clearly seen in history, where the same chain of cause and effect eternally repeats gage in occupations outside the household is smaller in the United States than in SCIENTIFIC. PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON THE GROWTH OF SCIENCE. It has become impossible for any man to keep pace with the progress of the whole of any important branch of science. This was not the case in my young days. A diligent reader might then keep fairly informed of all that was going on, without robbing himself of leisure for original work, and without demoralizing his faculties by the accumulation of unassimilated information. It looks as if the scientific, like other revolutions, meant to devour its own children; as if the growth of science tended to overwhelm its votaries; as if the man of science of the future were condemned to Of late years diminish into a narrower and narrower specialist as time goes on. it has struck me, with constantly increasing force, that those who have toiled for the advancement of science are in a fair way of being overwhelmed by the realization of their wishes. We are in the case of Tarpeia, who opened the gates of the Roman citadel to the Sabines, and was crushed under the weight of the reward bestowed. I am happy to say that I do not think any such catastrophe a necessary consequence of the growth of science, but I do think it is a tendency to be feared, and an evil to be most carefully provided against. The man who works away at one corner of nature, shutting his eyes to all the rest, diminishes his chances of seeing what is to be seen in that corner; for, as I need hardly remind my readers, that which the investigator perceives depends much more on that which lies behind his sense-organs than on the object in front of them. WHY MEN DON'T MARRY.-The silly season is sufficiently advanced to have matured for discussion the topic of matrimony, and a number of our contemporaries have accordingly taken up the question, "Why men don't marry," though the conundrum, "Why men do marry," would seem, in view of the proportion of benedicts to bachelors, to be the one most requiring a solution. The reasons assigned by editors and correspondents for the alleged aversion of young men, or men of any age, nowadays, to the married state are extremely various. An unmarried female correspondent of thirty-five summers, who expresses a desire that "a marrying crusade should be gotten up," attributes her missing several chances for happiness to the fact that "the young men thought they would incur in marrying unbearable legal responsibilities and expenses that would take away all their pocket money.' The legal terrors, she thinks, have been maliciously exaggerated and misrepresented, and she, therefore, begs the editor, in the interest of a boom in the market, to "tell just what the legal points about marriage, divorce, alimony, dower, &c., are." The positive information derived from bachelor correspondents rather confirms the would-be crusader's conjecture. The unequal financial burden placed upon the man by the laws and social customs of One's sense of natural justice, it this country is the gist of nearly all their letters. "The dower right," is alleged, is offended by the exactions of the married state. says one," is a piece of sentimental fraud; the right of alimony is another curse of the marriage relation; the law gives a wife too much power to entangle her husband's affairs." The curmudgeon naturally goes to the length of enunciating the principle that "finance and marriage laws should be as separate as church and state." Another correspondent who boasts an income of $800 asks incredulously how the average woman, whom he describes as "a toy to set in a doll house," could help him along. "She would be a drag," he asserts, ungallantly, "and the laws would chain me down so that I would be at her mercy. If we quarreled and separated I would be compelled to support her in idleness." This writer is full of suggestions. "Married life," he says, "is a plain, barnyard sort of state; let women, therefore, learn how to wash, cook, sew, and beat carpets, and let the dower and alimony laws be modified or abolished. It rests with the law-makers and women to lessen the noble army of single men." The expensiveness of feminine dress, habits, and fancies is the text of many complaints. The bachelor's outgo, it is alleged, is not halved, but trebled or quadrupled "on assuming the conjugal noose." Careers, it is claimed, are spoiled by premature marriage, and one writer has the hardihood to affirm it to be "a matter of fact that the greatest men who have lived were childless and wifeless men." This is explained by the distractions of housekeeping and "the infinite task of laboring to satisfy wives brought up with the idea that economy is meanness." The disposition to convert homes into costly museums of old china, bric-a-brac, useless furniture, unappreciated books, &c., instead of studying to simplify and minimize the requirements of daily living, is another vice charged upon the modern woman. "She makes nothing and Living costs too much," says anwants everything," one complainant puts it. other, summing up a thousand objections in one. It may be observed, however, in regard to much of this fault-finding, that it proceeds upon a narrow view of life and its objects. A pretty effective reply to it all is the contribution made to the discussion by a young lady who says: "One has only to look around him to see that the married men are the most regular, temperate, law-abiding, and prosperous.-Baltimore Sun. WOMEN IN INDUSTRIAL OCCUPATIONS.-The proportion of women who en It appears to me that the only defense against this tendency to the degeneration of scientific workers lies in the organization and extension of scientific education in such a manner as to secure breadth of culture without superficiality, and, on the I think it is other hand, depth and precision of knowledge without narrowness. quite possible to meet these requirements. There is no reason, in the nature of things, why the student who is destined for a scientific career should not, in the first place, go through a course of instruction such as would insure him a real, that is to say, a practical acquaintance with the elements of each of the great divisions of mathematical and physical science; nor why this instruction in what (if I may borrow a phrase from medicine) I may call the institutes of science should not be followed up by more special instruction, covering the whole field of that particular division in which the student eventually proposes to become a specialist. I say not only that there is no reason why this should not be done, but, on the ground of practical experience, I venture to add that there is no difficulty in doing it.—From an Address of Prof. T. H. Huxley, published in the Popular Science Monthly. IS THE AIR-SHIP PROBLEM SOLVED?