the merchant-tailors, or however they may be styled in England, which each year gravely publishes its appreciations of the portraits exhibited at the Royal Academy, and points out how here a breast-pocket has been introduced or omitted, or three buttons painted in place of four, or the roll of the lapel, or the crease of the trousers is all wrong. The latest instance of practical criticism of this sort comes from the New York Granite Cutters' Union, which has been much perturbed because its assumed rights have been disregarded by the architects and contractors for the new City Prison. As the Union has been debarred from doing the stonework on this building, it is quite sure that the work is all wrong and so has watched the progress of the building with minutest care and has been prolific of formal written complaints forwarded to the mayor. Tired of watching the working and bedding of the stones, it has sought relaxation by observing the architectural and artistic embellishments of the structure, and has at last stopped at gaze before the municipal coat-of-arms carved in the tympanum over the main entrance, and has discovered that it, too, is all wrong. union sculptor and stone-cutter have made hash of the city's seal and have placed the sailor on the side of the escutcheon where the Indian ought to stand, the alleged eagle is not known to American ornithology and, really, the bas-relief, not properly exhibiting the city arms, ought to be taken out and replaced by the proper thing, Union-cut. Doubtless the criticism, being made by practical men who have cut the municipal escutcheon over and over again, is well founded. At the same time, we have seen coats-of-arms on buildings where it was impossible to determine whether the supporter on one side were soldier, sailor, Indian chief or Indian squaw, and perhaps the sculptor in this case may be able to prove that however imperfect may be his ethnical delineation he has not been guilty of a blunder. But the practical man is a very keen critic and artists often fail to satisfy him.

The non

T does not conduce to sweetness of temper when the victim of an accident finds that his insurance policy, which he supposed gave him protection, is found expressly to forbid him to indulge in that particular form of accident. Nor does it console a citizen whose building has been blown up, or down, or swept out of existence in some way, to know that he has uselessly paid fire-premiums for years. The desirability of having some means of insurance against damage to buildings other than that caused by fire is suggested by the loss we have suffered this week through the bursting at night of a thirtyinch water-main in front of our premises which flooded every cellar in the neighborhood. We would be the last to suggest that any one should undertake to insure buildings against structural weakness, as that would but encourage the careless and unskilful workmanship and design that are now fostered though to a lessening degree each year-by the fire-insurance companies, but a more common inclusion in the fire policies of existing insurance companies of protection against loss by wind or water, or the formation of new corporations specifically insuring against losses of these kinds is distinctly desirable, and water-damage in one form or another is sufficiently common to make it evident that property-owners would gladly pay for protection and so afford to the insurance companies a reasonable income. The modern laws affecting the employer's liability for accidents happening to his workmen have caused contractors to secure protection in their turn from the accident insurance or guaranty companies, and we believe the business is profitable to the latter. We are uncertain, however, whether these or any other concerns are willing to insure against loss falling upon the fabric of a building in course of construction or upon neighboring structures, through some of the many half-justifiable forms of building accident, such, for instance, as that which happened last week in New York at Broadway and Walker Street, where a steel column, properly placed and secured, was dislodged by the shock of a falling derrick and fell upon and crushed the adjacent building five stories lower down. The owner of the injured building can recover from the contractor, but it seems as if some form of insurance could be devised to give a partial protection to contractors.

HE greater part of the ingenuity and capital spent in in

that discharged into the manger at so many hours' interval a stated quantity of grain forget that a horse might sometimes be absent from his stall over two or three feeding-times and on his return would simple gorge himself into a colic. Automatic appliances are only useful, economical and safe when they are not allowed to work automatically, and this obvious truism has lately been impressed on the School Board of Brooklyn on being confronted by the Water Department's statement that the automatic flushing-apparatus in the school-buildings under their jurisdiction were wasting over seven hundred and fifty thousand gallons of water each day. The apparatus installed in the Brooklyn school-houses appears to be a very industrious and hard-working appliance, for, as it appears, they flush closets and urinals at stated intervals day and night and as frequently in vacation time, when schools are closed, as during term time, when the school-rooms are full to overflowing. The School Board is said to be appalled by the discovery of this inexcusable waste and talks of displacing the automatic flushing apparatus with some less wasteful appliance. But, as it is not the apparatus that is at fault, we trust that they will not convict themselves of further folly and waste more of the public funds by changing the system. All automatic flushing-apparatus is already adjustable or can easily be made so, and an automatic apparatus is one of the best that can be used in public schools. The real blunder has probably been in employing janitors who believed that an automatic apparatus was really meant to be left to automatic operation.

