The Constitutional Year-Book (Blackwood) appeared somewhat later than other books
of its kind, but it nevertheless deserves a warm welcome. It contains a wonderful amount of political, constitutional, and statistical information of all kinds. An analysis of the public services of the Peers is not a little curious and interesting. The Peers who have been in the Commons earlier in life number one hundred and seventy-one, those who have served in offices of State, exclusive of the Royal Household, one hundred and forty-eight. There are nineteen Judges and ex- Judges, twenty-eight Colonial Governors, twenty-three diplomats and ex - diplomats, twenty - five Civil servants, twenty - five "bankers, merchants, manufacturers, &e.," one hundred and forty eight Mayors and County Councillors. There are also in the Upper House one hundred and seventy-two Peers who have seen military, and nineteen who have seen naval, service, and there are twenty-six Bishops and Archbishops. As there are only some five hundred and eighty Peers of Parlia- ment in all, and as of these fourteen are minors, these figures pretty well dispose of the titled non-entities theory. We have no great abstract love of the hereditary principle, but the notion that the Peers are a body of benighted and effete fox-hunting country squires is a figment of the Radical brain. On the whole we can safely recommend the Constitutional Year-Book as an excellent piece of work.
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