-The morning papers of a recent date contained the announcement that a new flying-ship, the Torpilleur, had started from Cherbourg, bound for London, at eleven o'clock at night. The afternoon papers of the same day announced the safe arrival of the Torpilleur at London at six o'clock in the morning. This is the first time that an ærial ship has ever started to go to some definite point and succeeded in reaching there. The distance from London to Cherbourg in an air line is about one hundred and forty-five miles. The transit occupied seven hours. This is about twenty-five miles per hour-considerably less than railroad speed, but up to the best oceansteamer speed. If the principle of this flying-ship may be considered as shown to be practicable by this experimental voyage, there can be no doubt that the air-ships will be rapidly improved in speed and manageableness. It must be borne in mind that the Torpilleur is not a balloon. A balloon is helpless. It simply drifts with the currents of air, and goes where they carry it. It has no power to increase or diminish its speed, and no power to steer itself. But the flying-ship, to be worthy of the name, must not only be able to steer, but to go against the wind if so desired. In other words, it must fly as a bird flies, maintaining itself in the air not by lightness, but by its own propulsive force. It must be driven up in the air by some motive power, such as steam or electricity, and can never be allowed to float as a balloon does for whatever floats, drifts. Now, this Torpilleur has "a patented steering and propelling apparatus," and its first voyage of any magnitude has been a success. Men have been working for fifty years on flying ships, and the various inventors have always claimed that the thing is practicable and safe. They claim that the ærial ships can avoid storms by rising above the storm. If it be true that this problem is at last solved, the importance of the new ship for military and naval purposes will be very great. The strongest iron-clads would be helpless against an attack by these flying-ships carrying dynamite bombs, and letting them fall on the enemy. No fortress, no massing of troops, could withstand them. The only thing to meet their attack would be other flying-ships. Tennyson foresaw this when, in "Locksley Hall," he said: "There rained a ghastly dew from the nation's airy navies grappling in the central blue."-Baltimore American. OPPORTUNITIES FOR INVENTORS.-Friction in machinery caused the destruction of $1,000,000 worth of property in the United States last year. Wanted, a method of lubrication which will do away with inflammable oils. Matches carelessly handled burned over $500,000 worth of property in the United States last year. Wanted, a substitute for matches, or a safety match that is as good as its name. Defective flues burned about $2,750,000 of property. Wanted, a flue that can not be defectively constructed. Defective heating apparatus burned nearly $500,000 worth of property. Wanted, heating apparatus that can not prove defective. Electric wires and lights, a source of increasing danger, burned over $250,000 worth of property. Wanted, a system of insulation that can not prove faulty. Explosions of kerosene lamps burned over $1,500,000 worth of property. Wanted, lamps and lanterns that can not explode. Lightning burned $1,250,000 worth of property. Wanted, a perfect lightning rod. Sparks from locomotives and other sources burned $2,000,000 worth of property. Wanted, a spark arrester of genuine merit, or stoves and furnaces in which combustion is more nearly perfect. Gas jets burned $1,250,000 worth of property. Wanted, a device for preventing the contact of goods and curtains with open gas-burners.—Scientific American. WATER TESTS.-Test for Hard or Soft Water.--Dissolve a small quantity of good soap in alcohol. Let a few drops fall into a glass of water. If it turns milky, it is hard; if not, it is soft. Test for Earthy Matters or Akali.—Take litmus paper dipped in vinegar, and if, on immersion, the paper returns to its true shade, the water does not contain earthy matter or akali. If a few drops of sirup be added to a water containing an earthy matter, it will turn green. Test for Carbonic Acid. Take equal parts of water and clear lime water. If combined or free carbonic acid is present, a precipitate is seen, to which, if a few drops of muriatic acid be added, an effervescence commences. Test for Magnesia.-Boil the water to a twentieth part of its weight, and then drop a few grains of neutral carbonate of ammonia into a glass of it, and a few drops of phosphate of soda. If magnesia be present, it will fall to the bottom. Tests for Iron.-I. Boil a little nut gall, and add to the water. If is turns gray or slate, black iron is present. 2. Dissolve a little prussiate of potash, and if iron is present it will turn blue. Test for Lime.— Into a glass of the water put two drops of oxalic acid, and blow upon it; if it gets milky, lime is present. Test for Acid. Take a piece of litmus paper. If it turns red, there must be acid. If it precipitates on adding lime water, it is carbonic acid. If a blue sugar paper is turned red, it is a mineral acid. THE KEELY MOTOR AGAIN.-In discussing the recent revival of interest in the Keely motor, Building expressed its views as follows: Is there not just ground for calling an "invention" a fraud which has been in the stock market for over ten years, consuming $200,000 in the perfection of small models, and no mechanical engineer of undoubted integrity and recognized standing in the profession having been permitted to carefully look into and report upon its workings? The man who has really conceived some new great idea in physics and engineering which promises successful, not to say revolutionary, applications in the arts proceeds in far different lines from those pursued by Mr. Keely. Buncombe is a poor substitute for science and originality of work. Our opinion, like that of all the prominent mechanical engineers of the country, is that the Keely motor is an unmitigated fraud, a good thing, perhaps, for the unscrupulous stock-jobber, but a pitfall for the unwary, innocent investor. * * * * Let Mr. Keely first court the sunshine of full investigation of his "invention" by recognized mechanical engineering experts of national reputation, and secure their approval and endorsement. The verdict of spiritualistic, unskilled dreamers will not answer. A NEW OCEAN TELEGRAPH CIRCUIT.-At present, when telegraphic messages are sent from the United States to Brazil, they must first be cabled to Europe, and then sent from there to their destination. This is not only a very roundabout method, but also very expensive, each word costing $2.06 for its transmission. A new enterprise has just been organized in New York for the construction of a direct cable from this port to Venezuela and Brazil. It is called, in honor of the Emperor, the Pedro Segundo American Telegraph and Cable Company, and starts out with a capital of $2,500,000. The imperial government of Erazil and republic of Venezuela have both granted very favorable concessions to the new company. Its cable will be over four thousand miles long, and is being constructed in England. It will probably be completed in a few weeks, and will be laid as soon as the equinoctial storms are over.