were convicted and two pleaded guilty. The lightest punishment inflicted was a year and a half in the State prison, the heaviest three years and eight months. The penalties are not excessive, in view of the facts, for a more audacious plan of robbery could hardly have been put into execution. Theiss, it will be remembered, employed musicians of his own selection. The convicted boycotters demanded the discharge of these men and the substitution for them of members of the union to which they belong, known as the Carl Sahm Club. Theiss refusing to come to terms they ranged themselves outside his doors, circulated printed stories about him, warned persons against going into the place and performed the customary boycotting antics. Their victim finally succumbed and agreed to hire them. But success had made them more arrogant. They demanded $1,000 in money to pay the expenses of the boycott," and got it. They were arrested, examined before a police justice, and were discharged, the petty Solon on the bench having before his eyes more fear of the boycott than desire to do his duty. Judge Barrett, in sentencing them, took occasion to say some interesting things to the public at large and more especially to gentlemen who fancy that they can effect their ends through boycotting without risk of imprisonment. New York Herald, July 3. THE severe sentences imposed yesterday by Judge Barrett upon five of the Theiss boycotters and his scathing remarks will doubtless serve to check boycotting generally in this city and to prevent entirely a repetition of that species of it for which the prisoners in this case were tried. So true a friend of the laboring classes as Mr. Powderly has condemned the boycott even in its mildest form. The boycott of which Theiss was made the victim was carried to an extreme that was simply tyranny, and, as Judge Barrett characterized it, "little better than robbery or blackmail." If it had not been treated as a crime and punished no business in the community would be safe against socialistic attacks. Chicago News (Ind.), July 3. THE Conviction of five boycotters and their sentence to terms of imprisonment varying from one year and six months to three years and eight months proves that men acting under mistaken leadership contrary to law are still amenable to it. Neither was there any of the tedious difficulty in selecting a jury to try these boycotters in New York that has stopped the progress of justice in the anarchist trial here. And yet the community there had formed as definite opinions touching boycotting as it has regarding anarchism in Chicago. The difference between the proceedings in court clearly demonstrates that the machinery of justice is in a most wretched condition in Illinois. Philadelphia Record (Ind.), July 4. BOYCOTTING, with the superadded crime of extortiom, has procured for two men convicted in New York eighteen months in the penitentiary, for two others two years and ten months, and for one other three years and eight months. The punishment was graded to the degree of guilt. Five years is the maximum punishment provided by law. If the dose should prove insufficient for the repression of this cowardly practice, probably the time of imprisonment will be hereafter increased. Milwaukee Wisconsin (Rep.), July 1. declares that the first principles of a practical philosophy consists in the adoption of a purely vegetable diet. In Ovid, (Metamorph, xv) Pythagoras, among other things, says the following: "Touch thou no flesh, but live on milder food, As once in days of old-the age which men call golden; Ovid, the delicate, aesthetic, cosmopolitan poet of the Roman Empire, was also a vegetarian of the first water. I am reminded, on this occasion, of Homer and Vigil. In the thirteenth canto of the Iliad, the Hippomolges, who lived only upon the fruits of the field and the milk of the herds, were called the most righteous men of earth. The same thing is said in the Odyssey of the Lotophages; whilst the flesh-eating Cyclops were represented as the primitive type of the savage and ferocious brutes. As we have spoken above of Pythagoras, we can not omit Empedocles, a sage of the Ionian school. This singular philosopher did not permit the inconvenience of wearing brazen sandals to disturb him, having renounced emphatically the use of animal substances for any purpose whatever. To be sure, there must have been a screw loose some where, for one day he committed, altogether, a decidedly original suicide--destroying himself in the crater of Ætna-in what manner is unknown, as the most divergent traditions are in existence concerning his death. We now come to Socrates, who, in one of his most celebrated dialogues (the one concerning the Republic), declares vegetable food to be the most wholesome and natural diet. Seneca says in one of his letters to Lucilius (ad Lucilium epistola, 108) the following: "As you already know with what zeal I have prosecuted the study of philosophy in my youth, I do not conceal from you the admiration which the precepts of Pythagoras have instilled into my mind. Sotion, and, after him, Sextus, both resolved to renounce the enjoyment of animal food. They did so from different but equally noble motives. Sotion believes that one may nourish himself very well without shedding the blood of other living beings. If ever the practice of slaughtering animals should become a habit for the gratification of our appetites, brutality will also pervade our morals." He adds that the food which is not natural to mankind can not be otherwise than prejudicial to their health. "When I restrain you from flesh," says he, "I only withdraw from you the nourishment of lions and vultures. Moved by such considerations, I have also renounced the enjoyment of meat, and after the lapse of a year, my new mode of living was not only easy but excellent; and it seemed to me even that my intellectual faculties became more and more active." The most renowned Grecian geographer, Strabo, and the Storic philosopher, Musonius of Volsinium in Etruria, express themselves, in like manner, in favor of the general introduction of vegetable diet. Plutarch says, in his celebrated essay against eating of meat, the following: "With what mind, feeling, and judgment was that man endowed who first ventured to soil his mouth with the flesh and his lips with the blood of a murdered creature the man who first covered his table with the dead bodies, an.l took for his daily nourishment the remains of living beings, that possessed intelligence, How? Can you not feed yourselves with the products of the motion, and voice! soil? Do you despise our mother, the generous earth, and the succulent, refreshing gifts of Dionysius ? " From the above it is to be perceived with sufficient clearness that vegetarianism found among the ancients zealous adherents in its most prominent men. In the Middle Ages not one voice was raised in favor of the introduction of a vegetable diet, and only with the resuscitation of the classics was vegetarianism once more brought upon the tapis. What is apparent from all this? Nothing farther than that vegetarianism is far more a question of æsthetic feeling than one of health. Antiquity, bright and rich in color and in classic perfume, was called forth in the front ranks to foster vegetarianism. In the rough, combative Middle Ages, it was left entirely out of the game, only again to be restored to honor in the Renaissance and among the elegant novelties of modern times.