An exposition of the evils of the twins—Bossism and Monopoly. Mr. Spelling brings the record of trust robbery and boss despotism down to date, and while he necessarily has to treat the same facts and conditions which so many other writers have handled, none of them has a firmer grip upon the subject than he—nor have any of them produced a more essentially useful book. He is the only writer who has seized upon and utilized the tremendously important facts set forth by Albert Griffin in the financial articles which he wrote for this MAGAZINE some months ago. What Mr. Griffin calls Hocus Pocus Money another may call fictitious values, unsupported credit, wild-cat inflation, or any other name, but the fact as first pointed out by Mr. Griffin is that the Privileged Few in the Banking world are taxing the people to an enormous amount for the use of bogus money. Mr. Spelling also deals with the Railroad problem in a masterly way, advocating, as all sane men will soon be found doing, Government Ownership. =The Coming Crisis.= By Gustavus M. Pinckney. Walker, Evans and Cogswell Co., Charleston, S. C. This is a book to read closely and to think about. It is full of solid fact and sound reasoning. Its tone is calm, but its thought is deep, and it deals with matters of gravest import. A quotation will give some idea of the scope of the work: (1) “Society under government naturally tends to fall into two parties, one attached to the consumption of taxes and increase of power, the other attached to the decrease of taxes and to the limitation of power. (2) The tendency of the first party is to absorb the rights and property of the second: the tendency of the second is to resist the process. (3) Remaining unchecked, the first will steadily encroach and absorb until the second is compelled in self-preservation to resist by tendering the issue of force.” That’s a clear bold statement and a true one. Illustrating the method by which the one party appropriates the property of the other, Mr. Pinckney cites our infamous Tariff System. “The amount of prices advanced under a 40 per cent. tariff and _transferred from one private pocket to another_, would ... soon extend to figures to _dwarf the national debt_.” Some one has calculated that from Independence to 1861, the amount thus transferred from private pockets to other private pockets, without consideration, was something like $2,770,000,000. The sum so stolen from private pockets by the damnable Tariff, since 1861, and put into other private pockets is a great deal more than the colossal figures mentioned above. Mr. Pinckney likewise takes up the National Banker and shows how the Government allows him advantages over his fellow man that are “utterly without right, reason, or justification.” After explaining the juggle which takes place over the bonds, and the notes, he sums it up thus: “_The people are taxed in order that the privilege of issuing money may be farmed out to the banks._”