written memorandum to dwell upon and to have their friends and fellows look at and advise them about," before perishable or for gettable evidence of innocence is lost. 36 Ct.Cl. 315. The nation's safety is gravely menaced in the growing difficulty to get good and intelligent fighters to enlist in its naval defense. Since a charge and the prosecutor's evidence are alone known and preserved, since the "process of law" there substantially excludes defense, — the word of a commander is sufficient to send to the penitentiary or to
death. Such a service cannot be trusted by the intelligent and the efficient, and the United States must be gradually losing their support. As the regulation above men tioned affirms the necessity of furnishing ac cusations even to officers to guard them against wrongful injury, what must be the fate of many a helpless, humble, illiterate seaman, and what must be the reputation which he spreads among the seafaring popu lation on which this country must rely in the unexpected crises of war?
THE SYSTEM OF MEZZADRIA. NOWHERE is the right of the landlord enforced more stringently, or do the customs allowed him remain more strongly colored with feudalism, than in Italy, where the Mezzadria so largely prevails, and is so imbedded in the national habit that no other land system would be tolerated in the coun try generally, and Tuscany in especial. The peasant, in law styled colono parziario, in common parlance contadino, is supposed by the journalists of the English press to be a part proprietor of the soil, and to have in alienable rights thereto. In point of fact, the colono is only a tenant paying in work instead of money, and dismissible at will at any pleasure of his master, the dismissal be ing only subject to the law thus far, that it must be given at the close of the agrarian year (November), and must allow a year's warning or notice. The contract between landlord and tenant is denned by Marosini as "one bilaberal; in which the one side accords the soil to be culti vated, and the other is obliged to cultivate it for a quarter of its proceeds." But in this contract there is nothing which prejudices or in any way weakens the landlord's right
to the soil, or confers on the tenant anything more than a passing or partial possession of it. The peasant, entering upon the farm he has engaged to cultivate, is bound by the law to furnish : first bestiame,— that is, all animals needful for agricultural labor, and in sufficient number, to provide manure suffi cient for the soil; second, all instruments and objects needful for cultivation or production; such as forks, spades, wagons, spinningwheels, ox-carts, and to maintain all these in due order; third, one-half the seed necessary for sowing,— this last is an innovation under the new Code, or Patria Codicc; fourth, all expenses needful for the cultivation of the fields and the harvesting of its produce : when he requires a helper he must pay for one. As well as this, he must make any necessary plantations, keep clear all ditches, drains, and water springs; must fetch and carry all materials for repairs, and take what is required to his master's house, and, what is still more curious, must execute all work ordered by his commune on the public roads adjacent to him. These are his obligations : in return he has a right to one-half of the produce of the soil; but the mulberry leaves