-Translated for Public Opinion from the New York StaatsZeitung. WHETHER Schilling shall be convicted or acquitted is of comparatively slight consequence to the general public. The information now clearly given by Judge Sloan's charge, that business men and communities have an adequate defense in law against the evils of the riotous strike and the boycott, should determine every business man and community to invoke and to employ such legal defenses until strikes by violence and boycotts shall be heard of no more. Philadelphia Press (Rep.), July 3. SOME important lessons will be learned in the result of these trials. Boycotting is much more damaging to those who indulge in it than to those who are sought to be made the victims of it. It is an injury to labor in every sense, and now that it has been made dangerous there will probably be much less of it than heretofore. With the laws and sensible working men against it there ought to be no chance for it whatever. Philadelphia Times (Ind.), July 3. ALL the convicted parties are foreigners and aliens, who doubtless supposed that the United States was a country in which such a thing as law did not exist or, if it did, could not be enforced. They will be given a good long period in which to reflect on their serious mistake. MISCELLANEOUS. VEGETARIANISM AMONG THE ANCIENTS.-Mrs. Anna Kingsford, Doctor medicinæ of the Paris faculty, published recently a dissertation on "The Nourishment of Mankind by Plants," as she designates her small but attractively written volume. Mrs. Kingsford is, to-day, one of the first female scholars in France, and she has made quite a sensation in Paris by the production of her treatise. She belongs to the Vegetarian Society of Manchester as vice-president, and is a fanatical vegetarian, not less upon aesthetic than upon scientific grounds. In our time a great deal has been said about vegetarianism, and many persons assert that "it has a great future," to which class belongs Mrs. Kingsford. I will neither express an opinion for nor against Mrs. Kingsford, in whom I recognize, moreover, more than a learned- Bluestocking; and I leave entirely untouched the strictly scientific portion of her work. On the other hand, I believe the bias which the judgments of the renowned men of antiquity contains in favor of vegetarianism should be reckoned in the general interests of the reading public. The author begins with Pythagoras, the sage of Samos, who was born about 570 B. C. This great philosopher, who had investigated the mysterious depths of the Egyptian philosophy, A THEORY OF CRIMINALITY.-In Italy, during the last few decades, a number of scientific men, mostly physicians, have devoted themselves to a careful study of criminal types. Their point of view is a strictly scientific one: they regard a crime as the expression of a dangerous trait of character. The character is more important than the act. Moreover, the criminal is not a spontaneous, capricious product; he does not stand alone, but belongs to a class. Thus the anthropology of the criminal classes becomes a distinct object of study. Again: criminality is essentially a morbid phenomenon, and is a defect analogous to insanity or idiocy. In this aspect the criminal is a psychological study. To characterize the spirit of this movement in a few words, one may say that it lays stress on the criminal rather than on the crime. Foremost among the representatives of this view is Dr. Lombroso, the editor of a journal devoted to this movement, and author of a comprehensive work on the defective classes. His theory is that, in general, one may recognize three types of causes of the outbreaks against the social order-physical, social, and anthropological. Among the first may be mentioned climate. In the Argentine Republic the sharp changes of temperature favor a revolutionary character in the inhabitants. The season of year influences the amount of crime: crime predominates in the warm months. Of one hundred and ninety-two revolutions in Europe, the months of June and July have the largest share; November and January, the smallest. So, too, heat is a factor. Southern countries (Italy, Spain, Greece) have the largest number of revolutions; northern countries (Russia, Sweden, Norway) have the least. Geographical position and other phys ical causes could be added. As social causes, Dr. Lombroso regards the struggle for supremacy among the various social castes or classes, a disharmony between the existing civilization and the prevalent economic conditions, an opposition between the political forms and the national feeling and needs. Such are the more constant occasions of revolutionary outbreaks, as shown in history. Mere accidental cir cumstances, such as the appearance of a great leader or writer, must also be considered. Finally, the following are the prominent anthropological causes: the coexistence of races not readily assimilated, with, perhaps, a tendency to political changes; hereditary anomalies of character, such as criminality and moral in sanity; or acquired anomalies, as alcoholism and insanity. All these go to form three classes of political defectives-criminals by heredity, by habit, and by mental disease. These have furnished the subject-matter to the new science of criminal anthropology. One must not suppose that, because these criminals are classed under the insane, they will not be active in political crimes; for though they may be men of small intellect, yet the absence of the restraining power of a well-developed moral sense makes the bridge between thought and action shorter and smoother. A mere fanciful conception of possible crimes will take so strong a hold on their minds that the act itself will follow. More sensible and reflecting criminals would be repelled by the consequences and dangers of the act. Others need restless activity; their present condition seems the worst possible. As a rule, too, they are very fond of notoriety. They are in love with crime. The pain of others is a keen satisfaction to them; its horror attracts them. The French revolution shows such types. Lejeune made a little guillotine, and used it on the chickens destined for his table. Jean d'Heron wore a human ear as a cockade on his hat, and had others in his pockets. Carrier confessed that the writhings of the priests whom he condemned to torture gave him exquisite pleasure. The modern socialists, anarchists, and dynamiters no doubt contain an element of these hereditary criminals, who use the political object as a mask for their instinctive tendencies to lawless outbreaks. The socialistic and the criminal types of face present strong resemblances. In some cases the introduction of such a criminal element transforms a purely political organization into a band of outlaws: the Molly-Maguires are an example of this. All these facts urge the study of these defective classes. Society has a right to defend itself against these enemies of all peace and progress. But the punishment must be directed to the removal of the evil.