As the document proceeds, we see the good commissioners at war with the wicked railways, and it is impossible to resist the conclusion that, on the whole, the wicked railways have the best of it. The commissioners admit that certain cases which have come before the courts have been decided against them, and in favor of the railways; but they are far from disclosing the full extent of the discouragement, not to say mortification, they receive. The business of the commission is to interfere between the railways and their customers--the public--in the interest of the latter. The railways naturally consider this a rather one-sided function, and are not extremely zealous to aid in its performance. They have their own troubles with the public, and have no commission to come to their assistance. Everybody is after cheap railway rates, just as everybody is after cheap goods; and the means sometimes resorted to to get reductions would at least hold their own for astuteness with any that could be concocted in a traffic office for the raising of rates. We give the commissioners full credit for doing their best to protect the interests of the public, but we can not help doubting whether, on the whole, the public has derived much benefit from their efforts. In fact, we are strongly inclined to the opinion that the whole idea of the commission is simply a legislative blunder. The railways undoubtedly possess great powers which theoretically there is nothing to prevent their abusing to almost any extent. But what is theoretically possible is not always practically possible. The President of the United States possesses great powers, which theoretically he might abuse to any extent; so does the Queen of England; so do many other potentates. But of all the evil that is theoretically possible, how much is carried out in practice? All kinds of things _might_ happen if people were fools enough to do all the harm that it is in their power to do. The great saving fact is that it is not possible to go very far in doing harm to others without doing it to yourself. It is this fact which the insatiable legislation-monger ignores. He has an infinite faith in the mischief that will happen if things are left alone. He can not bear to think that somebody is not looking after everybody. He has no faith whatever in natural law or natural actions and reactions, and would hoot the idea of what the poet Wordsworth calls a "wise passiveness." Such people have little conception of the mischief they do, and of the good that fails of realization through their pestilent activity. The readers of Dickens will perhaps remember Mrs. Pardiggle and the admirable system of education she applied to her numerous family of children. The unhappy youngsters were under orders every hour of the day; they were marched round the country with their mother when she went on visits of charity, and compelled to contribute out of their own (nominal)