-Scientific American. NOTES. The electrical subway commission has decided that the best plan for putting the telegraph, telephone, and electric light wires underground in the city of New York consists in a conduit of asphalt concrete.- -The Scientific American says there are now 100,000 arc electric lights in use in this country.- -Divers have succeeded in raising nearly all the cargo of the ill-fated Oregon. They report that the ship is rapidly going to pieces.- -The new telephone line between New York and Philadelphia will be opened for business about September 15th. Seventyfour hard-drawn copper wires will be used. Mr. J. H. Long, in a recent paper on the microscopic examination of butter, arrives at the conclusion that, "taking all things into consideration, we have no absolutely certain method of distinguishing between butter and some of its substitutes, and that, of all methods proposed, the microscopic are, perhaps, the least reliable." These conclusions are similar to the ones reached by Prof. H. A. Webster, but are directly opposed to those of Dr. Taylor. The longest clock pendulum known is said to be one in Avignon, France, measuring sixty-seven feet, to which is attached a weight of one hundred and thirty-two pounds. Its movement is slow, passing through an arc of between nine and ten feet in four seconds and a half.- M. Estrade, of the French l'Ecole Polytechnique, has perfected a new locomotive, which will haul a train of cars at a speed of from 70 to 78 miles an hour.-Acid pulp for paper making is produced in Sweden at a cost of one cent per pound. The labor is mostly performed by women, whose wages are from twelve to twenty cents a day.. -Gas and water pipes manufactured of paper are being quite generally introduced in Vienna, During the process of manufacture the paper is drawn through melted asphalt. After completion, the pipes will resist an inside pressure of two thousand pounds. -According to Wright, many of the finer grades of transparent soap sold in England do not contain glycerine, as advertised, but sugar. Sugar seems just as well adapted to making transparent soaps as glycerine.- -A 9,000-pound mass of tin ore was recently exhibited at a smelting works in New York. It was taken out of a twenty-nine-foot vein in the well-known Etta tin mine in the Black Hills. The specimen will be sent to London for the benefit of those British tin-mine owners who have so complacently watched oar heretofore unsuccessful search for the metal.- -An English physician, Dr. Sylvester, has proposed a singular way of preventing death by drowning as, for example, in case of a shipwreck. He sug gests inflation, by means of a hypodermic opening in the neck or back of the cellular tissue, with a certain quantity of air; the emphysema or air tumor thus produced will act as a lise-preserver.- -Mr. Thomas A. Edison proposes to build a new laboratory for himself at Llewellyn Park next year. Meantime he is working quietly at the Newark Edison shops. He says he is "simply trying to cheapen electric lamps and the carbons." He is also studying earth currents and their availability for telegraphic purposes. He will give this subject great attention on the occasion .of his next visit to Florida. FINANCE AND COMMERCE. MONEY AND BUSINESS.-There is a perceptible pause in business, which may mean only that more people than usual have done well during the last year and are enjoying a vacation. The shrinkage in exchange at New York, which fall about 9 per cent. below those of the corresponding week last year, is attributed to a decrease of about 50 per cent. in stock speculation, and the dealings in cotton and oil are also smaller than they were last year, but the dealings in wheat and corn are much larger. Outside New York the volume of business continues about 25 per cent. larger than it was last year, measured by payments through banks, but it is not possible at all times to determine how far the settlement of business transacted two, four, or six months ago swells exchanges, notwithstanding a decline in new business. There is evidently more uncertainty of feeling in regard to the future than there was a month ago, although in nearly all directions the events which have occurred have tended to justify brighter anticipations. Perhaps the feeling of confidence then was decidedly greater than the facts warranted, and passing events, though in themselves favorable, have served to recall attention to difficulties not yet fully overcome. The much-reported progress of the trunk lines toward a settlement, too, call attention to the fact that the Eastern and Western lines have not yet reached an understanding about the control of east-bound rates, and that rail traffic continues light, amounting from Chicago last week to only 20,000 tons. Good earnings are reported by railways generally, but the projects to build more competing lines in the Northwest are not encouraging. Purchases of securities on foreign account continued last week, and the general average of prices for stocks rose about 90 cents per share. While anxiety about the wheat crop has disappeared, there is some apprehension that the yield of corn may prove disappointing on account of drouth, and the price rose 234 cents last week, while wheat scarcely advanced at all, and oats declined half a cent, and oil about five eighths of a cent. Cotton fell to 91⁄2 cents, but recovered to 9.56, and lard, pork, and butter were stronger, lard reaching 7 cents. Coffee was steady at 91⁄2, but sugar yielded to 4.69, while lead declined to 4.80 and tin to 21.75. No change appears in the prices of coal or iron, though the victory of puddlers in Philadelphia is likely to affect the future. On the whole, the markets for products are working more naturally than usual, and, except in grain, with less speculative excitement. It is a healthy symptom that exports of merchandise last week exceeded by about $7,000,000 those of the corresponding week last year, and about $2,400,000 for the month of July, while imports show an increase of only $2,200,000 for the month. Foreign exchange has been much affected by bills drawn on account of foreign purchases of securities, so that on all sides, if exports of merchandise are not arrested again, the outlook is really more favorable than it was a year ago. The silver danger appears greater, because the price has fallen heavily; a year ago it was 49.19d., so that more than an eighth of the value has been lost within the twelve months. But the Treasury is decidedly better prepared than it was then to meet any emergency, and meanwhile the depression in prices may the sooner put an end to the waiting policy which Great Britain and Germany have pursued.— New York Tribune. THE GROWTH OF THE OYSTER BUSINESS.