-7. Jastrow, in Science. ANARCHY FROM AN ANARCHIST'S STANDPOINT.-Competition among capitalists is continually reducing the price of commodities to the cost of production. This necessitates increasingly minute subdivision of labor, destroying that technical skill which made the old-fashioned shoemaker or blacksmith independent; degrading the laborers into portions of the machine they operate; stimulating the competition for employment which prevails among them; increasing the frequency of those periods when they are thrown out of work and reduced from comfort to beggary, and of course contributing to increase the revolutionary discontent of educated men, nurtured in hope and enjoyment, who see themselves hopelessly distanced by those whom they can in no way regard as their superiors. The chasm which threatens to engulf our social system is still further widened by the lestruction of small capitalists in the battle of competition and the growth of great monopolies, advancing pari passu with the pauperization of the laboring class. The miser. ies and dangers thus engendered by the very nature of modern trade and industry are greatly aggravated by the periodical gorging of the market with goods produced in excess of the demand during seasons of speculation, and the consequent forced migration of capital to other branches by the dreary road along which lie bankruptcy, stagnation, reduced consumption, reduced production, slow liquidation, and that gradual revival of business which closes a financial crisis. The critical character of these periodical revulsions is greatly aggravated by the fluctuations of that uncertain currency which speculative business has everywhere introduced. It has so far been palliated by the extension of the market into new countries-America, India, Egypt, China, etc. But when this process reaches an end and one commercial system extends over the world, then, if not sooner, prices will actually fall to the cost of production, and the catastrophe of production for profit will be reached. Anarchy, therefore, according to anarchists, is the inevitable end of the present drift and tendency of things. Trimmers may devise means to put it off; Napoleons and Bismarcks may, for a time, stifle it in blood, but the longer it is deferred the more violent will be the reaction which brings it in at last. That only is wise statesmanship which gives up moribund institutions to die. That only is reform which anticipates in a less painful manner the work of revolution.-C. L. James in North American Review for July. RECENT CHANGES IN JAPAN. The emperor has come out from his seclusion, makes tours through the country, is seen by common people, even dines with his merchants, who, as a class, stood lowest in the old-time social scale. Three hundred miles of railway, steamship lines, a telegraph business that amounts to $50,000 a day, a complete post office department embracing postal-order and bank systems, lighthouses, telephones, steam-mills with complicated machinery, a new civil and criminal code based on that of France, a well-equipped army and navy, a fine mint, official observance of the Sabbath, adoption of the Christian calendar, and complete religious freedom-these are the striking features of New Japan. She also has one university with affiliated colleges, and in all 30,662 schools, with 3,090,918 students-two twenty-fifths of her whole population. A society for Romanizing the language now numbers six thousand members and publishes a paper. English is taught in some of the schools and will be in all as soon as teachers can be prepared for the work. December 31, 1885, only fifty-three foreigners were in the employ of various government departments, including that of education, as compared with several hundred a few years since. Japan's foreign commerce amounts annually to seventeen million dollars, against less than one quarter of one million in 1850. During the past two years four thousand laborers have emigrated to Hawaii under a contract to work on sugar-plantations. They send home their surplus earnings.-Rev. Jas. H. Peltee. A PARAGRAPHER'S RASH WAGER.-Last Tuesday Foster, the State news paragrapher of the Cleveland Press, published a paragraph to this effect: "A Marion girl started her graduating essay as follows: I am fairly worried out with the incessant pratings of the lords of creation on the duties and sphere of woman.' The paragraph closed with the somewhat dangerous assertion that the editor would bet a new spring hat that the author of that discourse on woman's sphere could not bake a loaf of bread. Two days later Mr. Foster received from Marion a large box. It contained sundry light loaves of bread and cake marvelously toothsome. An accompanying affidavit bore the solemn oath of the sweet girl graduate (who possesses the pretty name of May Williams) that she had, unaided, baked the wheat bread marked Exhibit A," the two specimens of corn bread marked "Exhibit B," and the chocolate, "Exhibit C." The notary's seal of office was affixed to the affidavit, and it was settled beyond a doubt in Mr. Foster's mind that his wager had been accepted. He therefore went out and lavished his week's salary on a new spring hat. Is there a Mrs. Foster in the middle distance? -The Journalist. EDUCATIONAL. A VICTORY FOR WOMEN.-The victory won by women at the present season of college anniversaries is nothing short of a revolution in the ideas of what is proper to be done within the walls of a college. Ten years ago it was a brave man in most of the colleges who dared to say anything in favor of the admission of women to the privileges of a collegiate education. The Harverd Annex began by apologizing for itself, and has not yet had a fair show at Harvard, and Wellesley and Smith and Bryn Mawr colleges are yet in the gristle of experiment; but public sentiment has shot beyond the heads and trustees of the older and more conservative institutions, and now there are but three colleges-Yale, Amherst and Williamsamong the older institutions that are not open to women in some form. This is a revolution in female education, and is destined to work a great change in the culture of the country and in professional life. Women spread culture better than men, because they have more time for it. If the present demand for the higher education of women continues, and there is no reason that it should be less, it will shortly come about that co-education will be an accomplished fact in the higher institutions, as it is a reality in many of the country schools and in most schools where primary instruction is given. It would seem as if the drift at the present moment were decidedly in this direction. The revolution is one that might have been anticipated, but it has come almost without observation in many of the older colleges. Brown University, for instance, is said to have yielded the point quite as a