have been released by the action of another part of the apparatus, which is under the control of the President. The voting is recorded by means of three sets of cylinders, upon which are inscribed in relief the names of the members in alphabetical order, and also the series of figures from I up to the total number of members. These cylinders rotate under inking pads, and after the voting, an impression being taken on a band of paper against the name of each member present, is found a number in one or other of the three columns "Yes," "No," or "Abstention." These numbers appear perpendicularly in numerical order. Hence the total number in each division is read at the foot of the three columns. The apparatus is necessarily somewhat complicated, but it is said to work with great facility. It will be remembered that for some time a similar voting apparatus was exhibited in one of the Congressional Committee rooms at Washington, but was finally taken away by the inventor, who despaired of its adoption.-The Electrical World.

FUTURE INVENTIONS.-I. What is the prospect of new inventions which will have a power of disturbance similar to that already shown by steam and electricity? This is, of course, very hard to say, but we are not altogether without light. No great alteration in methods of business is possible except through improvement in the means of transportation, and through the removal of artificial obstructions to transportation, such as tariffs and other interferences of the Government with the natural course of trade. When the circulatory system of the body politic is complete, the evolution of the body is complete. And, if the discovery of some Keely motor or of some practicable method of navigating the air is made, we shall probably enter on another period of transition as violent as the last. But there is very little expectation of anything of the kind. Unless a "negative gravity," like that in Mr. Stockton's clever story, is discovered, it is not easy to see how even the navigation of the air would effect much change in our system of transportation, for air ships could hardly carry coal or heavy merchandise. The probability seems to be, therefore, that we have approximated our limit. Subsequent improvements will be matters of detail, such as the extension of existing lines or the perfecting of econominal railroad operation. A system under which a piano can be shipped a thousand miles for less than the price charged by the drayman who takes it to the final destination, is hardly susceptible of revolutionary improvements. Producers at any one locality are already practical competitors with the rest in their line of business. No system of transportation, however perfect, can accomplish very much more.-. -Popular Science Monthly (October).

PROFESSOR PROCTOR ON EARTHQUAKES.-"Of course, the great question which must be in all men's minds in connection with this great earthquake is this: How far can we hereafter trust to that immunity from destructive earthquakes which in the Eastern States of America had seemed so complete? All the opinions expressed by geologists respecting the cause of this last great disturbance are unimportant compared with the question whether Charleston is likely to be again visited by an earthquake of the same destructive sort. Now, if it shall appear on inquiry that the forces which have partially destroyed Charleston, and seriously shaken the Southern States, have in reality been forces which found relief in the great disturbance, and are not likely soon (by which I mean within perhaps hundreds of years) to need relief of the sort again, then it will matter little whether the earthquake was brought about by a great land-slide beneath the sea, as some have suggested, or by imprisoned and superheated steam, as others have surmised, or (as is perhaps more probable than either view) by the accumulated effect of strains and tensions resulting from the steady process of contraction which the earth's crust is all the time undergoing. We may, even in this case, recognize in the long immunity which the United States have enjoyed from destructive earthquakes, the evidence of future safety, seeing that one great disturbance seems to have sufficed to work off the accumulated subterranean tensions of many centuries; and as a long time of comparative quiescence may be expected to follow the present earthquake as we know preceded it."-Professor Richard Proctor, in The North American Review (October).

THE EUCALYPTUS TREE AND MALARIA.-Some years ago claims were made that the Eucalyptus globulus would banish malaria from the land if only planted in abundance in malarious regions. Extensive plantations were accordingly made, but so far as known the result was a total failure. Dr. Brandes, of Hanover, now advocates, with a similar object in view, the growth of the Anacharis alsinastrum, a water-plant which is excecdingly common in some sections of the country. He bases his proposition upon the fact that in the district where he lives fevers of a malarial type were very prevalent until this water-plant was introduced, and that they diminished from year to year until four years ago when they entirely disappeared and have not since returned. As the Anacharis is easily obtained and grows spontaneously, requiring no attention, the experiment can be easily tried in marshy districts where malaria prevails.--Science.

THE WEALTH OF NATURAL GAS.-Those interested in the wonderful application of natural gas in the region around Pittsburgh, claim that the supply is inexhaustible and that wells which began spouting gas twenty-five years ago show no abatement. The area extends over some portions of Western Pennsylvania, of West Virginia, and of Ohio and Kentucky. It is said there are hundreds of thousands of acres of excellent "gas territory" in Western Pennsylvania still untouched. The theory is that the gas is forming in the earth constantly. The daily consumption of the wells at Pittsburgh is 357,000,000 feet, supplying the factories and 10,ooo houses and taking the place of 4,000,000 tons of coal a year.