-It is expected that the establishment of rights of ownership to oyster grounds in New York State will have the effect of greatly increasing the cultivation of oysters. Such has been the effect of the introduction of a similar system in the States of Rhode Island and Connecticut. The former had in 1865 only sixty or seventy acres of ground used for the cultivation of oysters. That year the law selling the oyster grounds was passed. In 1883 Rhode Island had 11,000 acres under oyster cultivation, and her production had risen from 71,000 bushels in 1865 to nearly 1,000,000 bushels in 1883. This statement of the amount of land under oyster culture does not include a great deal that is held on ancient grants by individuals and towns independent of the State, just as great tracts of such lands are held in the great South Bay and in other bays and harbors of Long Island. Connecticut in 1880 had but 7,000 acres of cultivated oyster beds. That year the law authorizing the survey and sale of the oyster-growing lands was passed by the Legislature, and now there. are nearly 100,000 acres, formerly the property of the State, but now of private, individuals, devoted to oyster culture. New York has fully 100,000 acres of ground under the Sound quite as good as any belonging to Connecticut for the growing of oysters. At present, except where they are held by right of ancient town and individual grants, the oyster grounds of New York are held by the uncertain tenure ofcustom, and disputes as to ownership are frequent.-New York Sun. FOREIGN TRADE. Very little of the traffic between foreign nations crosses the borders of the United States, and if it were not for the trade between England and Canada, it would hardly be worth noticing. The merchandise in transit through this country during the first three months of the present year was valued at $14,221,563, 57 per cent. of which came in foreign vessels, and over 28 per cent. in cars and other land vehicles. By the latter means of conveyance over 47 per cent. entered the United States by way of the Grand Trunk Railway, through Island Pond, Vermont, where there is a custom-house. The largest portion of this merchandise arrived from England, to the extent of 38 per cent. of the whole, and the next largest came from the Canadian Dominion, and was forwarded chiefly from the ports of New York, and Portland, Me. Cuba sent to foreign countries, by way of New York, $1,814,869 worth of merchandise, and received by the same way only $136,486 worth. Japan, too, forwarded to European markets, through our ports, more than she received. Take Great Britain, Canada, and Germany off the list, and there would be very little of the transit trade for other nations.-The Stockholder. 66 A BILL OF LADING IN 1785.-The form of the bills of lading as used a century ago reads rather quaintly now, as will be seen by the following: Shipped, by the grace of God, in good order and well-conditioned, by Messrs. H. Vanderburgh & Co., in & upon the good Brigg called Betsy and Suky whereof Giles Hollister is master, under God for the present voyage, and now riding at anchor in the port of Newbern and by God's Grace bound for New York, 417 bbls. of Tar; 47 bbls. Turpentine; 44 bbls. Pitch; 6 Venison Hams; 4 Deer Skins, & one bbl. of fat, to be delivered in good order unto Mr. Hamtramock, or to his assigns, he or they paying freight, with primage & average accustomed-It witness whereof &c-and so God send the good ship to her destined Port in safety. AMEN. Dated at Newbern, 16th Feb. 1785. Giles Hollister."- Wilmington, N. C., Star. SOCIOLOGY. THE INFLUENCE OF HOUSE OWNERSHIP.-Philadelphia, as the greatest work shop of America, furnishes a striking illustration in point. Its comparative ex emption from strikes is due to the fact that, as a rule, the workingman there owns his home. Hence, he is as conservative as the capitalist. You may find scores of squares with nice brick houses of workingmen, not one of which is a tenement house. Philadelphia now has double the number of dwelling-houses of any other city of its size in the world. This marvelous increase in its homesteads is due to its co-operative building associations, numbering over four hundred. They have been tried for nearly fifty years, and have proved such valuable forces in promoting industry, economy, sobriety, thrift, and prosperity that the State encourages them by exempting all their stock and mortgages from taxation. Though the holdings of these associations exceed $50,000,000, they are managed by workingmen at little expense, and are always open to public scrutiny. Failures have been very rare, less than in any other class of financial associations. The worst of those closed during the panic of 1873 paid ninety-three cents on the dollar. These associations, so unique, tried so long and so successfully, are a model for the workingmen of the country, certainly in large manufacturing centers. That I may speak authoritatively, I will epitomize certain statements kindly furnished me by an eminent Philadelphian, especially conversant with this subject, who says: The tenement house is unknown here. In the riots of 1877 the 20,000 members of building associations acted as an efficient counterpoise to the lawless throngs that crowded the streets. The instinct of self-preservation, of social order, was as strong with them as with the wealthier classes, and was even more effectual. It neutralized, in their own camp, the clamors of a vicious and riotous rabble, so that the presence of the mayor and the police was sufficient to quell all disorder without collision. These associations have been a potent factor in making our people prosperous and moral, encouraging sobriety, and preventing dissipation. The absence of any socialistic tendencies can undoubtedly be traced to the general ownership of homes. In Switzerland, out of 485,000 households 465,000 are householders. Here is one secret of the remarkable patriotism and prosperity of that people, and of their comparative exemption from labor troubles. Their excellent public schools and twenty-nine industrial schools, all topped up by their grand Polytechnic Institute at Zurich, including the same practical work as that of this Worcester Industrial Institute, have wonderfully unified the home-owning and home-loving people of these twenty-five cantons. Though separate in race, religion, and language, they are one in national interest, proud of their history and prouder still of their recent progress and manufacturing prosperity. They are an ingenious and industrious people, and their mechanics are educated and skillful, believing in the dignity of labor and the thorough mastery of some trade. Though hemmed in by mountains, without a seaport, with few minerals and no coal, with costly transportation, all freight from the seaboard coming over foreign territory, Switzerland threatens the ribbon trade of Coventry, rivals the English and French in muslin and delaine, and the world in watches, music-boxes, and wood-carving.-B. F. Northorp, L.L. D., in Age of Steel. DE LESSERS' CANAL SCHEME. It is now estimated that 600,000,000 francs will be required to finish De Lesseps' Panama Canal, and the Paris press unite in the opinion that the Chamber will sanction the lottery law for that amount, as otherwise the French, who have already invested, will lose all they put in, as the scheme would have to be abandoned. It is reported that M. de Lesseps recently told his countrymen that should they fail to support the Panama enterprise, it would be turned over to the Americans, who would eagerly put their dollars into it. NOTES.