The close of the last century found humanity under a different aspect than ever before. Westward and ever westward had swept the course of empire until the early years of this decade found the Mongolian again demonstrating his superiority over the Slavonic people of Eastern Europe. For centuries the battles for individual freedom of body and mind had been fought in torture chambers, at heresy trials, at the stake of every auto-da-fé, as well as in the legislative halls of insular and continental Europe, and finally this struggle has culminated in the greatest, fiercest and most devastating war of modern times, which was America's tribute to the cause of democracy and freedom. The nations of Europe have looked with wonder upon the growth and sudden rise into importance of the American Confederacy of States, and crowned and titled tyrants, ruling by the "divine right," have long dreaded the absorption of American ideas by their subjects or American interference with the course of governmental procedure. With the advancement and dissemination of learning, democratic government has got to come, and woe to those who oppose it when the time is ripe. Poor, bleeding, ignorant Russia is at this minute in the throes of internecine strife, and no one realizes better than those of the autocracy who by their selfishness and sloth have brought upon themselves the engulfing tide of revolution, what was meant by the dissolute associates of the French Court directly before the horrors of the Commune when they used to say "After us the deluge." And little as they expected it, this deluge did not wait for them to leave, but in many instances helped to usher them from the field of human activity, upon the block, before the guillotine. It is not at this time even improbable that the great Siberian prisons may soon be filled with the bluest blood of royalty, and perhaps the Kara mines will yet be worked in by their owners, for the benefit of the revolutionists. But whether this comes to pass or not, we know that we have seen absolutism gradually give way to constitutional forms of government, and these in turn become metamorphosed into republics. And in these democracies we see a tendency to return to a centralized form of government, particularly when the chief executive is an individual whose judgment, although it is in error, has been actuated by motives which no one can impugn. What then is the meaning of this--is humanity traveling in cycles? Politically, we can answer emphatically, NO. The ease with which knowledge is communicated among people to-day and the unimpeachable integrity of the great middle classes are the surest guarantee that never will we return to the degrading darkness and servility of the past, while the trenchant manner in which our press uses the weapons of ridicule and cartoon insures for our posterity an even better and more active public conscience, which will demand duty performed commensurate with privileges granted. Municipalities