"Rather. It's myself. Going to hang myself next Monday morning, just in time to box me up before noon. Could you send your wagon about 9 A. M.?”

"Certainly, sir, any time that will suit you-looks like rain again, this afternoon, doesn't it?"-reaching for a pencil to figure up costs and profits.

Hari-Kari was only a special form of that custom, an affront to the feelings of the survivors, and an implied protest against some violation of personal rights.

"What a shame! The lawyers drove that gentleman to rip himself wide open," the neighbors would say.

But permission for a necktie matinee could be legally procured at any time. According to the litterateur Athenæus, a similar custom prevailed during the second century of the Roman empire; a life-weary citizen could apply to a magistrate who would investigate the extent of his grievances, and, in irremediable cases, grant him a formal privilegium abeundi-only pledging him to a previous settlement of his family affairs.

In medieval Europe a voluntary trip across the Stygian ferry was treated as a felony, yet the barbarous by-laws failed to prevent epidemics of suicide, like that of Caserta, near Naples, where a horde of superstition-crazed men and women rushed to the coast, en masse, to fling themselves over a precipice of the sea cliffs.

Perhaps the custom of going bareheaded helped to keep the brains of the Japs cool, as their loose-fitting robes certainly mitigate the martyrdom of their dog-day season. Fashion, favored by expositions, has tried to introduce Parisian patterns in some of the larger cities, but the middle classes will not go beyond the midway plaisance of a sailor suit, and workingmen stick to the tunics and dalmaticas of their forefathers.

The great Japanese seaport towns cannot yet, in all respects, rival the culture of our leading cities, while, in special directions of development, they have clearly surpassed it. Sewer systems, for instance, are still somewhat defective, all but the principal streets being dependent upon surface drainage. As an offset, there are public water-closets in easy reach of every block; pig-pens and shrieking roosters are not tolerated within the limits of the residence quarters, and impecunious wayfarers are lodged in decent "charity barracks," with washrooms and clean beds, instead of being locked up like criminals.

Buddhism has provincial strongholds, where some rural communities are so sunk in bigotry and besottedness that sanitary re

formers have given them up for lost; but in the cities, municipal hygiene is rapidly progressing, so much so, indeed, that our imitators will soon become our exemplars.

(To be continued.)

THE UTILITARIAN PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION AND THEIR RELATION TO ALTRUISM.*

By R. S. GUERNSEY, of the New York Bar.

CONCLUSION.

The foundation of the manner of considering and treating this subject fully appears in the articles already published. The author feels that the public interest in the matter, so far as relates to a system for local taxation, is not sufficient to warrant or encourage him in his efforts to serve the public in this direction in the continuance of their publication at this time in any attempt to further elucidate the plan.

The writer has endeavored to call attention to the fact and make taxation appear an important factor to be considered in social science founded upon social economy and the conditions of individuals in a community, and capable of being made to greatly contribute to its development or hindrance by its effect upon individuals to show how it may be extended to evolve beneficial reforms. The subject is one that must always be of more or less interest to thoughtful persons. The utilitarian principle is to recognize the doctrine and force of the primacy of the practical reason over the theoretical or haphazard method of one objective point, regardless of others. In many cases it is not discovered until it is sought for or tried as a deliverer from an unjust burden. This principle, followed in a system, will be a deliverer from an unendurable suspense in fruitless and blind efforts to ascertain what method should be resorted to for relief.

Taxation is desirable so long as it is expended for needed public requirements. It is a necessary function of government. Op

*Continued from page 212; begun in March number, 1901, page 225, Vol. 46.

pressive taxation is the effect of arrested development of the functions of government for the benefit of the governed, whether it is unappropriately imposed for any motive, or whether it is the result of the economic or social changes in the community, the effect is the same. Practical taxation means appropriate methods adapted to known conditions suitable to obtain definite ends. Taxes when imposed as a penalty or withheld as a subsidy can exert a powerful and effective moral and economic influence in a community.

It is to be hoped that the discussion of this subject, in the lines already laid out in these articles, will be taken up and not now allowed to sleep dormant among those who should feel themselves competent to continue it or to expose such errors as may be developed in the adaptation of those principles in more detail.

It may be that some special subject in the plan will be of more immediate interest to the public than will any suggested system. At present, Federal taxation is administered on a more systematic plan with a definite end in view and a regard for its collateral effects than exists in any State or municipality among us. There are excrescences in it, but they will disappear or wear out, and new ones will arise, but the efforts to have taxation for the public welfare will, after this time, always be the aim of those that shape these tax laws. National taxation now recognizes that the necessities common to all life, such as food, clothing and shelter, should be considered, and that necessary manufactures and productions and land should be free from its burdens, and that moneyed capital and excise and license privileges and luxuries should yield the necessary revenue for support of government, and that home productions should be protected and encouraged by a tax on some foreign importations that would injure it in competition in price and the employment of labor, as well as diversion of capital from other investments, and its accumulations to control prices.