-Prolonged drouth in Wisconsin has led to an extensive cancellation of insurance policies. In some districts it appears from the reports that cancellations have been so freely made among lumber yards and saw mills that the bulk of this property is now carried almost entirely at the risk of the owners.-The California Southern Railroad is making arrangements for an extensive shipment of grapes to the East during the season just commencing.- -The supreme court of New York has affirmed the decision of Judge Peckham that a dealers' protective association has the right to publish the names of delinquent debtors.- The imports of foreign dry goods, at New York, for the month of July amount to $9,330,756, compared with $8,721,583 for the same month last year, against $12,493,763 for July, 1884, and $10,542,188 for the corresponding period in 1883 and $11,373,040 in 1882. -An examination by Department officials of the undeliverable mail matter recently rescued from the Oregon has disclosed the astonishing fact that large amounts of dutiable matter, such as gloves, laces, etc., are being smuggled into the country folded in newspapers, books, etc.- -It is estimated by a writer in Science that the Chinese government actually receives but 40 per cent. of the taxes collected, the balance representing the cost of collecting and the aggregate stealings of the collectors. -Owing to the continual decline in the price of silver, the current dollars which stood at 93 1-4 cents when the coin was remonetized had dropped to 79 11-16 cents at the beginning of the year, to 75 3-4 cents at the end of June, and it is now down to 71 1-4 cents-in other words, a discount of 28 3-4 cents. The "In God we trust" motto is constantly becoming more suggestive. The official report of the earnings and expenditures of the two Reading corporations for the seven months ending on the 30th of June exhibits a deficit of $4,501,298.17, or, in round numbers, a loss of $700,000 per month, a loss of $175,000 per week, a loss of $25,000 per day. -Buffalo, N. Y., stands second only to Minneapolis in the production of flour.Hundreds of artesian wells are being bored in London, on account of the excessive charges of the water companies.-The cost of delivering flour from the Minneapolis mills to Glasgow or Liverpool, including insurance and all charges between the two points, does not exceed 75 cents a barrel the year round.- The Railway Age says: "The demand for railway cars is now very heavy, and most of the car-builders are full of orders. Nearly every road in the country is ad-The ding to its equipment, and the requirements for new lines alone are very largenew law in Massachusetts compelling corporations to pay their employes weekly is not working very satisfactorily. Most of the complaints come from the employes themselves. The Mexican government_has_granted a concession for a large colony of Americans, to be established on Tapalatampo Bay, Gulf of Lower California, state of Sinaloa. The government obligates itself to pay $150 annually for two years for each family settled, to admit machinery for the colony duty free.The rate war among the transatlantic steamship lines is fierce. Prepaid emigrant passage is now down to $12. Cabin rates remain unchanged.- Mails to Havana are no longer carried via New York, but are sent to Tampa, Florida, by rail, thence by steamer. -The New York Tribune says that the steamers from the Southern ports bring from 60,000 to 70,000 watermelons each trip and receive five cents per melon. Last season one company carried near 600,000 and received $28,000.The Bradstreet Company has a cash capital and assets of over $1,400,000, its nearly 100 branch offices, and its small army of over 1,500 salaried employes, and 65,000 regular correspondents.A Baptist missionary in China writes home that what an American family throws away in a year would keep a dozen Chinese families, and what a Chinese family throws away in the same time would not feed a mouse. EDUCATION. THE CHAUTAUQUA IDEA.-Rev. J. H. Vincent, D. D., who is the highest authority on the subject, says: "The Chautauqua idea" is a protest against certain false ideas of education which are alike injurious to the individual, the community, and the nation. For example, we glorify our schools, but we neglect them. There is but a very small proportion of the people who ever think of pursuing the higher studies. A large majority of the school children leave school before they are qualified to become students. Chautauqua opposes the idea that a man has education enough when he can attend to his business and keep others from cheating him. Scholarship is not the prerogative of the professional classes. Education should not be thus limited. The man or woman of forty or fifty can begin to acquire intellectual strength, although it is, of course, better to begin earlier. Finally, the Chautauqua idea protests against the notion that education is limited to schools. Every man or woman has the right to all the education he or she wants or can take. Chautauqua advocates the idea that every man needs a higher education. If I had a boy who expected to be a blacksmith all his life, I should want him to be a college graduate. Every man owes it to himself, his wife, and his children to be as much a man as he can be. When the parents are educated enough to take a real interest in the studies and work of their children it is as turity. It says the woman of forty is worth more as a student than the girl of easy again to teach the boy. The Chautauqua idea exalts the power of ma fourteen. She is mature, and is able to give her undivided attention to any subject she may take up, while the boy studies because he must simply cram for recitation and promotion. His mother at thirty, thirty-five, or forty studies because she wants to know. The Chautauqua plan embraces a college of liberal arts, conducted entirely by a correspondence, in which one hundred men and women are studying in their homes Greek, Latin, mathematics, physiology, &c. The Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle takes up a course of reading which occupies forty minutes each day, nine months in the year, for four years. This course of reading covers every department in a regular college course. The mother at home and her son in college pursue the same course of study, although she does not get the intellectual discipline of exhaustive translation. She gets the same outlook, and she is made an interesting companion for her boy. EDUCATION AND CRIME.