HE courts are seemingly inclined to give effect to the late decisions of the highest English and American courts that even peaceable picketing is not to be tolerated by the law. A cigar-maker in New York was fined in the police court last week for picketing, and in a similar case the equity division of the Massachusetts Superior Court issued an injunction which restrains the defendants from "wilfully and maliciously intimidating and preventing persons from remaining or entering the plaintiffs' employ, from interfering with the business of the customers of the plaintiffs if they continue to deal with the plaintiffs, from posting false, malicious and libellous signs, placards and notices of and concerning the plaintiffs and designed to prevent the public and all persons from doing business with them and their customers; and also from distributing handbills and cards, and from driving through the streets of Boston a wagon on which are false, malicious and libellous signs, and from standing at, near or surrounding the plaintiffs' places of business, and from patrolling in front of the same, as well as from intercepting persons from entering their places." While both these instances afford encouraging signs that there is still hope that the law can protect the peaceable citizen, the New York case is the most hope-inspiring of the two, since it comes from a quarter whence usually proceed signs that the interests of the peaceable citizen do not concern the office-holder charged with the execution of the enacted laws.

FEW weeks ago an electrical engineer in New York committed suicide because a costly wiring system installed in a steamship proved defective and useless, one report alleging that his own blundering was the responsible cause and another stating that failure was due to malicious mischief on the part of a discharged subordinate. At any rate, the unfortunate suicide was evidently endowed with a conscience, and it is a pity that a man so endowed should deprive the world of his work, when there are so many conscienceless workers left to do their mischief. "Transformer defective" is the brief and rather cynical statement appended as the explanation in the the Electrical Bureau of the National Board of Fire-undercase of several fatal accidents reported for the last quarter by writers, and it strikes us that it is a pity that those who manufactured, installed or tested these defective transformers had not the tender conscience of the New York engineer. Perhaps they are so endowed and are now bearing the conscious burden of a blood-guiltiness that their greater care might have avoided. A man once convicted of carelessness ought no longer to be employed on electrical work, since the fatal effects of his blundering are less apt to be visited upon himself than upon innocent parties guilty of no improper use of the installed apparatus. Besides mere carelessness and sheer ignorance, it is not

and inventors and promoters have more often achieved loss than profit. The man who invented an automatic feeder

fires now supposed to be due to merely accidental short-circuiting may in reality be due to incendiary purpose.

where the important and ambitious towns of the olden time held broad sway, or where rich monasteries have been extinguished, the State in these latter cases always considering itself heir to the monasterial forests. They lie, therefore, in the old "Land Bern," in the Bernese Jura, in Schaffhausen and Thurgau.

The public forests of the Cantons Uri, Schwyz and Solothurn form a link between State and communal forests. The Government controls their use by the several communes in interest, apportioning the rights of each, and changing such apportionment when it sees fit to do so. This system has, of late, been given up in Solothurn, where the forests are now definitely apportioned among the communes, but it is still in working in the two other cantons.

Canton Lucerne once claimed sovereign ownership of all great forests, Hochwaldungen, within her borders, but in 1514 they were conveyed by statute to the communes for a yearly consideration of "12 mäss [about three hundred and sixty pounds] of good cheese." Where the inhabitants engaged in agriculture built their dwellings together, thus early creating villages and setting up communal entity, the communal forests flourished, for in these places wood and pasture were used in common; but, where, on the contrary, there were separate farms and no proper villages, each settler claiming ownership of the land about his farmstead, there was no community of interest, and the private forest resulted. The first condition is found in the plain and hill country, where lay large contiguous bodies of cultivable land, as in the Jura region, for example; the second is found in the foot-hills of the great ranges, where land fit for clearing must be sought here and there, and where the assembling of groups of families was not so possible. Early in the present century the original proprietary status was disadvantageously disturbed by the apportionment of many communal forests among the parties in interest.