matter of course; while at the West, and in many of the State colleges, the two sexes have for some time been on substantially the same footing. The good results of the higher education of women have vindicated the action of the leading institutions which had already opened their doors to women, and the full enjoyment of collegiate education of women is now only a question of time everywhere. To have reached this result without special effort, and as an act of justice to the other sex, is one of the great educational victories of the age. It is also one of the signs that the ideas of our own people are working toward great practical realities in American life. There is no aristocracy in the United States but that of the intellect, and the opening of our institutions to women on a large scale is to be one of the sources of the sustentation of the larger culture and the wider sense of things that is growing up among us. It will make itself felt in the elevation of the middle class to the plane of a gentler and more subdued life. It will help powerfully to create the sense of refinement that is now largely lacking where one expects to find it. The victory for women is, in fact, so wide-reaching that it is difficult to point to a department of life or society that will not be affected by it. The change has come not a moment too soon, but it will be well to advance slowly enough to avoid the dangers that are usual with revolutions, even when they are bloodless.Boston Herald. NOTES.-Germany has eight schools of forestry, where five years' training is required of those who seek positions under the government, although a course of study half as long may be taken by amateurs. France supports a single school at Nancy.- -The Boston Globe thinks that the curse of the present college course is the prevailing extravagance, and adds that rich parents are wholly to blame. It fails, however, to suggest a remedy for the evil.The Journal of Education thinks the American universities and colleges too free with their honorary degrees, the result being to bring into contempt and suspicion our intellectual standards.Shakespeare knew "little Latin and less Greek." Would he have been greater if he had known more? Bunyan wrote the purest English. Could he have written purer if he had been versed in the learning of the schools? Irving's style is better than Addison's. Would it have been improved if he had been a classical graduate? These are a few cool questions for a hot summer day under the trees. They will bear discussion, says the School Journal. Judge Widney, of Los Angeles, has given $100,000 to the University of California. RAILROADS. SCALPERS' TICKETS. The prevailing opinion is that the scalper secures his stock in trade from the traveler, who has started on a lengthy journey and suddenly concluded to make it a brief one, or from the speculator who has taken advantage of a railroad war and laid in a supply of tickets with which to annoy the competing companies for years to come. The fact is that less than five per cent. of the stock of the scalper is thus obtained, while the ninety-five per cent. is furnished him by the ticket agents of the various companies, to be sold at a stipulated commission, a small portion of which goes to the scalper and the remainder to the ticket agent, so that, in the end, the principal party scalped is the railroad company. The scalpers cannot live after commissions to ticket agents are abolished, and the office of the passenger pool commissioner will scarcely support an extra clerk. Ticket agents receive a salary of from $100 to $125 per month. Their commissions have amounted to $1,000 to $1,500 and as high as $2,500 per month. As a rule they are wealthy-they can not help it-and yet the general passenger agents meet and condemn the scalper and declare war on each other because this or that line has been detected in selling a ticket over a scalper's counter at less than tariff. It is not the ticket agent's fault that this is done, for when he enters into an agreement with his favorite scalper it is to the effect that the scalper must not cut the rate. He has a limit put upon him, and forfeits his bond if he gives lower. He is given a handsome commission-$4 first class and $3 second on New York tickets, with the same average on a less distance-and still the ticket agent must make his commission. The remedy proposed is a rule prohibiting connecting lines from paying commissions to ticket agents of other lines. St. Louis Globe-Democrat. THE RAILROADS OF THE WORLD.-The Archiv fur Eisenbahnwesen gives statististics of the railroads of the world, prepared for the most part from official sources, making the aggregate length, at the end of 1884, 290,750 miles, of which no less than 62,788 miles have been opened since 1879. Of this there were in the several grand divisions of the world: 1884. 1880. Increase. P. c. 117,694 104,606 13,088 12.5 12,757 9,905 2,852 28.8 4,075 2,842 1,233 43'4 148,738 105,766 42,972 406 7,486 4,844 2,642 545 Europe Of the 290,750 miles of railroad in the world, no less than 174,016, or 60 per cent., are in English speaking countries. The countries which have the greatest mileage in proportion to population, or the smallest number of inhabitants per mile, are Australia (364 people per mile), the United States (460), and Canada (486). Even the Argentine Republic has a smaller population per mile than any European country, namely, 1,000; while in Europe, Sweden, which has fewest, has 1,113; Great Britian and Ireland, 1,870; Germany, 1,983; France, 1,943; Belgium, 2,106; Austria-Hungary, 2,786. class of modern naval artillery-one hundred and twenty-nine guns, which will NOTES.-The Denver & Rio Grande railway is to be sold at auction July 12th. -It is asserted that the Pennsylvania railroad company has decided to build the long-projected Storm King bridge across the Hudson river to connect the Pennsylvania system with New England.- -The Boston & Providence R. R., and several other New England roads have commenced the system of paying their employes weekly instead of monthly.- -Southern Kansas seems to be an objective point for new railroads. No less than six are now being surveyed, with several other schemes yet to be heard from. -Tickets for $1.00 from all parts of Iowa to Chicago have induced an immense amount of travel during the past week or two, and the warring roads have had to run extra trains to accommodate it. The Railway Age thinks that, although one dollar for carrying a passenger 400 or 500 miles is pretty small pay, it may be that the roads find it profitable on the principle that, while the rate is less than cost, they are able to afford it because they do so large a business.The same excellent paper publishes a table which shows that more new track has been laid in 1886 than during any corresponding period for twenty years excepting 1871, '80, '81, '82, and '83.