-The London Spectator remarks that the old idea that education would of itself extirpate crime has gradually been dissipated by experi "It was a foolish idea a priori, for there is nothing in the mere develop ence. ment of intelligence to remove the original causes of crime or to cure either malice, or lust, or greed, and it died away before the evidence that education rather changes the form of some kinds of criminality than extinguishes criminality itself. The educated man swindles when the boor would steal, but the instinct of thievishness is the same in both, while greed is slightly increased by education." It does not even make all men intelligent, for "the new anarchist faction, which rejects all the teaching, not only of history, but of the commonest facts of experience, and even the conclusions of arithmetic, is led by educated men, sometimes of high intellectual attainments." M. Elisee Reclus, author of the most delightful and learned geographical books, is an anarchist; Prince Krapotkine, whe counsels the destruction of society by force, is a man of unusual cultivation; Mr. Hyndman, who, while he disclaims anarchism, avows a desire to seize all capital, equalize all men, and compel all to labor, is a graduate of London University; and many of the cosmopolitan revolutionists are men familiar with many literatures. We have further been told, time and again, and are still told, by the advocates of popular education, that that would be in itself a strong guarantee for social order. Education has gone on diffusing its benefits among larger proportions of mankind, and now while New England, Scotland, and Prussia, formerly among the most educated states, were also the most orderly, there are in Germany five hundred thousand socialists;" and "all over the western world, discontent with the order of society, especially upon points which can not be altered, appears to grow deeper and more violent." Thus, while education may still give us much in the end, "the old enthusiastic hopes from it were, as regards the time of their fruition, evidently illusory. It is no more a panacea than any other, and the good it does is as slow to develop itself as the good that rain does. We have all been just like the poor, and have expected pleasant results too soon, and from mere decrees and from too little labor."-Popular Science Monthly. NOTES.-Prof. William A. Rogers, of the Harvard Astronomical Observatory, has been elected professor of physics at Colby University.Ex-President Noah Porter and Prof. George P. Fisher, of Yale College, were honored on Monday by the University of Edinburg, which conferred upon the former the decree of LL. D. and upon the latter that of D. D. Both gentlemen were present.The summer school for teachers, just held at Niantic, Ct., under the auspices of the State Board of Education, and absolutely free, was an experiment, but a very successful one. Five hundred teachers were there.- -The five hundredth anniversary of the founding of Heidelberg University was a brilliant and interesting occasion. Many delegations from all parts of Europe and America were present. RELIGIOUS. RELIGION IN SUMMER.-It takes more grace to be an earnest and useful Christian in summer than in any other season. The very destitute, through lack of fuel and thick clothing, may find the winter the trying season, but those comfortably circumstanced find summer the Thermopyla that tests their Christian courage and endurance. The spring is suggestive of God and heaven and a resurrection day. That eye must be blind that does see God's footsteps in the new grass, and hear His voice in the call of the swallow at the eaves. In the white blossoms of the orchards we find suggestion of those whose robes have been made white in the blood of the Lamb. A May morning is a door opening into heaven. So autumn mothers a great many moral and religious suggestions. The season of corn-husking, the gorgeous woods that are becoming the catafalque of the dead year, remind the dullest of his own fading and departure. But summer fatigues and weakens, and no man keeps his soul in as desirable a frame, unless by positive resolution and especial implorations. Pulpit and pew often get stupid together, and ardent devotion is adjourned until September. But who can afford to lose two months out of each year, when the years are so short and so few? He who stops religious growth in July and August will require the next six months to get over it. Nay, he never recovers. At the season when the fields are most full of leafage and life, let us not be lethargic and stupid. Let us remember that iniquity does not cease in summer time. She never takes a vacation. The devil never leaves town. The child of want, living up that dark alley, has not so much fresh air nor sees as many flowers as in the winter-time. In cold weather the frost blossoms on her window-pane, and snow falls in wreaths in the alley. God pity the wretchedness that pants and sweats and festers and dies on the hot pavements and the suffocating cellars of the town!-T. De Witt Talmadge, in Brooklyn Magazine. NOTES. Rev. Stephen H. Tyng, who has been for years a business man in Paris, is in this country, and was received with great enthusiasm as he preached at his old tabernacle in New York.- -More than 300 clergymen in this country are riders of the bicycle, and a large number of them started together from New York, Tuesday, August 3, for a spin up the Hudson.Bishop Foster recently made the remark that if the good people of the country would stand together for just one day they could wipe out the saloons.- -Lieut. Gov. Ames, of Massachusetts, has given the Memorial Methodist Church, at Plymouth, a bell cast by Paul Revere, which was used for eighty years on State institutions, and has hung lately at the Ames' place in North Easton, where it was rung for Fourth-of-July celebrations, It was once known in Boston as the "Liberty Bell," and was rung when pardon proclamations were issued by the Governor.- -The large sum of $2,075 was paid the other day in England for a copy of the sermon preached by John Knox three hundred and twenty-one years ago this month, "for the whiche he was inhibite preaching for a season.' -The supreme court of New Hampshire has decided that members of the Salvation Army, or other organizations, can be prosecuted as public nuisances if they make themselves such without conflicting with the organic law, which is manifestly intended to cover only the free exercise of the conscience.The Protestants of Ireland are not the "insignificant minority that is popularly imagined. The Episcopalians number 600,000, the Presbyterians number 485,000, the Methodists and Unitarians, 110,000, the Congregationalists,. Baptists, and other minor denominations make up about 60,000 more.- -The native churches of Samoa, besides supporting their own pastors, have contributed, on the average, $6,000 per year for the last twenty-five years to the funds of the London Missionary Society. Yet, when the missionaries began their work, the people were dangerous savages, MEDICAL. THIRST AND DRINKING IN HOT WEATHER.