weighty reason in a case that would justify a district court judge in overruling all precedents, especially when these precedents are established by courts which outrank the District Court, as is the case in all decisions of United States Circuit Courts. Next to the United States Supreme Court, the Circuit Courts of the United States stand in power and authority. Too many instances have occurred recently where district court judges ignore the decisions of these higher courts. This practice leads to confusion, and works harm in the administration of justice.

The great bulk of the trade in obscenity is dependent upon the mails of the United States for means of communication. These crimes, and the depredations committed upon the mails by dishonest employees, have been kept in check by the fidelity of the officers of the Mail Depredation Department, of Washington, of which William A. West, Esq., is chief inspector, by means of these common-sense tests which enable the officers to detect the criminal and discern between the honest and dishonest employees.

The great bulk of the business in obscene publications that a few years ago loaded down the mails, by which thousands of our youth were being corrupted; the monstrous frauds then operated, which in some instances netted $1,000 a day to those who conducted them; the gigantic lottery schemes that formerly flooded the mails - all have been checked by "test letters" and brought into subjection, while the perpetrators of these crimes have been brought to justice. All this has been accomplished by means of letters which Judge Spier chooses to denounce as improper, but which every other court that I can find any record of in this country has approved and indorsed.

In the case in question Mr. Charles E. Dosser, one of the most faithful post office inspectors in the service to-day, and two of his associates had charge of the case; and whether designed or not, Judge Spier's ruling is an implied rebuke to these faithful officers. If such a doctrine is to prevail, the mails will be open to frauds, fraudulent lotteries, and venders in obscenity and filth; while it will encourage dishonesty, embezzlement, and depredation in those inclined to be dishonest in the postal service.

When we consider that the mails of the United States go into every city, town, hamlet, and home; that upon every railroad and steamship line are postal clerks, and route agents distributing mail to all parts of our land, and every post office that is occupied by those who must necessarily handle other people's mail-matter; when we consider that the mails are the great channels of communication between people in different parts of the country, then the necessity of methods to detect crime, and protect these great interests, will be realized; and then, it seems to me, will appear to the mind of every intelligent reader the wisdom of the decisions of the higher courts in sanctioning detective measures to bring the secret offenders against our laws to justice.

ANTHONY COMSTOCK,

THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM.

ADOPTED IN NATIONAL CONVENTION AT CHICAGO, JUNE 21.

THE Republicans of the United States, assembled by their delegates in National Convention, pause on the threshold of their proceedings to honor the memory of their first great leader, the immortal champion of liberty and the rights of the people — Abraham Lincoln; and to cover also with wreaths of imperishable remembrance and gratitude the heroic names of our later leaders who have more recently been called away from our councils — Grant, Garfield, Arthur, Logan, Conkling. May their memories be faithfully cherished. We also recall with our greetings, and with prayer for his recovery, the name of one of our living heroes, whose memory will be treasured in the history both of Republicans and of the Republic-the name of that noble soldier and favorite child of victory, Philip H. Sheridan. In the spirit of those great leaders, and of our own devotion to human liberty, and with that hostility to all forms of despotism and oppression which is the fundamental idea of the Republican party, we send fraternal congratulation to our fellow-Americans of Brazil upon their great act of emancipation, which completed the abolition of slavery throughout the two American continents. We earnestly hope that we may soon congratulate our fellow-citizens of Irish birth upon the peaceful recovery of home rule for Ireland.

FREE SUFFRAGE.

We reaffirm our unswerving devotion to the national constitution and to the indissoluble union of the States; to the autonomy reserved to the States under the constitution; to the personal rights and liberties of citizens in all the States and Territories in the Union, and especially to the supreme and sovereign right of every lawful citizen, rich or poor, native or foreign born, white or black, to cast one free ballot in public elections, and to have that ballot duly counted. We hold the free and honest popular ballot and the just and equal representation of all the people to be the foundation of our republican government, and demand effective legislation to secure the integrity and purity of elections, which are the fountains of all public authority. We charge that the present Administration and the Democratic majority in Congress owe their existence to the suppression of the ballot by a criminal nullification of the constitution and laws of the United States.

PROTECTION TO AMERICAN INDUSTRIES.