- The Canadian Pacific railway has found it necessary, owing to the length of its line and the 53 degrees of longitude it covers, to adopt the "twenty-four hour" time system. STATISTICAL. IN a speech recently delivered in Congress by Hon. Joseph Wheeler, of Alabama, the following table was introduced, giving the number of available war ships belonging to the navies of the different countries: Great Britain France. Russia United States ENGLISH AND American RailLROADS.-The English railroads have cost on an average more than $200,000 per mile, those of Continental Europe about $100,000, and those of the United States (nominally) a little more than $60,000. The question at once arises: Have the English roads secured such advantages in comfort, safety, speed, or economy of operation as to make up for the increased first cost? This question Mr. Edward Bates Dorsey, of the American Society of Civil Engin eers, answers in the negative. In the matter of comfort, the very solidity of construction has proved a hindrance for it has rendered it impossible for the roads to make improvements without great expense in the destruction and removal of solid masonry. It has thus bound them down to a system of narrow cars, with all its attendant discomforts. In the matter of safety, the absence of grade crossings is a strong point in favor of the Euglish roads, and the universal use of the block system is worth still more. Yet the statistics of accidents do not tell in favor of England, as is shown by the following table: Population. Available 37,405,290 68 60,000,000 34 Austria-Hungary 44 10,108,291 Holland 138 China 49 It will not do to trust these figures too implicitly. Yet they show enough to jus tify us in thinking that railroad travel in England is at any rate not safer than in the northeastern part of the United States. Something is probably due to the greater speed of the English freight trains, which average about twenty-five miles an hour-much faster than in America. It is in the freight and accommodation trains that the difference of speed makes itself chiefly felt; the express trains are more frequent than ours, but not noticeably faster. For distances between 100 and 300 miles their best schedule times are slightly better than ours; below 100 or above 300 miles there is very little to choose. CHICAGO'S FOREIGN POPULATION.-Chicago's nationalities, according to the school census, are: German, 226,000; American, 154,000; Irish, 120,000; Slavonic, 55,000; Scandinavian, 33,000; English, 30,000; Latin, 16,000; negroes, 8,000; Canadian, 4,000, and all others, 9,000, making a total population of 650,000, which is a very moderate estimate for the "City by the Lake." As will be seen, the Germans outnumber the Americans, and the latter are but little more numerous than the Irish. Chicago is more Irish than any city in Ireland save Dublin and Belfast, more German than Munich, Dresden, or Cologne. Less than onefourth of the population of Chicago is, by its own census, of American origin. It will be very difficult for this small American population to assimilate the immense number of foreigners Chicago contains. It must always be more or less foreign in its ideas, a city where foreign doctrines, socialism, anarchy, etc., will hold sway.— New Orleans Times-Democrat. SCIENTIFIC. THE MINNEAPOLIS ELECTRIC RAILWAY.-The Electrical Review contains an 1,400,000 interesting account of the successful operation of the electric railway in Minneap 434,626,000 olis, in which it says: The trains consist of three or four passenger cars, each 2,400,396 weighing 11 tons empty. The number of passengers carried is often as high as 25,036,480 600 at one time, so that the weight of the train is as follows: Four cars, each II 2,096,400 tons, 44 tons; 600 passengers, at 130 pounds, 39 tons; motor car, 8 tons; total, 2,400,000 91 tons. The steam dummy now brings the train to as far as the steam is allowed, 36,700,118 and then the electric motor relieves it and takes the train down town with its passen4,550,699 gers. The distance over which the electric motor travels is at present somewhat 4,465,668 near a mile, the speed being about seven miles per hour; this being the regula1,979,423 tion speed within the city limits. Considering the constant stopping and starting 1,806,900 at each block, the grades in the road, and the heavy trains, the electric motor 5,376,000 must be given the credit of doing at least as good work as could be expected or 9,389,461 obtained from any steam engine. During the seventeen or eighteen hours of service not a single minute of stoppage is made, except to let off and take on pas sengers. This electric road has been in operation for several weeks without a hitch or a breakage. The motor, which is about 40-horse power, works as perfectly under a heavy as under a light road. From the permanency and the character of the work done by this electric railway, it will seen that electric railways on ele vated, as well as on ordinary roads, must become facts in the immediate future. They are indeed now with us, and there is no more trouble to build two or three hundred horse-power generators than to build machines of 50 horse-power. The public is losing their skepticism, and what was proclaimed as an impossibility yesterday has become a fact to-day. During the course of his remarks Mr. Wheeler said: "The United States is not only deficient in ships, but equally so in her armament. We have mainly old smooth-bores, the largest of which throw projectiles weighing 450 pounds a distance of from 2,000 to 3,000 yards. It is true that we have completed two 8-inch breech-loading guns which will throw projectiles weighing 250 pounds a distance of nearly eight statute miles, and six more similar guns are being constructed. We are also constructing two 10-inch guns to carry projectiles of 500 pounds and one 101⁄2-inch gun, whose projectile will weigh 550 pounds. The range of these guns will be about the same as that of the 10-inch guns, but even with these guns, finished and mounted on wooden ships, we would be hardly in sight, for there are already afloat upon vessels of foreign navies-this includes only the larger CAN COLORS BE PHOTOGRAPHED.—In considering the recent great improvement in the photographic art, the question arises whether we shall ever be able to take photographs which will produce the natural colors of objects. While it would hardly be safe to say that this can never be done, it must be admitted that our present knowledge of the subject gives very little hope of its accomplishment. The action of different colored lights upon the sensitive plate is one of varying intensity rather than quality, and there is no property of light or sensitive chemicals known at present which could lead to such a result. If the photographic camera ever supplants the brush of the artist, it will be due to the labors of some future investigator, and the discovery of some new principle of optics or chemistry.—Popular Seience News. NOTES.-Hon. W. A. Phillips, ex-member of Congress, and a well-known writer on political economy, has an article in the July North American Review in favor of government control of the telegraphs.. All the telegraph and telephone poles in Sydney, New South Wales, have been taken down, and the wires inclosed in a MEDICAL. "CAN IMAGINATION KILL?"