SPIRIT EXTRACTED FROM SWEET POTATOES.-Satisfactory results having been obtained from trials made in the Azores, on the failure of the orange crop, to utilize sweet potatoes for the production of flour and spirit, a French chemist, connected with the French Antilles, M. Ralu, has lately taken out patents for improvements in these two new industries. The latter seems likely to obtain large proportions. The sweet potato of Martinique yields fifteen litres of alcohol at 100 degrees per 100 kilos weight of roots, and it is probable that the produce of other islands and of the southern continent of America will yield about the same quantity. Ordinary potatoes only yield about three to four litres.

INFLUENCE OF OIL ON WAVES.-Another instance of the effects of oil on waves is supplied on apparently excellent evidence. The North German Lloyd's Werra was recently disabled in mid-Atlantic, and was taken in tow by the Venetian. One morning a strong gale sprang up, and heavy seas broke over the bows of the former vessel, when the commander of the Venetian ordered an oil-bag to be hung over each side of his ship and dragged some distance astern. The effect was marked, as the sea became comparatively smooth, and not a drop of water broke on board the Werra.

NOTES. The project of a south polar expedition is being seriously ventilated in the scientific circles of Australia, the Government having expressed its intention of assisting the enterprise. The Australian whalemen are also becoming interested in the project, inquiries having already reached London whether whaling It vessels for an anti-Arctic voyage would be subsidized by the Government. is now claimed that one of the results of the recent earthquake is the diminution of the flow of natural gas from certain wells, and a considerable feeling of anxiety is consequently pervading the circles interested. There are now 8,000 miles

of overhead wires in London. The local authorities have control over the wires only where there is an interference with the roadway. Gaslight will soon be entirely banished from the Imperial opera houses of both Berlin and Vienna. "The safety and comfort of the public," says an exchange, "demand that the introduction of electric lights in every theater throughout the world be made obligatory by law." It is said that the great glazier of Alaska is moving at the rate

of a quarter of a mile per annum toward the sea. The front presents a wall of ice some five hundred feet in thickness; its breadth varies from three to ten miles, and it is about 150 miles long. Almost every quarter of an hour hundreds of tons of ice in large blocks fall into the sea, which they agitate in the most violent manner, the waves being such as to toss about the largest vessels that approach the glacier as if they were small boats. The applications of electricity become more varied every day. Telebarometers, telethermometers, telemanometers, and telehydrobarometers have recently been invented, which, respectively, record at distant points air-pressure, heat, steam-pressure, and water-stages. A California electrician has also invented a process whereby gold, silver, and copper can be instantly smelted by a lightning stroke. Ninety-six pounds of iron ore were recently found attached to the end of a lightning rod removed from the ground. The soil was ferrugineous, and it is supposed that electricity attracted the ore to the rod. A new motor for running light machinery has been discovered in Germany. Petroleum in its fluid state is used; and the cost is put at about three cents per horse-power an hour, and half a cent per hour for lubricating.. Among early attempts at invention by Prof. Morse, who invented the telegraph, stimulated by a desire to secure a living, was a new pump, made by him and bis younger brother, Sidney, editor and proprietor of the New York Observer, to which the latter gave the name of Morse's Patent Metallic Double-headed Ocean Drinker and Deluge Spouter Valve Pump Box. Recent experiments have demonstrated that the greatest height ever reached by sea waves is from 38 to 44 feet. The average storm at sea will raise the waves to a height of feet. 30

RELIGIOUS.

to

SHALL SUNDAY BE PRESERVED.-The preservation of Sunday is necessary a sufficient measure of industrial independence among all classes. Our time is so much personal property. To sell all one's time is to throw one's soul into the bargain. We must limit, however, our so-called natural rights by our social obliga. tions. The rights of every man have a vital center and a flexible circumference, a living, personal center to be defended to the last.

