Property its Origin and Development. By Charles Letourneau. (Walter Scott.)—A
treatise on property naturally follows on M. Letourneau's "Evolution of Marriage and of the Family ; " in- deed, some of the same ground has to he traversed again. That the author should have been able to review the notions of the rights of property held by all races, in some four hundred pages, argues much condensation. As we might have expected, we hear more about the development of property as shown to-day by native races than the history of European developments. That the status of the property of our earliest ancestors is explained to us by the usage of contemporary savage races, is a fairly good assumption, as we see many grades of development and excellently managed communities. In this case, " early " should have been inserted before " development " in the title. Some peoples stumbled almost on customs that, calmly reviewed to-day, seem admirably suited to their wants. But the socialism of the Arab
or the Redskin or the Fuegian, places the idler on the same level with the worker. Wherever the State has interfered, as it did in Greece, the system becomes a farce. Primogeniture the author attacks, yet he is guardedly silent and short about remedies, and speaks but casually about any hope for the future.
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