-So far as the mere sensation of thirst is concerned, there can be no question that it is a mistake to drink too much or too frequently in hot weather; the fluid taken in is very rapidly thrown out again through the skin in the form of perspiration, and the outflow being promoted by this determination toward the surface, a new and increasing demand for fluid follows rapidly on the successive acts of drinking and perspiring, with the result that "thirst" is made worse by giving way to it. * * * But if we refuse to drink when we are thirsty, simply because we shall thirst again, we are imposing a restraint on the activities by which nature is endeavoring to preserve the health. We are doing precisely what the irrational homœopaths do, or did, when refusing fluid to cholera patients, or limited the drink of those who suffer from fever. Of course, like produces like in the matter of thirst from any cause, but the like produced is natural, and it is, or rather was, strange to note that in one of the earliest notorious cases of malpractice by persons calling themselves homoeopaths in England, the dogma, " Similia similibus curantur," should be flung to the winds, and drink refused to a patient dying of liquid diarrhoea, because, forsooth, the taking of fluids increased the diarrhoea and made him more thirsty! We venture to hope that those who are zealously urging the policy of refusing to quench their thirst in this hot weather because "drinking makes people more thirsty" will reconsider their policy from the physiological standpoint, and that they will recognize that to thirst and drink, and perspire and drink again, are the natural steps in a process by which nature strives to maintain the integrity of those organic changes which the external heat has a tendency to impede. The natural and true policy is to supply an adequate quantity of fluid without excess. Therefore, do not abstain from drinking, but drink slowly, so as to allow time for the voice of nature to cry Enough." There is no drink so good as pure water. For the sake of flavor, and because the vegetable acids are useful, a dash of lemon-juice may be added with advantage. The skin should be kept fairly cool, so that a sufficient quantity of the fluid taken may pass off by the kidney.-Lancet. AN ELECTRIC TOOTHACHE REMEDY.-I always did have a scientific turn. So does the implement which imparts the circular motion to a grindstone, though I am unable to say which is the greater success as a crank. Among other symptoms of genius which are rapidly developing in me, I occasionally wrap myself in impenetrable gloom and other wearing apparel, and wrestle with a redundant and conspicuous toothache. Having deposited so many incisors, biceps, and molars with gentlemen of leisure, who made a business of collecting such bric-a-brac, I began to fear that I should soon be compelled to live on codfish balls and mush the remainder of my days. What wonder, then, that the following from the London Electrician attracted my attention: "If a thin plate of zinc be placed on one side of the gum and a silver coin on the other side, with the aching tooth between them, and then the edges of the metals brought together, a weak galvanic current will be established that will cure the pain." I immediately gathered up my wife's washboard, and cut a piece of zinc from it. She made a vigorous protest, but when a man has a tooth in his mouth that is dissatisfied with the management of affairs, his other troubles are as naught. After obtaining the zinc the next thing was to get the coin. A thorough investigation of my assets failed to reveal even a tencent piece, so I went out and borrowed that amount from a friend. In my hurry I laid the piece of zinc where I could not find it again. I cut another piece from the crippled washboard, the tooth rigidly adhering to the ache business, and my wife protesting; but something had to be done, and that something I heroically attempted to do. Placing the zinc and coin as directed, I let them touch below the tooth. Jeminy crickets! A thousand toothaches at once! It was over in a second, and the tooth no longer ached; but the dime- oh, where was he? Half way down my throat and marching on. I had promised to return the dime in half an hour, but under the circumstances it was impossible, and my friend now regard me as a fraud. Hang those new-fangled remedies, anyhow!—Goodall's Sun. A NEW TREATMENT FOR DIPHTHERIA.-Dr. Kramer, of Amersterdam, has found a new remedy for diphtheria in the form of a mixture of bromine and iodine, with which he has made some remarkable cures (Centralbl. fur Klin. Med., for December, 1885). He uses the remedy also as a prophylactic, brushing the throat night and morning, during an epidemic, first with one and then with the other of the following solutions : 1. Bromide of iodine, bromide of potassium, of each I part; distilled water, 200 parts. 2. Carbolic acid, I part; rectified spirit and glycerine, each 25 parts. The same solutions are used for the disease itself, but the first may be increased by double the strength, and is applied every hour, the second being used three times a day. The treatment is concluded by blowing benzoate of sodium into the throat three times a day, administering the same drug in doses of two to four drams, according to the age of the patient, and keeping the bowels open. Medical and Surgical Reporter. A REMARKABLE CASE.-A surgeon of Tours, Doctor Thomas, has recently communicated a very interesting fact concerning the surgery of the fingers. A man, while passing over a gate, lost the whole skin of one of his fingers, a ring around one of them having got caught between the gate and an iron bar, and the weight of the man while jumping having forcibly dragged the finger through the ring. Doctor on the gate. The ring and the skin remained an entire hour Thomas secured both, and reintroduced the scalped finger into its normal envelope. Although the whole skin did not adhere, a good part of it was restored to life, and it is possible that, if the operation could have been performed earlier, the result might have been quite satisfactory.—Science. THE NET RESULTS OF PASTEUR'S WORK.-Mr. Grancher, who is the collabora tor of M. Pasteur, recently made a statement concerning vaccination against hydrophobia. From this it appears that of 1,000 non-vaccinated persons bitten by rabid animals, 160 died; since vaccination, the mortality has fallen off to 7 in 1,000. Of those bitten by rabid wolves, the mortality, when unprotected by vaccination, is 66.5 per cent. M. Pasteur has vaccinated 48 persons so bitten, and 7 have died, giving a mortality of 14 per cent. NOTES.-M. Andouard, the eminent French physician, reports the case of a body having been kept in an excellent state of preservation for a year by being kept in a close, dry cellar where there was no ventilation, but low temperature.Dr. George L. Fitch has for five years been in charge of the lepers in the Sandwich Islands. He gives it as his opinion, based on careful study and attempts to inoculate the virus into healthy persons, that leprosy is not a contagious disease. STATISTICAL. TRADES AND PROFESSIONS IN FRANCE.