The proper delimitation of forests followed the recognition of their value to agriculture and was, doubtless, brought about and much furthered as a result of increasing disputes over proprietary rights and their extension; but while we find in the history of the townforests of Zürich, as early as 1491, discussion as to patrolling and remarking of bounds, and in the statute-book provision for the determination of public and private forest-lands in 1442, the marking out of many mountain forest-areas is not completed to-day.

was

The setting apart of reserve forests - Bannwaldungen determined on various grounds: protection of the frontiers, supply of especial needs and those of the larger communes, securing against over-use those forests convenient for export of timber, protection against avalanches, stonefall, torrents and the degradation of the mountain-pastures, etc. The reservation frequently held in force for a few years only. While the placing of forests in reserve originated mainly with local authorities for the conservation of important local interests, such power was, also, in all times exercised by the governments. The most ancient of these acts relate to the protection of boundaries. As early as the year 1339, Schwyz forbade cutting and clearing in the Wehri forests along the frontier and ordered the latter marked out. In 1424, Schwyz ordered the protection of the oaks.

Similar regulations are found throughout the fifteenth century, for the care of certain species and for the reserve of whole forests, and we find these repeated in later times. Forest reserve for protection against avalanches, landslips, etc., first appear in national legisla tion, however, in the beginning of the eighteenth century. Uri set apart "Dorfbannwälder" (village reserve-woods) and "Mattenbannwälder" (meadow reserve-woods) for the protection of the villages and meadows below them, also "magisterial reserves" to supply timber for the public buildings. Schwyz, in certain cases, prohibited injurious litter-raking. High penalties were set for infringements of the "reserve" laws. Each inhabitant was bound upon his oath to report transgressors. Bannwarte (reserve-guards) were placed to watch the interdicted forests. These were, very likely, the early forest-guardians. Their title has survived in that of "Bannwart," applied locally to foresters.

Under intelligent administration regularization of supply took the place of absolute reservation.

For the town of Zürich's forest, the Sihlwald, it was determined, in 1384, that cutting, begun on the under border, should proceed regularly upward year by year. In 1442, the cutting allowed was 20,000" Holz"; in 1495 it was 12,000; in 1533 it reached 27,000, and 30,000 in 1547.

The exploitation of the other "town-woods" was also fixed on a basis to prevent overcutting and damage. After the "Etat," or output, of the Sihlwald had been gradually increased to 40,000 Holz annually, a commission of experts found, in 1581, that the forest was overcut and must rest for an indefinite period.

The municipal administration did not content itself with fixing the amount of cutting and superintending the use of the forest, but further looked out that the manner of lumbering should be suited to the conditions and favorable to proper care of the standing trees. Among fourteenth-century records we find "notices" and "resolutions," providing clear cuttings and thinnings (Durchforstungen) in regular rotation.

At the end of the sixteenth century the Sihlwald's yearly yield was set at about one thousand Klafter (the Klafter measuring 2 cubic metres). At the end of the seventeenth century, during whose course the forest-product was systematically harvested, the forest was remeasured and the increase estimated. On the basis of this the annual

cutting was regulated at about twelve hundred Klafter of prime and five or six hundred Klafter of inferior material, among which was included fagots or "Wittfrauenholz" (widow's-wood). This regulation is still in force, with some extension of culture dating from 1737, in essential features. Similar conditions, doubtless, existed in other forests which came under intelligent control, but, in the main, the development of a systematized forest-culture came but slowly. State-forest regulations of the seventeenth century were limited almost without exception to the preservation and protection of the forests, and rulings of broader effect seem to have received little

attention.

In the eighteenth century, however, the domain of forest science was greatly enriched and the development of forest laws advanced with long strides.

