the Government, for there is no relation in the community to which the principles of the common law can not be applied. Besides this, Mr. Dillon entirely ignores the fact that the railway company is not only a common carrier, but the keeper of the highway, and as such is subject to Government control as much as the turnpike tollgate keeper or the collector of customs. "Then as to prices." Mr. Dillon continues: "These will always be taken care of by the great law of competition, which obtains wherever any human service is to be performed for a pecuniary consideration. That any railway, anywhere in a republic, should be a monopoly, is not a supposable case." Like the rest of railway men, Mr. Dillon excels in painting dark pictures of railroad catastrophes. A sample production of his art is here presented: "One of the greatest dangers to the community in a republic is this: that it is in the power of reckless, misguided or designing men to procure the passage of statutes that are ostensibly for the public interest and that may lead to enormous injuries. Let us imagine for a moment that all railways in the United States were at once annihilated. Such a catastrophe is not, in itself, inconceivable; the imagination can grasp it, but no imagination can picture the infinite sufferings that would at once result to every man, woman and child in the entire country. Now, every step taken to impede or cripple the business and progress of our railways is a step towards just such a catastrophe, and therefore a destructive tendency." Mr. Dillon, losing sight of all other interests, did not think that his nonsensical mode of reasoning would apply equally well to them. Let us, for instance, imagine for a moment that all of the farms of the United States were at once annihilated. Can the imagination picture the infinite sufferings that would at once result to every man, woman and child in the whole country? Now, is not any step taken to impede or cripple the business of farming a step towards just such a catastrophe, and therefore of a destructive tendency? Mr. Dillon then avails himself of an opportunity to give the people of the United States some gratuitous advice when he says: "We do not arrogate superior wisdom or intelligence to ourselves when we suggest to the people of the United States, and especially that portion of the country where railroads have been the subject of what we consider to be excessive legislation, that the rational mode of treating any form of human industry that has for its object the performance of desired and lawful service is to let it alone, and that the railway is no exception to this principle." This is the very plea that Jefferson Davis made when he kindled the flame of treason. * * * * *