Our position, in a few words, is this: The working classes can not sell their Sabbaths without selling that which is vitally essential to their physical and moral well-being. Society can not compel or allow men to sell the time of the Sabbath day, and hope to preserve for all classes that measure of industrial independence, moral as well as physical, which is necessary in order that men may be fit for citizenship in a free state. Let the Sundays of laboring men be legally sold to fac tories and railroads, or let the Sundays of business nuen generally be surrendered, whether individuals will or not, to the general lust for gain, and the whole economy of modern life would soon settle into a hopeless, grinding, and most wasteful industrial slavery. Men must preserve for themselves, for their own uses, physical, mental, and moral, and for their home life, this much at least of time, if they are to remain freemen, if they are to be anything better than calcu lating machines in the office or hands in the shop. * Our Sunday laws should be maintained so far as they afford legal security for that measure of time for the home life, and for industrial freedom, which we have hitherto granted to all classes upon the Sabbath. The Sunday laws, so far from being oppressive, are, as interpreted by our courts, securities for personal liberty, They say to every mechanic: you can not be compelled in a free state to work every day, like a slave, at any forge; upon Sunday the sovereign state maintains your right to your home and freedom. They say to every storekeeper: you shall. be protected in your laudable custom of closing your shutters one day in seven, and you shall not be thrown out of business by any ruinous competition on the Sabbath day. They say to every tired bookkeeper and clerk: this day go free; money can not buy your service for at least this one day of the seven. They say to every factory operative and girl in the shop: this day the great wheels must stop, and the air and sunshine belong to the people. They say to a thousand homes, to wives and children: to-day be glad, for labor is released from the taskmaker's hand, and the husband and the father shall be yours to-day to enjoy with you the fruit of his labor. The state stands upon the Sabbath day, in the majesty of law, before the door of the humblest cottage, and says to the wife and mother, to the children clinging to her skirts, and to the very infant at her breast: this day

is yours, and upon it your bread shall not be taken from you; by the same sovereignty with which I have bidden labor go free to-day, I will also protect it from falling among thieves; the wages of the week shall not, with my consent, be squandered; upon this Sabbath day I will protect the home by all the power of the law from drunkenness, poverty, and despair.

* * *

The same reasons which have been indicated for the preservation of Sunday afford a clue, also, to the answer which should be given with regard to public amusements on the Sabbath. The state should be doubly vigilant in protecting the home life of the people upon the days of popular liberty. Laws which license saloons on week days may even rise to the height of prohibition on Sunday; and that, not only to protect the homes of the people from special perils incidental to the stopping of work on Sunday, but also for the benefit of that large and overworked class of men, the bar-tenders and saloon keepers, who serve human appetites seven days in the week and far into the nights, and who certainly need some Sabbath rest from their unpleasant business. It is not for the public good to tolerate the business enslavement of any class of men even in their own supposed interests. Moreover, while no moral interest is subserved by denying all access to fresh air on the Sabbath to the families of many who are hived during the week in the city and its factories, the country may justly demand the protection of its Sabbath quiet from the vices of the town; nor should the fact be ignored that the multiplication of excursions and opening of places of amusement on the Sabbath may occasion more work than it grants respite, and that the indirect consequences of many seemingly beneficent enlargements of Sunday liberty may tend toward the utter loss of even the economic and social blessings of the day.-Newman Smyth, in the Forum.

THE DECLINE OF FRANCE.-Mgr. Meignan, the archbishop of Tours, has re. cently made a remarkable exposition of the consequences by which France is to day overwhelmed as the result of the growing advance of impiety, the blind enmity to everything Christian displayed by the men to whom the councils of the nation are entrusted, and the daring encroachments of the sect of Freemasonry. The venerable prelate emphasizes the fact that the prestige of France is a thing of the past, and that she no longer preserves those relations with the other European powers which in former times marked her history. The French government in the political and social enterprise which it enters on to-day finds itself pledged to a single-handed conflict, the crisis being further aggravated by the fact that the aid and co-operation which it might look for is too readily transferred to the side hostile to the arms of France. Tonquin, Cochin-China, and Madagascar are the signal witnesses to this unpromising state of affairs. France, says Mgr. Meignan, beholds herself to-day hemmed in by enemies and is become the terror of Europe by the war upon religion, the social disorders which spread ruin and dismay over the country. The archbishop then institutes a comparison between the condition of France and those other countries which, though to-day similarly pervaded by unbelief, yet retain the safeguard of a government from which the spirit of Christianity has not utterly departed. Germany, for instance, exceeds France in being a focus of skepticism; yet the influence of the German constitution, with its laws framed in a religious spirit and with regard to the obligations of religion, the place which the Christian principle holds in the system of education, the discipline of the army, the representation of authority, all exert a powerful and salutary effect on the religious and moral life of the nation. On the other hand, the ruling party which essays to guide the destinies of France encourages by all the means at its disposal the rising lawless spirit that aims to annihilate the idea of God and moral responsi bility from the minds of men. It waits on the footsteps of atheism, covers it with honor and applause, and appears to recognize in it the savior and not the destroying tyrant of the nation. It thus becomes the prey of every species of revolt and disorder, and finding no hand strong enough to check the torrent of misfortunes, the condition of France is one which creates to Europe a serious foreboding of danger and threatens to engulf the country itself in ruin complete and overwhelming.-Catholic Review.

NOTES. The sum of $10,592,331 was contributed in 1885 by the Presbyterians for church and missionary work. The Methodists have 19.700 churches in the United States, and the sum of $19,041,387 was given the last year for the support of the various branches of their Christian work. There are 2,100 children in

36 Sabbath-schools in Utah. Maharanee Surnomoyce, a generous Hindoo lady in Calcutta, has given $75,000 to found a hall of residence for native women students of medicine. The government has contributed ground for the building.