—This is, perhaps, hardly the correct form of question that the British and Colonial Druggist puts to itself in discussing the death of the young woman at Hackney under circumstances in which Keating's insect powder largely figured. As the powder appears, by Dr. Tidy's experiment, to be perfectly harmless, the suggestion is not unnaturally made that the deceased, who was possibly of a hysterical, highly-imaginative turn of mind, took the powder in the full belief that by its means her death might be accomplished. The writer of the article in our contemporary, we think wrongly, brings forward two remarkable instances of what may be regarded as practical jokes with melancholy terminations. In the case of the convict delivered up to the scientist for the purpose of a psychological experiment (the man was strapped to a table and blindfolded, ostensibly to be bled to death; a syphon containing water was placed near his head and the fluid was allowed to trickle audibly into a vessel below it, at the same time that a trifling scratch with a needle was inflicted on the culprit's neck; it is said that death occurred at the end of six minutes), fear must have played no inconsiderable share in the fatal result, and we do not know whether all the vital organs were in a sound condition, though they were presumably so. a college porter is also one in point. The students entrapped him into a room at The old story of the case of night, a mock inquiry was held, and the punishment of death by decapitation decreed for his want of consideration to the students. It is small wonder that, under the dominion of fear and belief in the earnestness of his tormentors, the sight of an axe and block, with subsequent blindfolding and necessary genuflexion, a smart rap with a wet towel on the back of his neck should have been followed by the picking up of a corpse.-Lancet. EMBALMING OR CREMATION.-Dr. Eklund, of Stockholm, has been writing on the subject of the inconvenience to the living arising from the presence of the dead, the picture whereof, drawn by him, is a careful blend of the melodramatic and the scientific. To remedy the evils resulting from delay in burial and subse. quent decomposition, the doctor proposes to render some simple process of embalmment compulsory, and suggests the creation of a corps of embalmers and embal meresses for that purpose. This plan rather runs counter to modern views on the subject of burial, which tend to favor methods allowing of rapid disintegration, and is besides far inferior to cremation both from a financial and a practical point of view. Notwithstanding all that may be urged, and urged truly, against the practice of inhumation, we fear that it is a matter wherein prejudice, custom, and a dislike of innovation will long hold scientific arguments and methods in check, to the detriment of public health.-Medical Press. THE APOSTLE OF THE Lepers and the ContagiouSNESS OF LEPROSY—From the London papers we observe that Father Damen, who has long been known as the Apostle of the Lepers of Molokai, is beginning to suffer from the disease with which he has been so long in contact. which are collected the lepers of the Sandwich Island group. For a long time For years he has lived on the island upon Father Damen continued in good health, but in a letter written recently he says: Impossible for me to go any more to Honolulu, on account of the leprosy breaking out on me. The microbes have finally settled themselves in my left leg and my ear, and one eyebrow begins to fall. I expect to have my face soon disfigured. Having no doubt myself of the true character of my disease, I feel calm, resigned, and happier among my people. Almighty God knows what is best for my sanctification, and with that conviction I say daily a good Fiat voluntas tua."-The Medical Record. SMOKING TOBACCO.-The use of tobacco, as distinguished from its abuse, ought to be a matter of intelligent observation and experience. We should incline to the opinion that any particular individual who can say, "I always know when I have smoked enough-if I go beyond the just limit I lose my power of prompt decision," had better not smoke at all. It is clearly unwise for a man who can not swim to persist in dabbling in deep waters. There are currents and underdraughts which may at any inoment destroy his balance. The very reverse of the complaint made by this person is the experience of most smokers. A moderate use of tobacco soothes the senses, and leaves the mental faculties free from irritation and ready for calmly clear intellectual processes. When this is not the effect produced by smoking, the "weed" had better be eschewed.-Lancet. INOCULATION And Yellow FEVER.-Dr. Freire, who claims to have discovered the microbe of the disease (yellow fever), and a method of inoculation to prevent its ravages, is reported to have performed the operation upon seven thousand persons living in localities where yellow fever is prevailing in a most malignant form. Of this large number, but eight have died. During the same period, some three thousand uninoculated persons have succumbed to the fever. Should the bill to which reference has been made obtain a place in the statutes, these claims of Freire will be subjected to rigid investigation by the best American experts, and, if substantiated, will doubtless be the means of introducing his system, or a modification of it, into the United States, whenever yellow fever shall again appear in epidemic form.-Science. IMAGINARY ILLS.-A Philadelphia physician says that a great deal of what passes for heart disease is only mild dyspepsia, that nervousness commonly is bad temper, and that two-thirds of the so-called malaria is nothing but laziness. Imagination, he says, is responsible for a multitude of ills, and he gives as an instance the case of a clergyman who after preaching a sermon would take a teaspoonful of sweetened water, and doze off like a babe, under the impression that it was a bona fide sedative. IT IS stated by a correspondent of the Spectator that out of the twenty-six Russian peasants inoculated by M. Pasteur, eight are already dead of hydrophobia, viz, five who died in Paris, and three who succumbed on their return home. DR. VALENTINE MOTT, of New York, on Monday, inoculated his first patient for hydrophobia. The result will be watched for with intense interest. FINANCE AND COMMERCE. several seasons. THE BUSINESS OUTLOOK.