ANNUAL CYCLOPÆDIA AND REGISTER OF IMPORTANT EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1881. EMBRACING POLITICAL, CIVIL, MILITARY, AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS; PUBLIC DOCU- NEW SERIES, VOL. VI. WHOLE SERIES, VOL. XXI. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET. 1882. PREFA CЕ. THE volume of this work for 1881 is the sixth of the new series and the twenty-first of the whole series. It has grown in size to meet the increased activity in human affairs, and to present the interesting public questions and scientific developments which have arisen, and the discussions of their principles. A special article is devoted to the affairs of each country and to each State of the United States, which contains a sketch of its history during the year, the administration of its government, and its legislation; full official information on its area, population, education, military force, commerce, industry, finances, and the public questions agitated and reforms effected. No efforts are spared to secure the fullest information from all parts of the world, and it is considered. that in its several departments the work may be safely consulted as the completest and most reliable book of reference. At the same time its record of scientific developments and progress will be found most valuable and unsurpassed. In this volume the sad history of the fatal wounding and slow decline of the President are given in the article on "Garfield," a summary of the points in the trial of the murderer is recounted, the important medico-legal question. of " 'Insanity as a Defense" is discussed, and the constitutional question of "Presidential Inability" is presented, with the views of public men. The change of administration, the "legislation of Congress," with the debates, the "special sessions" and proceedings of the United States Senate, and the records of each of the States, and especially the political history of New York, are given fully. The movements and statistics of "Commerce and Finance in the United States," and the " Finances" of the Government of the latter, by ex-Assistant Secretary Upton; the "Exposition of Cotton Products at Atlanta," by Professor William M. Browne; the report of the "Mississippi River Improvements"; "the Panama Canal question"; the important diplomatic correspondence of "Peru, Chili, and the United States"; the question of "Bi-metallic Currency" with the results of the conference at Paris; the recent progress of "American Constitutional Law"; the validity of the "Naturalization Papers of the United States "-are subjects of permanent and historical importance. The stirring events which have occurred in foreign countries are scarcely of less interest. The agrarian question in Ireland as well as in the other coun4083. |