was the cutting away of an excrescence: the wound under a proper treatment was sure to heal, and even under unwise treatment Nature has been doing her work until only a scar remains. Painful, too, as was the operation, its success has given the clearest proof of the health and vigor of our system, thus increasing the tendency to political inactivity and an over-exertion of energy in other directions. This in itself seems not to be a matter for alarm: if the latent strength be undiminished we can dispense with displays of mere nervous excitement. And, in point of fact, the latent strength is, we believe, undiminished; only, there is no general consciousness that it needs to be put forth, still less any general agreement as to how it should be put forth. What has happened is, that not only has the stream of political activity been growing languid, but its channel is becoming choked. The noisome atmosphere that exhales from it causes delicate people to avert their nostrils, timid people to apprehend a universal malaria, and many people of the same and other classes to assert that the sluices are not merely defective, but constructed on a plan totally and fatally wrong. Some bold and sagacious spirits have, however, taken the proper course in such cases by examining the obstructions and determining their nature and origin. According to their report, the difficulty lies not in any general unsoundness of the works, but in the failure to detect and stop a side issue from certain foul subterranean regions, the discharge from which becomes copious and offensive in proportion as the regular flood is feeble and low. In plainer words, we are told that the mode in which places in the public service are filled and held has made the active pursuit of politics a mere trade, attracting the basest cupidities, conducted by the most shameless methods, and putting the control of public affairs, directly or indirectly, into impure and incompetent hands. This view has been so fully elaborated, and the facts that confirm it are so abundant and notorious, that further argument is unnecessary. It is equally clear that the state of things thus briefly described has no necessary connection with democratic institutions. The spread of democracy in Europe has been attended by a gradual purification in the political atmosphere. The system of "patronage" had its origin in oligarchy, and wherever it is found oligarchy must exist in reality if not in name. Instead of being an inherent part of our institutions, it is as much an excrescence, an abnormal feature, as slavery was; but, unlike that, it might be removed with perfect safety and by the simplest kind of operation. Here, then, is a question worthy to come before the nation as an issue of the first magnitude. Here is a thing affecting the interests of the whole country which some men are anxious to preserve and which others are eager to reform. It remains only to consider how it can best be brought before the nation.