-The most encouraging feature in business circles at the present time is the very general hopeful feeling in regard to fall trade. Pritraveling among their customers indicate a larger sale than has been realized for vate advices from the representatives of the boot and shoe trade who have been The wholesale clothing trade of the past season was largely in very flattering. The general tone of the dry goods market is encouraging, all adexcess of that of the previous year, and the promise for the fall and winter trade is vances in cotton goods having been well maintained, while stocks continue light. The advance in wool is not yet established, and will not be until manufacturers can ascertain if they can advance their prices for their fabrics. The iron trade is somewhat affected by the low prices of English rails, but the mills are full of orders at the present low prices. The latest reports respecting the wheat crop are not so favorable as those made earlier. This is due very largely to the drouth in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Estimates vary from 435,000,000 to 465,000,000 bushels. Last year the crop was 367,000,000 bushels. The Chicago Tribune says that parties of experience who judge for themselves do not expect that the crop will exceed 400,000,000 bushels. The crop in India and Australia is considerably below the total of last year, which will make a larger demand upon our supplies and tend to keep up, if not to advance prices. Very little is said of the corn crop, as it is too early in the season to make predictions. Heavy rains have injured the cotton crop to some extent, causing a slight advance in the price. The one unfavorable During the six months of 1886 which ended June 30 the export was $35,000,000, feature of the situation is the large export of gold which has been going on of late. and last week it was $3,624,342. The price of silver bullion has again fallen and criminating against it. is now lower than it has ever been. This is due to the foreign policy of dishas been against us during the past six months. This balance has been small, We are now exporting gold because the balance of trade but beyond that we have the interest on bonds and dividends on stocks to pay, which require large sums of gold. The only hope is that when the season opens our exports of merchandise will be increased, while our imports will not be in. creased. According to Bradstreet's, the total number of failures in the United States for the six months of 1886 was 5,461, against 6,106 during the correspond. ing period of 1885 and 5,444 in 1884. The total liabilities were $53,241,000 in 1886, against $68,570,000 in 1885 and $124,104,000 in 1884. The assets in the failures of this year were $25,509,000, against $32,955,000 in 1885. These fig. ures indicate that the number and extent of business misfortunes have declined during the last six months to an extent which seems to warrant that business generally is again on a sound basis.—Boston Journal, July 6. ADVANTAGES OF PAPER MONEY.-A great many reasons have induced modern communities to adopt the use of paper as money to so large an extent. These may all be brought under the general headings of economy and convenience. Our 258 space will allow us just a few words as to the economy of paper money. It is much cheaper to keep up a paper currency than to keep up a gold or silver currency, as was exemplified in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Budget of 1884, when he proposed to issue ten-shilling pieces of gold containing only nine-tenths of the amount of gold at present in half-a-sovereign-these ten-shilling pieces to be tokens for half-a-sovereign. It appears that there are about 90,000,000 sovereigns and 40,000,000 half-sovereigns in circulation in the country. More than half of the sovereigns (50,000,000) are not legal tender; they are light through the wear and tear that they are subjected to in passing from hand to hand and other causes. The half-sovereigns are in the same predicament, 22,000,000 of them being light. This loss is, Altogether, our gold coinage, it is computed, has been worn to the extent of about £800,000 worth; in other words, that amount of gold has been lost. of course, avoided the more paper is used instead of gold to make payments with. There is another advantage on the ground of economy derived from the use of We can not do better than describe this advantage in Adam paper as money. Smith's words: "The judicious operations of banking, by substituting paper in the room of a great part of this gold and silver, enable the country to convert a great part of this dead stock (the gold and silver circulating in a country) into active and productive stock-into stock which produces something to the country. The gold and silver money which circulates in any country may very properly be compared to a highway, which, while it circulates and carries to market all the grass and corn of the country, produces itself not a single pile of either. The judicious operations of banking, by providing, if I may be allowed so violent a metaphor, a sort of wagon-way through the air, enable the country to convert, as it were, a great part of its highways into good pasture and corn-field, and thereby to increase very considerably the annual produce of its land and labor." This is effected by the silver and gold that is released by the introduction of paper moneys being sent abroad, and thereby invested in productive undertakings. The cost per annum of the metallic currency in this country is shown in the following table, which we take from Jevon's book on "Money": Loss of interest Wear of coin Mint establishment Total £4,262,000 48,000 42,000 £4,352,000 "From this amount," Mr. Jevons adds, "ought to be subtracted the profit which the Mint makes out of the seigniorage upon silver and bronze coins; but we may set off this profit against the wholly unknown amount which the public looses by the accidental dropping of coins."—W. B. R., in Cassell's Family Magazine for July. THE RECORD OF FAILURES.-Evidence of the improvement in trade is afforded in the statement of failures for the half year just closed issued last week by Messrs. R. G. Dunn & Co. A record of mercantile disasters is, of course, a sort of baromIt is gratifying to note that both in the first eter to the condition of our industries. and second quarter of the year there has been a material falling off in the number of the failures, and the aggregate extent of the liabilities. The following is a record of the failures during the last eleven years, from which it will be seen that in some respects the showing is the best since 1882. SECOND QUARTER. Years. 1876 1877 2,806 $64,644,156 $23,038 2,869 1878 3,355 2,524 19,010 54,538,074 24,464 82,078,826 17,081 43,112,665 I,432 12,777,074 8,922 24,447,250 1,761 13,900 2,127 33,338,271 15,670 2,821 38,372,643 13,602 3,296 3,208 40,686,978 12,192 46,121,051 29,681,726 12,608 9,266 Number Amount of Average Number Amount of Average Failures. Liabilities. Liabilities. Failures. Liabilities Liabilities. 1,794 $43,771,273 $24,398 1,880 45,068,097 23,972 19,738 45,753,940 2,470 14,776 22,666,725 1,534 18,884 20,111,689 16,499,395 14,931 11,722 17,242,649 15,317 27,816,391 84,204,304 38,033 28,601,304 2,346 20,752,734 1,953 1,065 1,105 1,470 1,816 2,214 1879 1880. 1881 1882 1883 1884 12,091 15,746 THE DEPRECIATION OF CAPITAL.