Zürich, Bern, Freiburg and Lucerne were to the fore in this advance. The Physical Society, of Zürich, and the Economic Society, of Bern, busied themselves with a study of forest conditions, and in search of means for their improvement, whose results form the basis of subsequent forest legislation. New and more stringent ordinances were promulgated by the several State governments as they succeeded to power, and the hands of the executive were strengthened. Careful inspections of the forests were instituted, foresters assigned and cultures established under their conduct, some experiments were made at introducing exotic species, forest surveys and mappings and reports were pushed forward, and a thrifty use of forest products was enforced.

The wars of the early part of the nineteenth century were not encouraging to forestry. Law-givers were otherwise engaged and the forest was neglected. The first third of the century was not, however, quite barren of good to the cause of forestry.

The settled Cantons revised their old laws and made new ones. Forest-grading was abolished, more guards appointed, surveys carried out and efforts to establish regular working-plans were made with success. The State and larger communal forests instituted cultures and thinnings, and generally brought the woodland into condition for better forestry. Even the mountain Cantons were beginning to think of correcting abuses. The Helvetic Government accepted the care and maintenance of the forests, but the times were unpropitious. The forests suffered considerable damage during the political disturbances.

Zürich published in 1807 a new forest system; and Solothurn set up a course of instruction in 1809 in forest management, survey, etc., with appointments to the post of under-forester for the six best men taking the course. Solothurn adopted a general forest system in this year, as well as the Canton Neuenberg under Prince Berthier. Zug, in 1821, provided for scientific regeneration of degraded lands. There was much activity in forest matters in 1830, and the connection of floods with the denudation of the mountains becoming more generally accepted by the people, there awoke a general interest in forestry matters.

Increase in the number of guards and advance in the standard of their training were the chief results. New legislation effected a strengthening of the administrative department. As the forestowners, their representatives and the people generally became enlightened upon forest science and forest values, forestry throughout the most of Switzerland made good progress.

The people, always jealous of their liberties, were become reconciled to the intervention of the State foresters, being convinced of their usefulness and the necessity for them. Certain Cantons of peculiarly democratic constitution made no steps forward, howbut rejected the laws for the national improvement of forestry, holding on to old systems and to the right of control of their own properties with great obstinacy.

ever,

The growing appreciation of the economic importance of the forests, in the maintenance of the soil on the steeper slopes, in their conservation of a permanent water-supply in the springs, brooks and rivers, and their effect on conditions of weather and climate, among other things, together with the rapidly-rising prices of wood, made the establishment of a systematic forestry in the recalcitrant mountain Cantons more and more desirable.

The Confederation finally took the matter in hand as one of national interest. The Swiss School of Forestry was founded in 1855. In 1858, an investigation into the mountain forests and torrents was carried through. The efforts of the Forstverein had already done good work on the redemption of torrential streams and the afforesta tion of their sources. The law of March 24, 1876, finally affirmed the right of the Confederation to a higher control of the forest police in the high mountains. This brought all the mountain Cantons under the forest regulations and officers, with the result that an improved condition has been reached which promises in the course of a few years to give the mountain forests of Switzerland a permanently productive status.

Forest-guards, especially for the reserve-forests, were of early origin under the various titles of Bannwarte, Holzwarte, Vorster, etc.; "Vorstern" in the Sihlwald appear in the records of the year 1314. Higher authority over the forests and their use and for the punishment of trespassers was exercised by the councillors, stewards and functionaries. The Council of Zürich turned over these duties to a single one of their number in 1342. These were the first forest officers. But only toward the end of the eighteenth century were forest officers regularly appointed by the State. No especial knowledge was at first expected of them, only general intelligence in

wood-lore and some practical experience. These requirements were gradually broadened. In the absence of a home school before 1855, Swiss foresters studied in the neighboring German schools of forestry.

The strong national objection to increase of officialism has urged certain Cantons to try to get along without properly trained foresters, but this has failed and must be changed.

Switzerland, then, to quote Professor Landolt's closing paragraph more nearly in his own words, "has not yet everywhere a quite satisfactorily regulated forestry, and far less does she enjoy throughout a good condition of her forests, but she has laid the foundation for a better ordering of the forest status and for improvement in the culture and use of the forests." A. B. BIBB.