000,000, among whom 662 missionaries and 1,095 native helpers are preaching the gospel. The London Mansion House Fund for the assistance of Russian Jews amounts to £110,000, of which £90,000 were expended in transporting 8,569 fugitives to America, 1,000 to London, and purchasing new homes in Russia for 4,000. Rev. E. P. Hammond, the evangelist, has been holding daily religious meetings in Kristiana, Bergen, Trondhjem, Kristiansund, in Norway, and in Stockholm, in Sweeden, where the Queen, in her palace, at Rosedale, expressed the deepest interest in the work. Multitudes were converted, and a general quickening has come to Christians. Out of the freshman class of 160 girls at Wellesley College, more than 100 are church members. The applications in all exceeded 900, but only 545 can be accommodated. Boston University is putting over $100,000 into a new hall for its school of theology, greatly increasing its accommodations for students. A meeting was recently held at the Downs Chapel, Clapton, to commend to God seven missionaries who were to sail on the next day for the Congo under the auspices of the English Baptist Missionary Society. The sad intelligence comes from London by cable that the young King of Uganda has put to death all the converts of the Protestant and Catholic missions, and that the missionaries are in great peril. The death is reported of another of the members of the Universities Mission to Central Africa, the Rev. C. S. Pollard, at Mozambique. This new loss follows within seven months on the deaths of Mr. Winckley, the Revs. C. S. B. Riddell, J. S. C. Wood, and the illness of the Rev. W. P. Johnson. The Chinese government has very promptly paid $10,000 to the Canada Presbyterian Mission in Formosa for property destroyed in the Franco-Chinese war. The mission now has 38 stations with 1,273 converts, all the result of fourteen years' labor. There were about 3,000 baptisms of adults in connection with the missions of the Church Missionary Society last year, of which 1,680 were in India. An immense image or idol has been discovered in Mexico, which is made of blue granite and weighing fully a hundred tons. It was originally 36 feet high, about 18 feet across the shoulders, and 18 feet thick. It is in the mountains, and lies sprawling on its back, with its great stone feet, each 6 feet square, turned up to the sun; its head a little downhill, and pointing a little west of north. Rev. John L. Withrow notified Park Street Church, last Sunday morning, that at last, after ten weeks' consideration of the call from the Third Presbyterian Church of Chicago, he had fully decided to remain in Boston. The daily papers have reported that the discussions connected with the American Board the last year have had the sad result of diminishing the contributions of the churches. That is not the case. The regular donations have advanced by about $16,000. Truth is the most royal thing in the world. It is the only thing that can rule in the end. The man who is quick to get truth is king among his fellows. Jesus was king because he was anointed, ordained, born to see and teach the truth. Truth goes with religion. When Professor Henry had made all his preparations for a very important experiment in telegraphing, he turned to his assistant, and said: “Now, be silent. I am going to ask God a question." Pilate thought a kingdom without fighting soldiers did not amount to much. Christ thought a kingdom of fighting soldiers did not amount to much. Pilate and all his kingdom have vanished. Christ's kingdom will endure forever. Pilate the governor would have been forgotten but for Jesus the prisoner. The Rev. Peter Leys, an aged clergyman of Edinburgh, in enfeebled health, has been sent to prison for refusing to surrender two children of his son, who came to him when their father was in poverty. The court had ordered their surrender, but the clergyman refused because their father's religion was different from his. "It is my duty," he said, "to obey God rather than man." The Rev. Dr. Lorimer, the well-known Baptist clergyman, tells this story on himself: "When in London, a few weeks ago, I visited a market, and asked the name of a peculiarly ugly fish that lay on the counter. 'We call them Baptists,' replied the dealer. Baptists!' I rejoined; why Baptists?' Because,' he answered, they go to the bad so soon after they come out of the water.' It is is estimated that there are in New York over 300 local charitable institutions, not including those under municipal care. The erection of these charities has been the work of the society ladies of New York, and for their maintenance there is annually expended the sum of not less than $4,000,000.

JOURNALISM.