-A few days since a man earning a moderate salary in this city said to a friend that he had concluded to buy a house. He had half enough money to pay for it and borrowed the rest from a savings bank, which Twelve years ago a house as good as that he was able to get at 42 per cent. which he purchased would have cost a quarter more, and if he had borrowed the money from a savings bank he would have been obliged to pay 8 or 9 per cent. That is, he can earn as interest. Meantime his salary has continued the same. much money as he could twelve years ago, but the money he earns will hire twice as much capital as it would at that time, and would purchase for him at least 20 If he was using his per cent. more of the particular property which he desired. money to purchase the necessaries of life he would find that a dollar now will purchase as much as a dollar and a third in 1872. As a rule, it is next to impossible to invest money so that it will bring half the income it would a dozen or fifteen years ago. Thus, it appears that those who had $50,000 or any other sum invested in interest-bearing securities fifteen years ago have practically lost half their income by the depreciation in the capacity of money pure and simple to earn interest. In the mean time, on the specie basis, wages are quite up to the standard of 1872 in all the leading industries of the country, and in some even higher. The wages of to-day will, as before stated, purchase a third more of the necessaries of life. With such facts, one fails to see that capital, as the years pass, is getting the advantage of labor. In fact, the earning capacity of money is constantly depreciating, while the purchasing power of wages is increasing.-Boston Journal. THE PROPOSED NEW SILVER CERTIFICATES.-The wise men at Washington appear to find amusement in tacking on to appropriation bills a direction that the Treasurer be required to issue silver certificates of small denominations, and with them pay all the year's appropriations. No one believed that such a provision could pass, yet this week the House has voted in its favor almost unanimously; probably the Senate will strike it out or if it does not, we cannot think it will get the approval of the President, though possibly it would be harmless with the execution of it in his hands. Still, the animus of this last effort to force silver certificates into circulation, and the utter disregard of every industrial interest which such an effort shows, makes the public sick at heart and hopless of anything but evil coming out of Washington. Of course the purpose of the proposed law is inflation, the originator probably assuming that these small bills could be got into the hands of the people who will not take the silver dollars and have no call for the thoroughly as it does wooden nutmegs, and that an attempt to make the issue larger certificates. He forgets that the public knows the article he has to offer as would, through fear of its results, only paralyze business, while the notes would find We see that in the same bill their way back into the Treasury as fast as put out. is a provision directing the reissue of one and two-dollar greenbacks, which Treasurer Jordan had withdrawn to make room for the circulation of silver dollars. The putting of these two measures into one law by silver advocates could be made a capital basis for a jest by a troop of darkey minstrels.-The Commercial and Financial Chronicle. A COMPARISON OF FAILURES.-The failures during the first half of the present year are not merely less than for any year since 1881, but they are less on a descending scale as compared with '82, '83, '84 and '85, which strongly points to a permanent change for the better. These figures, giving the number of failures and the assests and liabilities in millions of dollars for the first six months of each year are eloquent of improvement. '81 '82 '84 '83 '85 '86 3,256 3,649 5,296 5,444 6,106 5,461 $39 $32 $25 $19 $27 $70 124 39 52 73 SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT OWN THE TELEGRAPH LINES?-That the Government should own and control telegraphy in the public interests is undoubtedly true. The Postoffice has been one of the most beneficent Departments of the Government. The money annually appropriated for it does the people more good than any other public money that is expended. In spite of all that has been written about the expense and extravagance of any business managed by the Government, it is extremely doubtful if there is another branch of business, public or private, that is more economically administered. Every word applied to the postal system applies to telegraphy. Government can best extend and protect it. Government alone can make and enforce laws for its complete sanctity. Telegraph offices should be isolated, and none but sworn officers be allowed to hear the "tickers." The most severe penalties should guard its secrets, not only from parties outside of sender and receiver, but from Government officers. News should be carried at a uniform low rate to all who choose to collect and send it. There should be a perfect equality of telegraphic as of postal privilege.-William A. Phillips in North American Review (July). THE SCARCITY OF SALMON THIS SEASON. The packing of salmon on the Sacramento river aggregated in June less than 2,000 cases, against 75,000 cases spring pack for the season of 1884 and 18,054 cases for 1885. The latter season was regarded as a failure on this river. The pack on the Rogue this year, up to the latest advices, is less than one-third that of last season at corresponding date, and there are no indications of an improvement there. Hence, the possible supply from the Columbia is a very important factor in the salmon market. Late mail and telegraphic advices say that the catch is steadily falling off, and is behind that of last year, and very short of that of 1884. Predictions are made that unless the run improves very materially at an early date the pack of the season on that river will not exceed 350,000 cases.-Grocer and Country Merchant. SCOTCH PIG IRON.-The future of Scotch pig iron in America is critical. For a year past sales of these brands have resulted in but little profit to the manufacturer or the importer. There is little evidence that the future will see any material improvement. Southern brands are likely in the future, more than in the past, to take the place of Scotch iron. It is simply one of the natural outcomes of the developments of the latent industries of the United States, and the protective policy of the Government.-American Machinist. NOTES.—Hon. Alexander R. Shepherd, formerly Governor of the District of Columbia and at present engaged in mining at Batopilas, Mexico, thinks that an American can pursue his avocation with as much security and protection in -The fiscal year 1886 has ended Mexico as in any locality in the United States.with a reduction of $50,136,850 in the interest-bearing debt. The decrease in net debt was over $9,000,000 in the month of June. There is now in the U. S. Treasury $181,253,566 in standard silver, about $16,000,000 more than it held last year.- The Congressional doctors differ as to the probable effect of Mr. Randall's tariff bill on the revenue. Mr. Randall says it would reduce the customs revenue, while Mr. Morrison estimates that there would be an increase on the basis of last year's imports of some $5,000,000. On the other hand, the loss of internal revenue he estimates at $36,000,000 in place of $20,000,000, as announced by Mr. Randall, the repeal of the tax on tobacco alone cutting off $26,000,000. |