A

HIZAG

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE BUILDING STRIKE. PROFESSOR DESPRADELLE'S DESIGN FOR A MONUMENT IN JACKSON PARK. THE RELICS OF THE

THE DRAINAGE-CANAL.

WORLD'S FAIR STILL EXTANT.S usual, we begin this letter as we have every one written from Chicago for nearly nine months: "Matters connected with the labor trouble are still quite unsettled." Way back last October the contractors were avoiding new work, preparing to get ready for this tremendous strike, which began in its actual activity in February. The effect upon Chicago can easily be imagined, not only in building circles and real-estate interests, but in many other ways which bring activity and prosperity to a city. The twenty-eighth of June one of our leading papers opened its labor column with this paragraph: "The bricklayers and the contractors signed a peace pact yesterday that makes certain the collapse of the Building Trades' Council within a week, and the resumption of the building industry in Chicago on a basis which guarantees prosperity to the workmen and the investors." It further adds, "Notice of the withdrawal of the strong organization of the bricklayers and stonemasons was served upon the Executive Committee of the Building Trades' Council yesterday morning by President George P. Gubbins. It created consternation among the reckless leaders, who have kept 60,000 men in idleness and large numbers of families in want."

More than a month has now passed since the date of this publication, and still the strike lives and flourishes, though certainly it is a hopeful sign that such withdrawals have been made and bodes well for a settlement that will be more advantageous for both workman and contractor. The contractors are standing well together, and the outcome is not to be distinctly prophesied. Some fear that there will be no actual settlement, but that the laborers will gradually creep back to work and the question of the rights of the unions will be held unsettled in the background for a while, only to be brought up again with renewed vigor next spring, when, perhaps, the contråctors are not so well able to fight them, but when at least the men have reinforced themselves by work all winter. One would suppose that the men's resources would be nearly exhausted after such a long time of enforced idleness. To be sure, many of them get small jobs, or perhaps settled work outside their own trade, but the man who is accustomed to earning three or four dollars a day is now only earning a dollar and a quarter or a dollar and a half, which, if he is a man with a family, is but a pittance. The outside unions have sent help, but large as these sums have been they are only a drop in the bucket when you consider how many people are eager for help. It is reported the man with savings has had, of course, to use them, and, in case of his owning a small house, has had to mortgage it to raise money, as the unions could not help any one still possessing property to fall back on. To say that architectural interests in Chicago are quiet but mildly expresses the situation. The pessimists, mostly the older men, declare it is that death which knows no awakening, or at least an awakening in the generation to which they belong. Even Chicago's indomitable spirit and desire for planning big things seems for the time to have disappeared, and there are but few castles in the air waiting to be materialized in brick and mortar on our streets.

Marshall Field has purchased the old Central Music Hall, and there is a scheme, doubtless to be realized in the near future, of covering the entire block of that State Street frontage with one large store. Mandel Brothers, who never dare to be much behind Marshall Field, have leased for ninety-nine years the old McClurg site on Wabash Avenue, which will give them an entire block's frontage on Madison Street, with extended frontage on Wabash and State Streets. They will erect a nine-story structure, the plans for which have been prepared by Holabird & Roche. The débris from the burned McClurg building is now being cleared away by non-union

men.

It is rather amusing to see when Chicago is not in a position to dream dreams of greatness, actual greatness, "the biggest thing that was ever built," how outsiders take up the matter. Now it is Professor Desiré Despradelle, a teacher in the Massachusetts Institute

