by Professor Vinagradoff, will contain two monographs on English manorial history, one of which is a study of Customary Rents, by Miss Neilson, Professor of History in Mount Holyoke College. Professor S. S. Huebner of the Wharton School has written a volume on Property Insurance which is now being published by Appleton and Company. Professor H. M. Robinson of the University of Illinois has completed his book on Modern Business Organization and Management for the series issued by the La Salle Extention University. The Macmillan Company will publish in the near future A History of Economic Thought: A Critical Sketch of the Origin and Development of the Economic Theories of the Leading Thinkers of the Leading Nations, by Professor Lewis H. Haney of the University of Texas. Mr. Frederick L. Hoffman has prepared a systematic and comprehensive work on Insurance Science and Economics, to be published by The Spectator Company (135 William St., N. Y.). Professor Charles L. Raper of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, is about to publish a special study of railway transportation and its regulation (Putnam's). The Prince Society, Boston, has recently published, for its members only, Colonial Currency Reprints, 1682-1750, Vol. I. This is edited with notes by Mr. Andrew McFarland Davis. The series will be comprised in four volumes and will make accessible in convenient and comparatively inexpensive form, many rare pamphlets relating to the heated discussion on the subject of the substitution of a paper currency for coin, of mortgage banks, and later of the condemnation of all sorts of paper schemes. A feature of the series will be portraits of distinguished controversialists, facsimiles of title pages, etc. In the first volume there are seventeen illustrations. The society welcomes new members interested in its objects and application may be made to the Treasurer of the Prince Society (Bible Rooms, 12 Bosworth Street, Boston). There are no dues, but a member is under obligation to take one copy of each new book as it appears. A series of eight lectures on the Philosophy of Socialism was given in Boston during January and February by Mr. James Mackaye, author of Economy of Happiness. The position of the orthodox capitalist school and the orthodox socialist school were both criticised, and the theory of utility as the foundation of political science advocated. A method of transition from capitalism to socialism was proposed. The National Poor Law Reform Association (5 Adam St., Strand, London, W. C.) was formed in March, 1910, in order to secure reforms in accordance with the report of the majority of the Royal Commission recently submitted to Parliament. Several pamphlets dealing with different aspects of the problem of poor law reform have been published and can be obtained, for the most part at one penny each, upon application. P. S. King & Son, London, announce the decennial supplement to the catalogue of the British Parliamentary Papers, for the years 19001910, to be published in May. The National Committee on Prison Labor (27 E. 22d Street, N. Y.), has published a syllabus brief on The Importance of the Prison Labor Problem, by J. Lebovitz, submitted at the last session of the International Prison Congress. A tentative typewritten bibliography on this subject can be obtained by persons especially interested in the subject. The American Prison Association is planning the publication of the Prisoners' Aid Review which will have a special department devoted to the question of prison labor. The awards for the Hart, Schaffner and Marx prizes for 1910 have been announced as follows: In Class A: First prize of $600, to Edwin J. Clapp, The Navigable Rhine; Second prize of $400, to Benjamin M. Anderson, Jr., Social Value; and Honorable Mention to Louis N. Robinson, History and Organization of Criminal Statistics in the United States. In Class B: First prize of $300 to J. F. Strombeck, an undergraduate in Northwestern University, Principles of Freight Classification; Second prize of $200 to Hornell N. Hart, The Best Means of Increasing the Wages of the Unskilled. In Class C: Honorable Mention to Isaac Fisher, Most Practical Scheme for Beginning a Reduction of the Tariff. An engraving in mezzotint of Walter Bagehot, by Norman Hirst, has just been published by T. Agnew and Sons, 43 Old Bond St., London. The size of the portrait is 12 by 10 inches, and artist's proofs can be obtained. The New York State Library has recently been made the repository of the Rensselaerswyck manuscripts, a collection of about 200 volumes of ledger and journal accounts and about 25,000 papers, embracing land patents, leases, contracts, deeds, maps, surveys, poll lists, tax lists, and other papers of a public or semi-public nature for the entire district covered by the former manor. Practically all the books and papers before 1700 are written in the Dutch language. They include about 100 volumes of ledger and journal accounts with colonists, showing the wages paid, supplies furnished, and farm products and rent received in return, 1634-1700; and about 2000 bills and receipts for work done in the colony, ranging in date from 1650 to 1750. The English books and papers include about 100 volumes of ledger and journal accounts of the manor, 1700-1881; six volumes of minutes and accounts of the Tivoli Manufacturing Company, 183640; and fifty lists of tenants, tax lists, and poll lists, 1780-1800; and about 500 manuscript maps. The above papers, with comparatively few exceptions, relate to the administration of the colony or manor of Rensselaers wyck for a period of over two hundred years and are of great value for the economic history of the vast district embraced within its limits. They show the gradual settlement of the territory covered by the present counties of Albany, Rensselaer, and Columbia, the laying out of roads, the building of houses, mills, and bridges, the method of farming, the average yield and value of farm products, the cost of labor, and other economic facts which it would be difficult to find in the public records of the period. The New York State Library has made a special effort to collect all available