The state taxes for the next two years w...

The state taxes for the next two years will be several hundred tliousaml dollars less than they have been during the past two years. wbich will be welcome news to our over-burdened tax-payers. Under the new election law all nominations for city offices next spring must be made at least a week before the election, so that all the ñames can be printed on one ticket. This will make the canvass mueh longer. The city canvasses have been hot enough in the past and it is to be hoped that this will not increase tlieir heat. There is so little remuneration in the offices, especially mayor and aldermen, that the kandidates will not take kindly to the longer canvass required. There has been some misunderstanding of the possible effects of a recent decisión of the supreme court upon the office of city clerk in this city. To correct this misapprehension, we may state that the decisión that the Bay City alderman who was appointed chief of pólice during the term for which he had been elected alderman could not hold that place, has no possible bearing on City Clerk Miller's tenure of office. Miller was elected city clerk by the people of this city. If he had been appointed clerk, the decisión would have been in point. There is a wide difference between appointment and election. The Bay City decisión simply decides what every intelligent lawyer would have maintained to be the law before the decisión was made. It would be going far to say that an election as alderman would prevent the people from electing a man to any position. There would be no reason for any suclï rule and there is no such law. The Ypsilantian seems to be anxióus to know wliat the Argus thinks of tbe new división of congressional districts in this state. It is unnecessary to remark that our opinión is not the same as that of the Ypsilantian. It is true if we liad to make the división we would have endeavored to have secured a slightly more equable división as regards population, but even on this score the republicanshave no cause forcomplaint. The congressional district containing the largest population is democratie. The smallest congressional district is reliably republican. The republicans usually reverse this, massing the democratie counties in large districts, and making the republican districts small. The Ypsilantian condemns the división because the largest district contains 192,779 people and the smallest 149,558, a difference of 43,221. ' How much better is this than tbe oíd división, under which the largest districtdemocratie, by the way- contained 257,114 people, and the smallest- republican, of course- contained 153,635, a difference of 103,479. This is what we would cali a gerrymander. But in order to be perfectly fair with the Ypsilantian, we will state that these latter figures are the population of 1890, showing the inequalities in the districts as they existed at the time the democratie legislature corrected them. At the time the republican legislature made the gerrymander, in 1880, the population of the largest district was 178,'066, and of the smallest, 104,52" The republicans were given the sma districts and the democrats the large This, in the language ol the Ypsilan tian, was "acrowning outrage," bu perpetrated by a republican legisla ture. To show that the división just mad is not prima facie an unfair one, it i only necessary to add that five of th districts are democratie, five of them are republican, and two are doubtful. As Michigan is a close state, this is much fairer than divisions whicl would give the democrats two or thr-ee districts, except in landslides, such a the republicans have been making It is much fairer than the Ypsilanti an's proposed distriets, which would have given the republicans by far the greatest number of districts.