THE POWER OF THE PROVINCIAL PRESS. In discussing the article which ap

in the United States in 1880 furnished nineteen per cent. of the convicts in the penitentiaries and forty-three per cent. of the inmates of our work houses, reformatories and alms houses. Central Africa, which was opened up by the martyr Livingstone, has a population of 80,000,000, while the entire continent has 200,

metropolitan and provincial press in England," the Chicago Inter-Ocean says: "In our own country the case is somewhat different. We have no overshadowing metropolis. The Washington journals have no national influence. The papers of New York, of Philadelphia, of Boston circulate but little beyond their own vicinage, and whenever they chance to go elsewhere their opinions go for just what they happen to be worth. The Chicago papers, for instance, are not a bit more likely to take their cues from what is said in the papers of New York than those papers are to take theirs from leaders in Chicago and other Western journals. Under the working of the vast and very completely-organized system of the Associated Press dispatches a hundred daily papers all the way across the continent offer to their readers every morning very much the same morning news report. And not the news only, but the most significant opinions are everywhere immediately reported. The American metropolitan dailies, as those of New York and Chicago, have certain very eminent advantages, both as to amount of news and power of influence. But, in the aggregate, the influence of the papers published in the various smaller cities and larger towns is of immense value, and, we are free to say, is continually increasing. At the same time, this must be said, that whoever essays to be a leader of thought and action in almost any part of the country needs to keep himself thoroughly posted and familiar with the leading

organs of news and thought in the more metropolitan centers of national and social life."

NO COMPARISON BETWEEN FRENCH AND AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS.-There is no comparison as newspapers, in the exact sense of the word, between American and Parisian journals. Whoever counts upon a Parisian daily for information as to what is going on outside of the metropolis will be sadly disappointed, and when events of any importance occur the reader of an American or English sheet will be more edified by the telegraphic columns inviting perusal in London or New York than by the longest local article printed on the spot. There is a host of newspapers in Paris, all the same, and many of them, if they contain little or no news, are entitled to the praise of being well written. Paris has between fifty and sixty daily journals, against fifteen or sixteen printed in London and the same number in New York. Five or six of them make money, a few pay their way, and the majority live on precariously, flaring up occasionally through the chance discovery of a "backer," who requires an organ for political purposes, or a company that wants to float an enterprise of some sort or other. The Figaro is still the paper that all Paris reads with most regularity, but is far inferior to the Figaro of old, and no longer occupies the place it once held in public opinion. In point of circulation the Petit-Journal outstrips all its pretentious contemporaries. Its daily circulation, I am told, now reaches 850,000 copies.-Paris Correspondence

in New York Times.

EDUCATION.

His

THE SCIENTIFIC TREATMENT OF EDUCATION.-The great increase which has taken place in late years in the number of books devoted to educational subjects can not have escaped the attention of the reading public. But those to whom such books are only known as so many titles, would be even more surprised were they to make a careful examination of their contents. A change of matter has accompanied a change of method. Even the old terminologies are to a great extent outgrown, while rigorous scientific method has almost wholly superseded the unsupported propositions, with their deduced consequences, that were once so common. In short, a new science has not only been developed, but it has sprung into general recognition. It is to be deplored that no more euphonious and manageable name could be found for it than pedagogics; but that word is the legitimate representative of the paidayyia of Plato and the pädogogik and pedagogic of the Germans and the French. We must trust to time to wear away its barbarous sound, and in the mean time rejoice that the control of the new science is a positive and valuable addition to the circle of knowledge.-The New Princeton Review. NOTES.-James Recalton, the school teacher of Maplewood, N. J., has just returned from a trip through Russia on a tricycle. He left New York June 12 and arrived at Archangel early in July, and at St. Petersburg August II. trip cost him only $200. The Pope is actively pursuing his project to found an important university at the Lateran Palace for advanced scientific and literary studies on the part of the clergy. It will be called the University Leonine, and its director will be the Jesuit Cardinal Mazzella. The sum of $12,000 is quietly distributed every year at Yale College, $6,500 at Boston University. Students needing aid are required to interview the college president before a certain day in the college year, and fully satisfy him on all conditions laid down. They are then quietly enrolled for beneficiary aid and proceed with their studies without publicity and loss of self-respect. The colleges and seminaries for young women show that the movement for the higher education does not go backward. Wellesley has 160 members in the freshman class. The application this year exceeded 900, but 545 is the limit of the college's present accommodations. Mt. Holyoke Seminary is full, and Smith College opens with a freshman class of one hundred, and the largest number of students in its history. All higher education is essentially selfeducation. Teachers do not make the scholar. The impulse comes chiefly from within, and the student becomes the scholar, when he ceases to confine himself to prescribed tasks or previous limits, and spontaneously reaches out beyond.-Pres. Bartlett (Dartmouth Col.) in the Forum. The teacher should not be a bigot in any sense of the word; she should not forget, if she would have her lessons prove of lasting benefit, that one chapter of pure philosophy is worth more than a hundred volumes of dogmatism.-Supt. 7. S. Shoup, Woodbury Co., Ia. The scholars reap a rich benefit from the teacher's recreation. Its reflex influence upon the school is direct and positive. The teacher should return with a clear head, steady nerve, cool judgment, and kindly temper-conditions which exert a very wholesome influence upon the dispositions of children, their aptitude for study, and their ability to make good progress while in attendance at the schools.-The Canada Educational Monthly. The late Mrs. Gamble, of London, has left Girton College, Cambridge, England, a legacy of $95,000. The munificent benefactor of English girls has distant relatives in Philadelphia. It is quite likely that the property of the Chicago University, whose trustees have given up the institution, unable to clear off a debt of $300,000 hanging over it, will pass into the hands of Archbishop Feehan, who will convert the place into a Catholic theological seminary. The authorities of Nancy, France, have voted to add 300,000 francs to the 500,000 francs already appropriated by the general government, to be devoted to the construction of chemical and anatomical institutes in that city. Professor W. R. Harper's recent appointment to the chair of Semitic languages at Yale College excites interest. For several years his energy and activity uve been as conspicuous as his scholarship. In his correspondence school for the study of Hebrew he has nearly eight hundred students. The American Hebrew Institute comprises some forty Hebrew professors in the various theological seminaries of the country. President Holden, of the University of California, has devoted his summer leisure to the Lick Observatory, and he is sanguine that every. thing will be ready for the great telescope by the beginning of the new year, The telescope itself, if everything goes well, will be finished next June.

