Principal Entrance to the Château d'AbbadieFig. 2.—Principal Entrance to the Château d'Abbadie.
Fig. 2.—Principal Entrance to the Château d'Abbadie.
Fig. 2.—Principal Entrance to the Château d'Abbadie.
Those who have had the privilege of visiting Abbadia have remarked that a stone is missing from the balcony of one of the windows; this stone, according to the wishes of the donor, is never to be put in place. A history is connected with its absence. M. d'Abbadie, in the course of a journey in America, contracted a strong friendship with Prince Louis Napoleon, who was then in the United States. The prince once said to him, "If I ever come into power, whatever you may ask of me is granted in advance." The prince became Emperor of the French. Napoleon III had a good memory. He met his former companion one day, and said to him in an offhand way: "I promised when we were in America to give you whatever you would ask for; have you forgotten it?" M. d'Abbadie replied: "I have built myself a château near Hendaye, where I hope to spend the rest of my days. If you will be so kind as to go a few kilometres out of the way for me during your coming visit to Biarritz, I shall consider myself highly honored if you will lay the last stone of my house." Napoleon smiled and promised. But that was in 1870, and Napoleon III never returned to Biarritz. That is the reason a stone is missing at Abbadia.
An account is also appropriate here of that other gift to French science and letters of the Château of Chantilly, made to the Institute of France in 1886, by the late Duc d'Aumale, whose tragic death in consequence of the terrible disaster at the Bazaar de Charité, Paris, occurred near in time to that of M. d'Abbadie. The duke was conspicuous as a soldier, as a man of letters, the author of the History of the Princes of Condé, and as a great bibliophile; as a member ofthe French Academy (1871), taking the place of Montalembert; of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, and of the Academy of Fine Arts; and as a patriot, though a banished prince. The gift was made three months after the decree was issued banishing the Orleans princes from France, and after the duke had expostulated with M. Grévy in vain against the step. The deed reads: "Wishing to preserve to France the domain of Chantilly in its integrity, with its woods, lawns, waters, buildings, and all that they contain—trophies, pictures, books, objects of art, and the whole of what forms, as it were, a complete and various monument of French art in all its branches, and of the history of my country in its epochs of glory—I have resolved to commit the trust to a body which has done me the honor of calling me into its ranks by a double title, and which, without being independent of the inevitable transformations of societies, escapes the spirit of faction and all too abrupt shocks, maintaining its independence through political fluctuations. Consequently, I give to the Institute of France, which shall dispose of it according to conditions to be hereafter determined, the domain of Chantilly as it shall exist on the day of my death, with the library and the other artistic and historical collections which I have formed in it, the household furniture, statues, trophies of arms, etc." The sole condition attached to the gift was that nothing should be changed at Chantilly. The chapel, where the heart of Condé is deposited, should be retained, devoted to worship, with special masses to be said at stated times, and the splendid collections of the château should together be called the Condé Museum. In 1889 the Government authorized the duke to return to France. He refused to accept the permission as a matter of favor, but only as one of right. He returned, however, and took his seat in the academy in May of that year.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from articles in La Nature.
The Château of ChantillyFig. 3.—The Château of Chantilly.(Presented by the late Duc d'Aumale to the Institute of France.)
Fig. 3.—The Château of Chantilly.(Presented by the late Duc d'Aumale to the Institute of France.)
Fig. 3.—The Château of Chantilly.
(Presented by the late Duc d'Aumale to the Institute of France.)
By C. W. WILLIS,member of the institute of jamaica.
Aboutfifteen or twenty years ago the mongoose (Herpestes griseus) was imported from India by the colonial government and introduced into the island of Jamaica, in the West Indies, for the ostensible purpose of destroying the large, gray, white-bellied rat which played havoc with the growing cane on the sugar plantations.
The mongoose belongs to theViverridæ, or civet-cat family, which is closely allied to theFelidæ, one of the most widely diversified among the carnivora. But the mongoose differs materially from the civet cats, for it belongs properly to the subfamilyHerpestinæ, or ichneumons, having toes slender and straight, and separate from one another; the scent glands, so highly developed in the civet cat, being either small or entirely absent. Most of the ichneumons are natives of Africa, but several are Indian, and one form (H. ichneumon) extends to southern Spain.