-The following interesting figures are taken from the Revue Industrielle: Half the population of France lives upon agriculture, one-quarter lives by various manufacturing industries, one-tenth by commerce, four-hundredths by the liberal professions, and, finally, six-hundredths are "rentiers" of various kinds. Among the agriculturists, there are 9,176,000 who are proprietors farming their own land. The others are tenant farmers under various systems of holding, laborers, or very small holders who also work for others. The large industries, such as mines, quarries, and the more important manufactories and workshops, occupy 1,130,000 persons, while the lesser industries occupy 6,093,000. Under commerce are comprised 789,000 bankers, brokers, and wholesale merchants, 1,895,000 retail dealers or shop keepers, and 1,164,000 hotel keepers and what we should class as licensed victualers. The railways and various carrying trades on land and the merchant marine occupy 800,000 persons. Varirious government and communal employes number 806,000. PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES.-In "Triumphant Democracy," the recent work by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, a Scotchman by birth, and now an American manufacturer, the author gives many interesting facts showing the progress and prosperity of his adopted country. He states that during last year 74,000 more tons of Bessemer steel were produced in the United States than in Great Britain; that more yards of carpet are made each year in Philadelphia and the vicinity than in all England, Wales, and Scotland; that the school libraries alone in this country contain 12,000,000 more books than all the public libraries of Europe combined; and that all the State and city debts of the Union added together, rating them according to valuation of property, do not amount to one-fifth of the city debt of Manchester, England, or to one-tenth of the debt of Birmingham. MUSICAL AND DRAMATIC. THE DEATH OF FRANZ LISZT.—The death of Franz Liszt leaves a vacant place in the world of art that some one must be born to fill. None that the world now knows can succeed him; and although his work was done before advancing years compelled retirement, it was much to have with us the living monument of the progress of music from Cherubini and Beethoven to Berlioz and Wagner. The greater part of Liszt's three-quarters of a century of life has been actively spent in the labor of his art, with results that will be more than a memory because their effect is permanent. Without his aid Wagner might never have compelled the world to listen, and by what he has done for others, as well as by what he has produced of his own, the Abbe Liszt will be remembered.-Boston Post. THE death of Franz Liszt removes one of its most striking and picturesque figures from the world. Something of the man's personality strongly impressed itself upon observers throughout his really shining career; something innately theatric, perhaps, there was about him, yet winning, too, and commanding, with the true note of power and strength. He must have been a "personage," whatever his mode of expression, who through a long life made for himself such a place in men's mention as did Liszt, from the time when as a slender youth he became the talk of the salons of Vienna and Paris, until in the height of the last London season the abbe's venerable figure was the first attraction of the world's capital. Besides personal attraction the history of the man was romantic. His earlier years were passed in a sort of "swell" Bohemia; the Bohemian quality, indeed, List never wholly lost. Abbe and grandparent, he died while in the course of paying honor to the man who lived in concubinage with his own (illegitimate) daughter. But these things are too high for our simple republican taste. Liszt was easily first of piano-forte players. His performance was, in fact, by itself, and not to be comAs for his campositions, there may be more hesitancy of pared with any other. judgment. No doubt his relative position among modern composers is changed Parisfal;" but those since "Tristan und Isolde," the Nibelung tetralogy, and who twenty years ago paid him homage as apostle of the new musical faith can never forget the feeling of that time, and the world itself will grow very old before it forgets some of the songs, the "Tasso," the "Préludes," "Die Ideale," or, to mention no more, the Dante symphony.-New York Evening Post. NOTES, Minnie Palmer is soon to sail for Australia, -Sarah Bernhard -Mme. Janish will appear next "The Maid and the Moon cars are in process of construction for leading theatrical stars.- intolerably monotonous. is typographically and artistically beautiful, and is remarkably refreshing in that it ART. NOTES.-The handsomely illustrated paper on the Western art movement which Mr. Ripley Hitchcock contributes to the August Century reveals to the compla cent East the fact that so far as the building up of art museums and art schools -Frederick goes the West is at present far more energetic than is the East.Keppel & Co. have reprinted from the Century for February, 1883, a paper on "American Etchers," by Mrs. Schuyler van Renssaeler, which attracted much attention at the time of its appearance in the magazine. Some additional matter on etching by the same writer, reprinted from the New York Star, and an appreciative study of Charles Meryon, the etcher, by Mr. Keppel himself, complete the brochure, which is got up in very good form. The original illustrations to the Century article are reproduced.- The idea of our art students mingling study with recreation, and going during the heated term into the country in search of knowledge and health at once, is growing more popular each succeeding season. -Mr. F. S. Church, the painter, has the distinction of never having studied in Europe, and of never having been on an ocean steamer, and there are not want ing persons who believe that his very striking originality has not suffered in con sequence. LITERARY. THE DECLINE OF Book Reading.—In the hearing in Janurary last before the Committee of the Senate on the Copyright Bill, introduced by Senator Hawley, there was a good deal said about the rapid decline in the demand for American books under the competition of the cheap reprints of all sorts of books by the American pirates. But Mr. Henry Holt, the New York publisher, added: This is not the whole question. It is rapidly becoming a question whether, with rare exceptions, we are going to have any serious books at all. Consider this a moment: the competition of books issued by these cheap libraries is ruinous to all books that are not in these cheap libraries. It is not a question of the competition of an English book, which is reprinted for 20 cents, with the same edition of a book which is reprinted for a dollar. It is the competition of this cheap reading matter that a man can pick up and throw away with all the substantial books. It is ruining the sale of all books. It is not ruining the sale merely of books of fiction, or the sale of mere trash. In the old days of trade courtesy, the pet extravagance of many a substantial citizen in an out-of-the-way place was to step in the bookstore of an evening, glance over the stock, and take some. thing substantial home in a shape which he could hand down to his children and his children's children. Now, except in favored places, there is no bookstore for him to go to. Its place is taken by a toy shop, with a few school books in one corner and a great -Several elegant private counter full of cheap pamphlets. The book-buying habit is dying out. It was never |