MEDICAL.

PRESERVING LIFE BY SALT.-One of the most entertaining if not the most instructive stories of Hawthorne is of a young man who, in obedience to a marvel. ous prediction, set out to find the three most coveted objects of life, but who re. turned after years of wandering to discover them in the home that he had deserted so long before. Since the death of the first human being, people have been seeking for something that would prolong life. Ponce de Leon went to Florida in quest of the fountain of perpetual youth. Sir John Mandeville sought a similar spring on the coast of Malabar. The old alchemists, wishing to protract their lives so they could perfect a method of changing lead into gold, endeavored to make an elixir of life. The general opinion appears to have been that the substance that is capable of insuring longevity was to be obtained in some very distant part of the world or compounded of very rare ingredients. But Dr. Barggraeve, professor of the practice of medicine in the University of Ghent, like the hero of Hawthorne's story, has, after wandering about the world only to be disappointed, discovered the means of preserving health and protracting life at home; in fact, in the home of every one. The substance warranted to cure all manner of diseases, to preserve health, and insure a very green old age is nothing more nor less than common salt. His experience as a practitioner has convinced him that it is a panacea for all human ills. He ascertained many years ago that this simple substance would cure several diseases, and lately he has become convinced that it will cure all that are known to the modern doctor. Dr. Barggraeve has arrived at the conclusion that there is no reason for being sick. He says that from half to two thirds of an ounce of sodium chloride, taken in ordinary food or drink, every day, will not only insure health, but long life. He is confident that cholera can be kept at bay by the use of salt, and that it will ward off malaria and cure consumption. He has never found a person who reached an advanced age and who was free from disease who did not habitually eat large quantities of salt. In countries where the people have salt fish as the most common article of diet very many old persons are to be found. This learned professor of the healing art shows that the convicts in Holland, who at one time in the history of the country were obliged to subsist on unsalted bread, generally died in the course of a few months, after having suffered protracted agony. He also shows that the want of salt has caused several terrible epidemics in Saxony. Epidemics, he says, are not common in Russia, for the reason that the peasants eat salt in large quantities when one threatens them. Dr. Barggraeve's theory in relation to the cause, cure, and prevention of disease and the means of insuring long life may be the correct one, but observations made by other persons in various parts of the world do not seem to warrant his conclusions in regard to the efficacy of salt. The natives of this country did not use salt, or at least they did not take the trouble to make and preserve it. Still many of them reached an advanced age, and it was the general opinion that they were healthy. The negroes in Africa, the Hindoos in India, and the Maoris in Austra lia eat no salt meat or fish, and rarely ever use salt as a condiment. North of the Arctic circle salt is not considered a necessity. * * Centuries instead of decades would be wanted for improving the human race in the same manner that English cattle have been improved. If the members of the British association desire to see the human race improved by the means it recommends, it seems strange that they do not set about it. In the opinion of many, that body embraces the largest number of highly intellectual, refined and highly educated men ever united in one organization. Its membership reaches several thousands. There are enough of them to establish, if not to perpetuate, a new and highly im proved race of human beings that would be the crowning glory of all lands and ages.-Chicago Times.