If the effect of State and municipal local taxes (which affect homes) were studied and observed with the care and scrutiny and public discussions and interest that now attends National taxation and economic questions, all local governments would be improved in places where it is now greatly needed, and relief would be given where taxes are the most burdensome and now a hindrance to State and municipal growth, prosperity and happiness.

New York, May 10, 1902.

R. S. GUERNSEY.

THE BEST LITERATURE ON MASSAGE.

By E. C. ANGELL, M.D.

At the time my paper appeared in THE SANITARIAN, entitled "Massage, and Its Adjuncts,"* it was my intention to have sooner followed it with this. Other work, however, has occupied so much of my attention that delay has been unavoidable. As far as I have been able to ascertain, the first book published in this country on the promotion of health by exercise made its appearance in New York City in 1830, at the corner of Broad and Wall streets. It was entitled "A New System of Curing Dyspepsia." It was written and published by Oliver Halsted.

Like Thomas Carlyle, Halsted seemed to have discovered that he possessed a "diabolical stomach." He also discovered that he derived no inconsiderable benefit from riding on horseback and jolting in the stage coach. At that time these were the chief modes of land conveyance. Necessity was then, as now, the mother of invention, and this caused Halsted to invent a means of jolting invalids into health. He was a close observer, and no doubt a man of no inconsiderable genius. He devotes considerable space to the symptoms of dyspepsia, and quotes Addison and Shakespeare to show that they must have been sufferers from this malady. His patients were submitted to a succession of jolts administered by hand, with some rubbing, or massage. At that time, however, the term massage seems to have been unknown. It is not in the book. Nor at that time is it supposed that much was known of that important nerve center, the solar plexus. Even in rather recent times the average physician and the general public were not over familiar with the bearings of this important physiological entity. This disregard first became evident when the lanky blacksmith, Fitzsimmons, made a punching bag of the arrogant and much-astonished Corbett, and knocked him out with one blow. But this was more of rather a chance hit than intelligent direction. Halsted, even at the early period at which he wrote, seems to have discovered its exact whereabouts. He calls it the "pit of the stomach" and declares that the greater the sensibility at this point the greater the chance of recovery. It must have been some time after the publication of this book that Halsted invented the jolting chair.

*Vol. 36, 1896.

It was simply an arm chair, with a seat hung on pivots, which permitted it to rise and fall. When the patient was seated, a lever was grasped by each hand, and the jolting began. The benefits are supposed to have been in proportion to the industry, intelligence and vigor of the patient. It is not many years since quite a quantity of these chairs were offered for sale in West Twenty-third street, Manhattan. The history of this chair is the more interesting from the fact that it seems to have been, in this country, the pioneer in machine massage.

The first American to enter the field of machine massage seems to have been the late Dr. Charles Fayette Taylor. To use his own language, he writes as follows: "I was so impressed with the importance of this subject that as soon as I had graduated in medicine, in 1856, I went to London to study in this field. On my return, joined my brother, Dr. Geo. H. Taylor." Each wrote a book upon general and local Swedish movements. Both were copyrighted in 1860. One was published in New York and the other in Philadelphia. Both have been long out of print. Dr. Charies F. Taylor became largely interested in the treatment of angular and lateral curvatures of the spine. In this work he accomplished results that hitherto had been supposed impossible. His success in orthopedic work led to the establishment of an orthopedic hospital. The late Dr. Geo. H. Taylor's book on massage was published in 1884, and aside from errors in relation to hot air and the eliminating functions of the skin, is one of the best books of its time upon this subject.

The same year his book on Swedish movements was reproduced with some additions upon massage, without the heresies to which reference has been made, making it a most useful book for all who would perfect themselves in massage and the Swedish system of active and passive exercises.

Dr. Taylor is also the author of a very interesting and instructive book on pelvic therapeutics. He has also written a book on diseases of women, that cannot be too highly commended. These brothers were largely endowed with inventive genius. Much of the machinery originated and perfected by them is now employed by Dr. Patchen at the Zander Institute.

The next noteworthy book upon this subject came from the Hub, entitled "A Treatise on Massage," written by Dr. Douglas Graham; published in New York in 1884. A later and enlarged edition, published also in New York, appeared in 1890. Both are said to be out of print.