"A HISTORIC MEETING-HOUSE" [xvii. 474]-The writer of the very interesting article under the above title in the June Magazine considers the meeting-house of the First Baptist Church in Boston, of which he gives a sketch made by him in 1828, as the original structure. He says: The venerable edifice was erected in 1678, and like an ancient fortress at the outpost of a frontier, had for a century and a half stood the battle and the breeze;" and again : “This meetinghouse had been quietly erected, and, in 1679, was opened for public worship."

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In the Boston Almanac for 1843, which contains historical sketches of the churches in Boston, illustrated by engravings, and evidently prepared with great care, it is said (p. 69, First Baptist Church), "in 1771, a new house was built, which was afterwards considerably enlarged." It must have been this second

meeting-house which is represented in the sketch, and which, in 1828, was removed, as the article states, to South Boston. This was exactly a century and a half" after the building of the first meeting-house, if this was built, as stated, in 1678. The Boston Almanac gives the date as 1679, and the Memorial History of Boston (Vol. 1, 195), as 1680. As the house was closed by order of the General Court, March 8, 1680, it would seem that it was probably in use in 1679, and its erection may have been begun in 1678.*

The sketch is very valuable, as probably the only one in existence of either of the two meeting-houses of the First Baptist Church on Salem Street, corner

* Armitage (History of the Baptists, New York, 1887). "The church entered [the house] for worship, Feb. 15, [1679.]" p. 703. This perhaps should settle the question.

THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION held its fourth annual meeting in Boston, the sessions commencing on the 21st of May and closing with a Field-day in Plymouth on the 25th. The president was Mr. Justin Winsor, of Harvard; the secretary Professor Herbert B. Adams, of Johns Hopkins; the treasurer Clarence C. Bowen, of the New York Independent; the executive council, Charles Deane, LL.D., vice-president of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Professor Franklin B. Dexter, of Yale, Professor William F. Allen, of the University of Wisconsin, and Hon. William Wirt Henry, of Richmond, Virginia. The American Economic Association met at the same time and place, presided over by the accomplished General Francis A. Walker, and the two associations, in joint session, opened their meetings on the 21st in the Institute of Technology. Each president read an able and interesting paper-General Walker on "The efforts of manual laborers to better their condition," and President Winsor on "The manuscript sources of American history "--both of which were received with great favor. General Walker reviewed at considerable length the changes that have occurred in economic opinion during the past twenty-five years, saying that "it would be scarcely conceivable to-day that an economist of learning and reputation should gravely argue that the employer is, in effect, the trustee of the laborer's wages; and that it really does not matter whether in any given time and place he pays the laborer more or

pays him less, since by as much as the employer may underpay the laborer in any instance, by so much will he certainly and indefeasibly overpay him in some subsequent instance." President Winsor's excellent paper is published in full in another part of this magazine.

On Monday the Historical Association met in one of the banquet halls of the Brunswick hotel, seventy-five members present, among whom were S. L. Caldwell, LL. D., ex-president of Vassar College; Judge Mellen Chamberlain, of the Boston Public Library; Hon. John Jay, president of the Huguenot Society of America; Professor Johnston, of Princeton; Hon. Andrew White, LL.D., honorary president of Cornell; Mrs. Martha J. Lamb, editor of the Magazine of American History; Professor Moses Coit Tyler, of Cornell; Rev. Philip Schaff, D.D., of Union Theological Seminary, New York city; Colonel Thomas W. Higginson, of Cambridge; General George W. Cullum, of New York city; Professor Arthur M. Wheeler, of Yale; Professor E. J. James, of University of Pennsylvania; B. Fernow, of the State Library, Albany; Charles J. Stillé, LL.D., of Philadelphia; Judge Charles A. Peabody, of New York city; A. A. Graham, secretary of the Ohio Historical Society, Columbus; Edmund Mills Barton, of the Antiquarian Society, Worcester; Miss Katharina Coman, professor of history at Wellesley; Professor E. N. Horsford, of Cambridge; Gordon L. Ford, of Brooklyn; Professor Richmond Smith, of Columbia College;

Colonel Carrington, of Boston. The papers read and discussed in the morning session were: "Diplomatic prelude to the Seven Years' War," by Herbert Elmer Mills, fellow in history at Cornell; "Silas Deane," by Charles Isham, of New York; "Historical grouping," by James Schouler, of Boston; and "The Constitutional relations of the American Colonies to the English Government at the commencement of the American Revolution," by Judge Chamberlain, of Boston. At the evening session papers were read as follows: "Historical sketch of the Peace Negotiations of 1783," by Hon. John Jay; "Leopold von Ranke," a memorial sketch, by Professor Herbert B. Adams; and "The Parliamentary Experiment in Germany," by Dr. Kuno Francke, of Harvard. Each of these scholarly studies was discussed with animation by several of the gentlemen present. Meanwhile the Economic Association was wrestling with grave problems at the Institute of Technology, General Walker in the chair. The "problem of transportation" was admirably treated by Professor James; “The long and short haul clauses of the inter-State commerce act," a review of the methods followed or attempted to be followed, both in the United States and abroad, to prevent unjust local discrimination, was the subject of an interresting study by Edwin R. A. Seligman, Ph.D., of Columbia College; and other papers of great interest were presented.

On Tuesday morning, May 24, "A study in Swiss history" was read before the Historical Association by Professor John Martin Vincent, of Johns Hopkins. An interesting feature of the ex

ercises was the informal address of exPresident Andrew D. White, of Cornell University, who, from study and acquaintance with Swiss institutions, was especially qualified to speak of them. He said, by way of discussion, that the paper pleased him because of the comparative method used in it. He thought it very desirable that students and others should be led to compare the institutions of other countries with those of the United States, in order to get new ideas. Travelers in Switzerland found that in many things they do better there than here. Roads, for instance, were greatly superior to those of New York State. The next paper was "The Spaniard in New Mexico," by General W. W. H. Davis; following which came "The historic name of our country," by Professor Moses Coit Tyler, of Cornell. In the afternoon a joint session of the Historical and Economic Associations, of exceptional interest, was held in Cambridge, and the papers read were, "Our legal-tender decisions, a critical study in our Constitutional history," by Professor E. J. James; "The biography of a river and harbor bill," by Dr. Albert Bushnell Hart, of Harvard; and "The study of statistics in American colleges," by Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, who said: "America had no counterpart to the European school of statisticians, but the European statisticians lacked the grand opportunities which were open to the American. Dr. Engel had once said to him that he would gladly exchange the training of the Prussian Bureau of Statistics for the opportunity to