to

FOR AND AGAINST ALCOHOL.-The total abstinence section of the British Medical Association never fails to testify at the annual meeting. About 160 members of the Association were present at the breakfast at Brighton recently given by the National Temperance League. We need not say that the speakers at this meeting were not of the opinion of a recent writer in the Revue Scientifique-M. Fournier de Flaix. M. de Flaix maintains that the outcry against alcohol is utterly unmerited, and that all vital statistics are more favorable in nations in proportion the use of alcohol. In France, he says, the birth rate is lower and the death rate higher, where the consumption of alcohol is smaller. In England, again, more alcohol is consumed than in France, and yet in France the birth rate, the death rate, and the statistics of crime and suicide are less favorable than in England. Comparing other nations, he reaches the same conclusions, and maintains that alco hol is an alimentary element whose consumption should depend directly on climate. Very different were the teachings of the medical abstainers at Brighton, viz: Dr. Norman Kerr, Dr. Nathan S. Davis, Professor Geike, of Toronto Medical College, Dr. Simon Fitch, of Nova Scotia, Dr. Bernard O'Connor, and Dr. Ridge, Secretary to the Medical Temperance Association. Dr. O'Connor said that during his fourteen years of practice he had never prescribed alcohol for any patient. Speaking as a physician to a consumption hospital, he maintained that phthisical patients did much better without alcohol-the night perspirations and the cough were less, and the morning exhaustion was less. But the principal speaker, of course, was Dr. Nathan S. Davis-the president-elect of the approaching international congress. Dr. Davis' disparagement and denunciation of alcohol were absolute and unconditional. It does not nourish, it does not sustain heat, it does not assist convalescence, it does not improve the pulse in fever, and it is of no virtue in nursing. It is purely evil in its effects. So far from strengthening the heart's action, it depresses it--it para lyzes it. In saying so, he relied not only on his own observations, but on those of Anstie and Parkes. He maintains that alcohol is simply anesthetic; that it does not remove evils, but makes one insensible to them; and that it arrests and retards all healthy action of the tissues, and tends to the retention and accumulation of effete materials. There is, perhaps, a little extremeness on either side, but of the two sides we decidedly lean to that of Dr. Davis. We entirely agree with him and other speakers in thinking that the medical prescription of alcohol should be under

taken only on the strictest grounds. M. De Flaix must remember that France no w is not far, if at all, behind England in the consumption of alcohol, and that, besides, she indulges in absinthe, and he will have to explain the fact that in the temperance section of life insurance offices in England the value of life is apparently much greater than in the ordinary section-so much so that in some offices the te etotal lives are taken for less premiums or receive larger bonuses. When we read the indictment of Dr. Davis against alcohol, we are tempted to ask if it is the whole truth-if alcohol has no redeeming quality? Admitting that it does infinite harm, does it do no good?-does it prevent no evil? Can the able physicians who recognize its virtues be all mistaken? The question is one for scientific and thoughtful men to discuss gravely, and medicine will not be without much authority, and, let us repeat, responsibility in its settlement.-The Scientific American.

FEES OF NOTED ENGLISH PHYSICIANS.-The Boston Traveler thus quotes from a London letter: "Do London doctors earn more than Queen's counsel ?' As a rule they do not, but the incomes of the three leading physicians and those of the three leading lawyers are about equal-that is to say, at the rate of $60,000 a year each. The largest sum ever earned in one year by a doctor was $100,000, made by Sir Astley Cooper. The three men at the head of the medical profession in England, at the present day, are Sir William Jenner, the court physician, Sir William Gull, and Sir Andrew Clark. Just lately the last named has obtained considerable notoriety. He was induced to visit a very wealthy lady at Nice, and he received the unprecedented fee of $25,000. One-fifth of this amount he retained as a remuneration for his services, and the remainder he divided between two charitable institutions connected with his profession."

NOTES. Dr. Edward O. Shakespeare, who in October, 1885, went abroad as a United States Commissioner to investigate the cholera, arrived at his home in Philadelphia on Monday last. In his investigations of the disease he visited the places in France, Spain and Italy in which the disease had been epidemic, and also went to Calcutta, in which place, however, there were no cases of cholera at the time of his visit. He is reported as having said that the people of India live in much greater squalor and filth than the peasantry of those portions of Europe that suffered so severely during the epidemic of 1885. The J. Marion Sims memorial fund now amounts to $7,759.91. The committee who have the fund in charge are about to take steps to erect a suitable bronze monument to the memory of the distinguished American surgeon. The English commission for the investigation of hydrophobia is thoroughly organized and equipped for that purpose, but has as yet been unable to take any original steps in that direction, by reason of its total lack of material, no dog having become rabid since its organization.

STATISTICAL.

FOREIGN MILITARY STATISTICS.-In view of the events which just now are disturbing Europe and which threaten the approaching outbreak of a war the most bloody of the century, it is not inopportune to pass in review the military forces of which the principal nations of Europe dispose. An idea will thus be attained of the immense slaughter which would deluge Europe with blood when all these powers, as seems probable, would be drawn in' as participants in this titanic contest. The following presents the mirror:

Russia.
Germany

Austria
Turkey

Great Britain

France Italy

Army.