We are uncompromisingly in favor of the American system of protection; we protest against its destruction as proposed by the President and his

party. They serve the interests of Europe; we will support the interests of America. We accept the issue, and confidently appeal to the people for their judgment. The protective system must be maintained. Its abandonment has always been followed by general disaster to all interests, except those of the usurer and the sheriff. We denounce the Mills bill as destructive to the general business, the labor and the farming interests of the country, and we heartily indorse the consistent and patriotic action of the Republican representatives in Congress in opposing its passage.

We condemn the proposition of the Democratic party to place wool on the free list, and we insist that the duties thereon shall be adjusted and maintained so as to furnish full and adequate protection to that industry.

INTERNAL REVENUE.

The Republican party would effect all needed reduction of the national revenue by repealing the taxes upon tobacco, which are an annoyance and burden to agriculture, and the tax upon spirits used in the arts and for mechanical purposes, and by such revision of the tariff laws as will tend to check imports of such articles as are produced by our people, the production of which gives employment to our labor, and release from import duties those articles of foreign production (except luxuries) the like of which cannot be produced at home. If there shall still remain a larger revenue than is requisite for the wants of the government, we favor the entire repeal of internal taxes rather than the surrender of any part of our protective system at the joint behests of the whiskey trusts and the agents of foreign manufactures.

FOREIGN CONTRACT LABOR.

We declare our hostility to the introduction into this country of foreign contract labor and of Chinese labor, alien to our civilization and our constitution; and we demand the rigid enforcement of the existing laws against it, and favor such immediate legislation as will exclude such labor from our shores.

TRUSTS.

We declare our opposition to all combinations of capital, organized in trusts or otherwise, to control arbitrarily the condition of trade among our citizens; and we recommend to Congress and the state legislatures, in their respective jurisdictions, such legislation as will prevent the execution of all schemes to oppress the people by undue charges on their supplies, or by unjust rates for the transportation of their products to market. We approve the legislation by Congress to prevent alike unjust burdens and unfair discriminations between the States.

HOMES FOR THE PEOPLE.

We reaffirm the policy of appropriating the public lands of the United States to be homesteads for American citizens and settlers, not aliens, which the Republican party established in 1862, against the persistent opposition

of the Democrats in Congress, and which has brought our great Western domain into such magnificent development. The restoration of unearned railroad land grants to the public domain, for the use of actual settlers, which was begun under the administration of President Arthur, should be continued. We deny that the Democratic party has ever restored one acre to the people, but declare that, by the joint action of the Republicans and Democrats, about 50,000,000 of acres of unearned lands, originally granted for the construction of railroads, have been restored to the public domain, in pursuance of the conditions inserted by the Republican party in the original grants. We charge the Democratic administration with failure to execute the laws securing to settlers title to their homesteads, and with using appropriations made for that purpose to harass innocent settlers with spies and prosecutions under the false pretense of exposing frauds and vindicating the law.

HOME RULE IN TERRITORIES.

The government by Congress of the Territories is based upon necessity only, to the end that they may become States in the Union; therefore, whenever the conditions of population, material resources, public intelligence, and morality are such as to insure a stable local government therein, the people of such Territories should be permitted, as a right inherent in them, the right to form for themselves constitutions and state governments, and be admitted into the Union. Pending the preparation for Statehood, all officers thereof should be selected from the bona fide residents and citizens of the Territory wherein they are to serve.

South Dakota should of right be immediately admitted as a State in the Union, under the constitution framed and adopted by her people, and we heartily indorse the action of the Republican Senate in twice passing bills for her admission. The refusal of the Democratic House of Representatives, for partisan purposes, to favorably consider these bills, is a willful violation of the sacred American principle of local self-government, and merits the condemnation of all just men. The pending bills in the Senate for acts to enable the people of Washington, North Dakota, and Montana Territories to form constitutions and establish state governments should be passed without unnecessary delay. The Republican party pledges itself to do all in its power to facilitate the admission of the Territories of New Mexico, Wyoming, Idaho, and Arizona to the enjoyment of self-government as States, such of them as are now qualified, as soon as possible, and the others as soon as they may become so.

MORMONISM.

The political power of the Mormon Church in the Territories, as exercised in the past, is a menace to free institutions, a danger no longer to be suffered. Therefore we pledge the Republican party to appropriate legislation asserting the sovereignty of the nation in all Territories where the same is questioned; and in furtherance of that end to place upon the statute