name of the Nashville, Chattanooga, and St. Louis Railway-Nashville and Chattanooga, $120,000; Nashville and Northwestern, $1,422,000; McMinnville and Manchester, $360,000; Winchester and Alabama, $479,000; total, $2,381,000. Other roads-Mississippi Central, $488,000; Mississippi and Tennessee, $105,000; Mobile and Ohio, $960,000. The St. Louis and Southeastern Railroad is sued for bonds issued to the Edgefield and Kentucky road. amount of bonds originally issued toward the

The

construction of the above roads was $29,251,250; of this amount there are outstanding $12,453,000; amount of funded bonds now outstanding and claimed as a part of these secured by a lien, about $2,423,000. Upon this amount there is an accrued interest of 21 per cent. The total amount claimed by the bondholders is between $17,000,000 and $18,000,000.

The basis of taxation and the receipts and expenditures are estimated by the Comptroller as follows:

BASIS OF PROPERTY OR AD VALOREM TAX.

$223,212,153

$104,194,574

PERMANENT PRIVILEGES AND OTHER FIXED REVENUES.

$40,000

70,000

100,000 35,000

$525,000 150,750

500,000 $1,175,750

He estimates the receipts at different tariffs as follows: At 10 mills on a dollar, $649,194; at 15 mills, $761,000; at 20 mills, $883,389; at 25 mills, $995,583; at 30 mills, $1,107,583; at 35 mills, $1,219,680; at 40 mills, $1,331,778.

The bankrupt condition of the finances of Memphis and several other towns and cities led to a number of special acts revoking or modifying the charters of these municipalities. At the request of the city of Memphis, which was laboring under the burden of a debt estimated at over one third of the taxable property, and had been depopulated and impoverished by the ravages of the yellow fever, the charter was taken away, and the administration assumed by the State government. By a subsequent act the Governor was authorized to appoint commissioners for the settlement of the debts of extinct municipal districts. At the instance of certain holders of the city's securities, an action was brought before Judge Baxter, of the United States Court at Memphis, calling for the appointment of a receiver. The Court delivered the opinion that the act of the Legislature repealing the charter was unconstitutional and void, as was also the act creating a taxing district. The Judge appointed Mr. Latham receiver, to take charge of the assets of the city, to the exclusion of receiver Meriwether appointed by the State authorities. The Supreme Court of the State afterward declared the laws repealing the municipal charter and constituting a taxing district valid and within the Constitution-Judges Cooper, McFarland, and Deaderick concurring, and Judges Freeman and Turney dissenting. The

The first enforcement of the law against carrying deadly weapons was made by Judge Thomas D. Eldridge of the Bartlett Circuit, who sentenced a prisoner to a fine and three months' imprisonment for this offense.

The question of the constitutionality of the new law equalizing and reducing the pay of clerks, by requiring them to pay their fees in excess of a certain amount into the public Treasury, was brought before the Supreme Court, but was not decided on its merits in the absence of a real cause of action.

The yellow fever appeared again in Memphis in July, and continued until cold weather. The city was immediately deserted by all its inhabitants except a part of the poor and colored population. There was fear at one time that the deserted houses would be sacked, and that an anarchic condition would prevail. Governor Marks intrusted the duty of preserving order to the resident companies of colored militia. There were several hundred deaths by yellow fever during the season. It was principally to provide for extraordinary sanitary measures lest the disease should become endemic in this locality that the Governor called the special session of the Legislature.

TEXAS. The Legislature opened its regular session at Austin on January 14th, when the new Governor, Oran M. Roberts, was formally installed in office, and closed by final adjournment on April 24th.

A constitutional amendment adopted by the Legislature, exempting from taxation all agricultural products while in the farmer's hands, and all necessary supplies for his use, was voted