H. griseusis the true mongoose of India, and is the animal imported into Jamaica. In its native habitat it devours snakes, rats, lizards, and other creatures not in favor with humanity. Its color is gray, darker on the head and legs; its feet are blackish, and the end of the tail is tipped with black. Beneath the longer gray- or white-ringed hairs there is a fine, short, reddish under fur. The body of the full-grown animal is about twenty-one inches in length, and the tail eighteen inches.
Like Pharaoh's rat in Egypt, to which it is allied, the mongoose is highly valued in India, and is often kept tame about the houses for the services that it renders in destroying snakes and other plagues. It is especially famous for its prowess in destroying the deadly cobra, a feat performed by force of its superior boldness and activity.
That the little animal has fairly achieved the object for which it was imported can not be gainsaid, but that it would ever becomethe universal pest which it is at the present day, and has been for several years, was never anticipated. So long as it kept to the cane-growing plantations, and ate the planter's poultry and all young and available animal life, all went well; but with its rapid and prolific powers of reproduction and its vagabond and roaming disposition, in a very short time it was found to be in every part of the island, from the seashore to the tops of the loftiest mountains, the highest peak of which is seventy-three hundred feet above the sea level.
The MongooseThe Mongoose(Herpestes griseus)in Jamaica.
The Mongoose(Herpestes griseus)in Jamaica.
The Mongoose(Herpestes griseus)in Jamaica.
Though it has not exterminated the cane rats, it has lessened their numbers, and saved the sugar planters a vast sum of money. But it has nearly exterminated the ground laying and feeding birds. It devours poultry and eggs of all kinds, on the ground and in trees, including those of the land turtle, so that the latter, once very numerous and highly esteemed as an article of food by the native epicures, is now seldom found. Here may be mentioned an interesting fact, that the mongoose, in no way a tree-climbing animal in its native India, has become such in Jamaica, as its voracious appetite lessened the numbers of ground feeding and laying birds, and compelled it to take to the trees in order to enlarge its food supply.
The mongoose kills young pigs that roam, half wild, over the island; also lambs and kids. It eats fruits of all kinds, fish, wild fowl, snakes, lizards, and crabs; and the once plentiful edible lizards and land crabs are now rarely seen. All young and tender life, both animal and vegetable, is included in its dailymenu. When the mongoose has cleared off all the animal life, it turns its attention to the "ground provisions," and here it shows the varieties of its tastes and the strength of its jaws. It will grovel with its paws until yams,cocos, sweet potatoes, cassava both bitter and sweet, and other ground food tubers are laid bare.
Of fruit, the mongoose has a partiality for bananas, the mango, and others, as well as for some of the tree vegetables, such as the delicious akee (Cupania edulis), and the avocado, or alligator pear. It will, likewise, when the irrigating canals are drained for cleansing, seize fish and make off with them. Not the least harm it has done has been the destruction of insectivorous birds and lizards, and the consequent increase of another nuisance, the tick. This is a subject which the Jamaica Government is bound to take up in the near future, and there will be found only one remedy—the introduction, propagation, and protection of insect-eating birds, for the question of adopting some plan for the wholesale destruction of the mongoose has thus far proved fruitless.
The mongoose breeds six times a year, and each time there are from five to ten young ones. The animal lives in the hollows of trees, dry walls, and other similar places. Its activity is wonderful, and it very seldom misses its quarry, which, when secured, the mongoose proceeds to mutilate in the groin, first of all drinking the warm blood, then devouring the liver and heart.
In Jamaica there was a very beautiful indigenous snake (Chilobothrus inornatus), a friend of the agriculturist, commonly called the yellow or banana snake, which grew to a length of six or seven feet. It is practically extinct, for during the last five or six years it has been nearly impossible to find a specimen. This bloodthirsty little animal has also nearly exterminated another ally of the cultivator, a certain ground lizard (Anolis corsalis), which is now very rarely seen.
In its general appearance, except in point of size, it being much larger, it may be stated that the mongoose very closely resembles the common gray squirrel of the northern United States, although the latter does not have feet and tail tipped with black.
Comparingthe flint implements of palæolithic and neolithic age, Prof. T. McKenny Huse exhibited at the British Archæological Institute a series of flints to illustrate his view that in their earlier stages of manufacture the palæolithic and neolithic implements passed through the very same steps—that is, a block of flint was first rough dressed by both palæolithic and neolithic people into the same general form. The neolithic man merely proceeded further on the same lines, afterward finding out the way to grind the edge, and at last the whole implement. With few exceptions, the author said, neolithic flints were found on the surface or in artificial excavations; whereas, as a rule, palæolithic implements were found in deposits that seemed to be due to the sweeping down into hollows or river terraces of surface soils in or on which the implements and other stones lay.