material on the income tax, especially in foreign cou tries. It has also recently obtained all the material collected by the special commission to investigate the Torrens system of registration of land titles. A part of this was deposited with the Library directly by Mr. Clarkson, the chairman of the commission, and the remainder, comprising the supplementary matter referred to the Governor with report, was transferred from the Executive office. This makes a unique collection on the subject of land titles. Mr. Henry R. Wagner has deposited in the Yale University Library large portions of his collections on the history of the precious metals and of currency. The deposit includes older books of general economic interest, works on the technology of the precious metals, and Spanish American works relating directly or indirectly to the subject. It is particularly strong, however, in English and Irish economic and historical tracts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There are more than 7,000 items, including tracts relating to the Banks of England and Ireland, the South Sea Bubble, the Chartists, the Bank Act of 1844, the Indian currency, the California of the fifties, and the bimetallic controversy. Additions are made constantly. It will be some time, however, before the collection is fully classified and catalogued, and available for inter-library loans. The library of the University of Chicago has recently secured the library of Mr. Simons, former editor of The Daily Socialist. This includes an exceptional collection of about 1,200 pamphlets relating to Utopian projects and the socialist movement in the United States. Prof. Charles C. Williamson has accepted the position of Chief of the Department of Economics and Sociology in the New York Public Library and will enter upon his duties at the end of the present academic year. Within the next few months the New York Public Library will move into its new building, at Fifth Avenue and Fortysecond Street, in which special provision has been made for the separate department which Dr. Williamson will organize. It is hoped to make this library a most important center for research in economic sociology, and allied subjects. The author of the article on Economic Libraries in the latest edition of Palgrave's Dictionary of Political Economy states that the New York Public Library "is believed to have the best collection of economics of any public library in the world outside of the British Museum." The Documents Department of the Library, in charge of Miss A. R. Hasse, now has about 250,000 volumes, being unsurpassed in many lines. It has a very full collection of the series of statistical reports of foreign countries and also possesses an especially complete collection of the administrative and legislative documents and reports, not only of American federal, state, and local governments, but also of foreign states and municipalities. Professor F. Spencer Baldwin, of Boston University, served as special assistant to the Massachusetts Commission on the Inspection of Factories, Workshops, and Mercantile Establishments, which reported to the State legislature in January of this year. Professor Baldwin also prepared, by order of the legislature, a report on the cost of establishing retirement systems for State and county employees. In 1909 and 1910 he acted as secretary of three special Massachusetts commissions, namely: Old Age Pensions and Insurance, the Tax Laws, and the Cost of Living. Dr. Harrison S. Smalley, of the University of Michigan, has been appointed Associate Professor of Economics in Leland Stanford Junior University. His work at Stanford, which will begin in August, 1911, will be largely in the field of railroad transportation. Professor Richard T. Ely of the University of Wisconsin has leave of absence for the spring semester. During a trip to Europe, he will study various land problems, especially in Germany and England. Victor E. Helleberg, recently of the University of Chicago, has been appointed Assistant Professor of Sociology in the University of Kansas to take the place of Maurice Parmelee. In recognition of the services of Professor L. S. Rowe of the University of Pennsylvania, in the formulation of a plan for the organization of the National University of Mexico, that institution has made Dr. Rowe an honorary professor, and he has agreed to give a course of lectures in July and August during the next two or three years, on "The Political and Social Institutions of the United States," these lectures to be given in Spanish. Professor F. W. Blackmar is serving on a commission appointed by the Governor of Kansas to investigate the condition and management of the state penitentiary at Lansing. Mr. James B. Morman, who has served so acceptably as one of the board of editors of the Economic Bulletin in the field of agricultural economics, has resigned his position in the United States Department of Agriculture in order to assist Dr. C. Hart Merriam in the preparation of monographic material on the Mammals of North America and ethnological studies of the American Indian. The fund under which this work is undertaken is provided by Mrs. E. H. Harriman. Associate Professor Ralph W. Cone has resigned his position in the department of Sociology and Economics of the University of Kansas on account of ill health. His place has not been filled. Mr. Fred C. Croxton, who has been Chief Statistician of the United States Immigration Commission since its organization, has returned to the Bureau of Labor. Mr. Oscar R. Martin, a graduate of Central Wesleyan University, and Mr. Ira G. Flocken, formerly a fellow at Cornell University, have been appointed assistants in Economics at the University of Illinois. Dr. John B. Andrews has been reëlected Secretary of the American Association for Labor Legislation, which now has a membership of more than 2,000, and with headquarters in New York City is making its influence felt throughout the country in matters of protective labor legislation. Professor W. Z. Ripley of Harvard University will be absent during the second half of the current academic year; a part of his vacation will be spent in Egypt. |