.
One is the Tariff, the other the reform of the Civil Service, and the
last is the problem of labor. It is noticeable that the division of
opinion regarding either of these questions does not correspond with the
lines of the established parties. There are Protectionists, as also Free
Traders, in both parties; both parties are equally puzzled by the labor
question; and though the Democratic Party has hitherto been re-actionary
on the subject of the Civil Service, a Democratic President is to-day
the champion and the hope of Reform. On the whole, it begins to look as
if each of the two great parties was in a state of incipient
disintegration. On the one hand, the Independent Republicans, whose
votes elected Grover Cleveland, although still professing allegiance to
the Republican party, will never again ally themselves with those who
supported Mr. Blaine. On the other side the Bourbon Democrats, who
helped to elect Mr. Cleveland, are now in arms against him. The
presidency of Cleveland is to say, the least the triumph of national
over party government; and should he continue to go forward bravely in
his present course, he may rest assured that the hearts of all good
citizens will go with him, and that his triumph will be complete. The
day is here when thinking men will have to brush conventionalism aside,
and confront with open minds the problem which the course of events has
now distinctly set before them for solution.

* * * * *

The records of our own time are being gradually embalmed in a permanent
form. MR. BLAINE has given us his first volume of what perhaps are
better classed as _impressions_ rather than as _memoirs pour
servir_; we are promised the Personal Memoirs of GENERAL GRANT; and
now at last, after many years' waiting, we have the completed works of
CHARLES SUMNER, the incorruptible son of Massachusetts, from the press
of Messrs. Lee and Shepard, who have spared no expense as publishers.

People who have not yet examined these volumes, or at least have not yet
looked through the volume containing the Index, have but a faint idea of
their invaluable worth and character. It would be impossible to write
the history of the early life of this people under the constitution
without borrowing material from the papers of Hamilton and of Madison.
Equally impossible will it be for the future historian to narrate, in
just and equable proportion, the events from 1845 to 1874, without
co