of Technology, who sends us from Paris this summer a dream on paper of a memorial which we shall erect as a reminder of our glorious "White City," on the spot which it has made famous. It is said Professor Despradelle submitted his plans to the Architectural Department of the Paris Salon this year. The jury awarded him the first medal of honor, and the French Government purchased a set of the drawings for the National Gallery of the Luxembourg, where they will remain permanently on exhibition." The chief feature of the design is a tower 1,500 feet high. The paper from which the above quotation was made further adds: "Should the American people accept this gift of the best fruits of his genius from the great Frenchman, Chicago will have a new wonder of the world, beside which the labyrinth and pyramids of antiquity and even the Coliseum itself, will be made commonplace." What a pity we cannot accept it. It is suggested in the course of the article that it be placed on the site of the German Building at Jackson Park. It would seem a pity to destroy this really charming old German reminder when there are acres and acres of unoccupied ground fit for the site of a "Memorial." The German Building at the Fair, which it is to be remembered was of a considerably more substantial character than some of the other government buildings, still stands amidst its willow-grove, by the shores of the Lake, and it looks as if its first ten years would only bring an added grace to it. It is well kept up as a sort of restaurant or refectory and is a very charming feature in the park. Go there at the close of a lovely July day, when the low sun's rays are warming its brilliantly colored tile roof, and the park is quiet, with all the gay world gone to Paris to see this year's wonder, and all the commonplace world gone home to bed or to its supper, you will find this a truly charming bit of architecture, more appreciated now than it was in the midst of all the charms of seven years ago, and so pure in its old German feeling as to bring up all sorts of pleasing dreams of far-off Germany, the Germany of the Middle Ages, with singing friars, and golden-haired maidens peering from the windows of its graceful turrets. There is really a good bit of interest left in Jackson Park even if you don't drive a golf-ball over the links, which are all bunkers in places, or a horse over its smooth roads. The Art Building, as every one knows, still stands there, now transformed into the Field Columbian Museum, and holds a goodly collection, anthropological, natural history, etc., for those who care for miles of such things. Nothing has been done to the building, not even a coat of white paint, it would seem, and in spite of its good lines the beauty is fast going. It is a pity it could not be kept up, if allowed to stand at all, for it might be a fine feature in the park for years to come. Under its projecting wing, beneath a canopy rests the old Viking ship, probably as part of the transportation exhibit which is inside. It seems a mistake that the old caravels could not be treated as well. They are now rotting in the lagoon, bearing the sign, "Danger - keep off," surrounded by the charred walls of what used to be the banks of the Court of Honor. Take a little launch from the boat-landing, in itself a very charming little composition built since the Fair, at the close of a summer day, at that hour when the garishness of sunlight has departed, and you will find much of beauty still in this once beautiful spot. The Art Building, seen through green vistas, is not without attractiveness, the German Building rises distinctly picturesque from its grove of willows, and you sweep past the "Wooded Islands," where still stand the little Japanese palaces, on the exterior as attractive as ever, but now only visited by the innumerable birds which haunt this really quiet corner of a busy city, and surrounded by roses, which in June make the spot an objective point for pilgrimages. Drifting quietly down through the lagoon you encircle the old caravels, three pitiful old crafts in picturesque decay, and catch a glimpse beyond them of distant Rabida, now used for a fresh-air hospital for Chicago's poor children. This building is well preserved, but hopelessly lessened in picturesque effect by having been painted a spruce-gum brown instead of its appropriate white. Beyond this loom up two atrocious figures, which seem to defy the "tooth of time," and which stood in the neighborhood of the Krupp-gun exhibition, while rising mysteriously out of the desert at your left, you puzzle your brain over a double flight of stairs which lead nowhere, forgetting the "intermural" and that there was a station here at the south end of the Court of Honor. These seem to have escaped the kindly hand of fire which spread over this part of the park, leaving desolation to be sure, but not undignified absurdity.

One of Chicago's great works, before mentioned in these letters, has this last month been officially accepted. We refer to that of the drainage-canal. We all know around this part of the country, or know we have known, how much it cost, how deep it is, how long it is, how many years it took to build it, but not till one has taken a journey down its length does one in any way appreciate the tremendous work. On board one of the little steamers bound for Lockport, thirty miles down the canal, where are situated the first controlling-works, the surprise begins as one sits and waits for the time of starting on the Chicago River and breathes-in no noxious odors, such as used to make one hurry across the bridge in former days. The water, which is unobjectionable in the river, grows more pure as it flows, till at Lockport it is a beautiful sheet when it takes its wild plunge over the dam into the channel of the sluggish Desplaines River, to flow onward into the Illinois and to be checked at Joliet again by controlling-works. These works are huge "bear-trap" dams, which by being raised can lessen the flow of water on the rivers below Lockport in case of spring freshets, or can control the current