Marine. 28,358 26,000

9,764

Ironclads.

30,000

653,772

74

58,000

50,000

30,000

It may be noted that Italy possesses the six most powerful ironclads in the world. -Translated for PUBLIC OPINION from La Voce del Popolo..

FACTS ABOUT PENSIONS.-Commissioner of Pensions Black's report for the year ending June 30, 1886, shows that there were then 365,783 pensioners on the rolls. The increase of the number for six years is shown by the following table:

Although 40,000 males and only 35,000 females came from Ireland in 1882, in the last three years the female immigration has exceeded the male each year by 1,000— 24,000 males and 25,000 females having come in 1886. From no other country do we receive more women than men-a fact which speaks louder in praise of high wages in the kitchen than in any other field of labor.—Brooklyn Union.

SALES OF PUBLIC LANDS.-Commissioner Sparks, of the General Land Office, has prepared a statement showing the disposal of public lands for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1886, from which it appears that the total number of entries were 227,474, embracing an area of 20,991,967 acres. The amount of money received for this land was $7,412,767. The cash sales aggregated 3,773,498 acres, and the amount received therefor was $5,757,891. Original homestead entries were made to the number of 61,638, covering an area of 9,145,135 acres. The lists of selections made by railroad companies under the different grants aggregate 2,311,547 acres. The number of timber-culture entries made was 34,996, comprising 5,389,309 acres. The above totals do not include the disposal of Indian lands, amounting to 15,562 entries, comprising an area of 1,132,59 acres, on account of which $1,607,729 were received.-Bradstreet's.

OUR SCHOOL POPULATION.-According to the report of the Commissioner of Education for 1882-3, the school population of the States and Territories amounts to 16,504,692; the number of pupils enrolled, 10,364,473; and the average daily attendance, 6,344,663; and for 1883-84, 16,794,402 school population, 10,738,192 pupils enrolled, and 6,693,928 daily attendance-or an increase in school population of 289,710; of enrolled pupils, 373,719; and of daily attendance, 349,265. Commissioner Eaton's report is dated June 30, 1884, and if we suppose a similar increase has taken place during the period between that date and August, 1886, there is now a school population of 17,373,822; of enrolled pupils, 11,485,630; and of average attendance, 7,392,558.-School Journal.

NOTES. Statistics show that the death rate in the United States is 18 to each 1,000; in England, 20.5; in France, 23.6; in the German Empire, 26.1; in Belgium, 22.4; in Austria, 29.6, and in Italy, 30.5.. It is estimated that 2,500,000 persons are arrested every year in the United States, of whom 40 per cent. are old offenders. The first commitments to the common jail reach about 100,000 each year. A million of men are occupied in the administration of our penal system, and the expense of prisons, their equipment, and management reaches the sum of $400,000,000 annually.

RAILROADS.

There was, therefore, an increase of a little less than 20,000 in each of the years 1882, 1883, and 1884, over the preceding year; a little more than 20,000 in 1885, and about that number in 1886-this in spite of the numbers who die and marry and become of age. In 1885, 15,253 names were dropped; in 1886, 22,098. In 1885, 35,768 were added; in 1886, 40,857. Thus far the number added continues to be nearly 20,000 more every year than the number dropped.

SEX AND NATIONALITY OF IMMIGRANTS.-The tables that show the sex and nationality of the immigrants to the United States during the year ended June 30, 1886, reveals, of course, a continued falling off in the volume of immigration, which has been steady since the "high-tide" year of 1882, and the proportion of male and female immigrants from all European countries has remained nearly the

NOTES.-Russia believes in the special education of railway employes for their

profession, as is shown by the fact that there are thirty-three railway schools now in operation under the direction of the government minister of transportation. The course embraces mathematics, accounts, surveying, telegraphy, mechanics, engineering, railway construction and operation, etc., and, strange to say, even religion, an accomplishment which is not in this country considered so necessary for railway men as it ought to be. The locomotive works of Herr Borsig, of Berlin, are said to be the oldest on the continent. They have been established fortyeight years, and are about to be closed in consequence of the prevailing low prices entailing constant losses. Tarsus, the birthplace of the apostle Paul, has been connected by railway to Mersina, now the principal seaport on the Southern coast of Asia Minor—a distance of seventeen miles. The line will be pushed forward to Adana, twenty-five miles further. Adana is a large and flourishing city on the right bank of the Sarus, where the river is spanned by the bridge-still intact-built by Justinian. An English railway porter whose wages were but