Comparingthe flint implements of palæolithic and neolithic age, Prof. T. McKenny Huse exhibited at the British Archæological Institute a series of flints to illustrate his view that in their earlier stages of manufacture the palæolithic and neolithic implements passed through the very same steps—that is, a block of flint was first rough dressed by both palæolithic and neolithic people into the same general form. The neolithic man merely proceeded further on the same lines, afterward finding out the way to grind the edge, and at last the whole implement. With few exceptions, the author said, neolithic flints were found on the surface or in artificial excavations; whereas, as a rule, palæolithic implements were found in deposits that seemed to be due to the sweeping down into hollows or river terraces of surface soils in or on which the implements and other stones lay.
ByJ. E. PLUMANDON,METEOROLOGIST AT THE OBSERVATORY OF THE PUY-DE-DÔME.
A greatmany theories have been invented to explain the formation of rain, some of which are remarkable chiefly for their absurdity or their complexity. Even most of the scientific theories depend too largely on hypotheses and are not sufficiently supported by facts. There are, however, some which are as a whole established on authentic observations, and, although they are still incomplete, they do not, like some of the speculations, contradict facts that are observed every day. For more than thirty years I have studied professionally and because I had a taste for it all the atmospheric phenomena which came before me. Several times I have been so fortunate as to witness, at Clermont, or on the top of the Puy-de-Dôme, the genesis or development of heavy showers, and have fancied that I have detected some of the details or secrets of their formation. In a pamphlet on this subject, which I published in 1885, I expounded the ideas which a large number of observations on fog, drizzle, mist, rain, snow, sleet, and hail had suggested to me; and by means of some of these ideas, the resultant of facts observed hundreds of times, I hope to be able to explain the formation of rain.
First, I must say that heat, and especially moisture, do not vary in the lower part of the atmosphere in the way it was long thought. At extreme altitudes the temperature of the air is very low, but the cold does not increase regularly as we rise, and the same is the case with the moisture. In high ascensions, or while sailing almost horizontal courses, aëronauts traverse atmospheric regions alternately warm and cold, dry and moist. Such anomalies present themselves even near the surface. There are between eighty and a hundred days every year in which a higher temperature is registered for a greater or less length of time on the Puy-de-Dôme than at Clermont. Sometimes the difference is very great. Thus, on the 26th of December, 1879, the temperature was -16° C. at Clermont, while on the summit of the Puy-de-Dôme the thermometer marked +5° C., showing a difference of 21° in favor of the top of the mountain. Differences of temperature of this kind occur everywhere. The moisture of the air varies in the same way through the atmosphere. In ascending or descending a few hundred metres, the hygrometer may be observed to pass from dryness to saturation. At the altitude of the Puy-de-Dôme extreme moisture may succeed almost absolute dryness in a few instants, in a clear sky and without any change of wind.
The parts of the atmosphere included within the same limits of temperature or humidity therefore rarely form concentric or parallel layers. They constitute regions interlacing zones which the clouds, thick or scattered in groups, often mark to our eyes, showing us those which are saturated with the vapor of water. The distribution of these zones in space depends chiefly on the heat action of the sun, and upon preceding and present movements of the atmosphere. Now, if a certain increase of heat is adequate to melt a piece of ice and to transform the water of the fusion into vapor, in like manner a corresponding cooling may suffice to cause the vapor to return to the state of a liquid and then to that of ice. The processes in the atmosphere are not different, and all showers, results of the more or less extensive condensation of the vapor of water, may arise from the cooling of that vapor or of the water which it produces.
A certain volume of atmospheric air is capable of holding in suspension a quantity of water proportioned to the elevation of its temperature. But, for each determined temperature, there is a maximum which can not be exceeded without the excess of vapor returning to the liquid state. If, therefore, an atmospheric region is saturated with vapor, and its temperature falls, that region will give rain. Immense and superabundant causes for the cooling necessary to provoke rain exist in such an atmosphere as we have described. The cooling may take effect in three principal ways: first, by the radiation of different regions between one another and toward interplanetary space, the temperature of which is extremely low, as has been indicated by measurements made in high balloon ascensions; second, by the expansion which air rising in the atmosphere undergoes in being rarefied; and, third, by the mingling of masses of warm or moist air with cold or dry.
Cooling by mixture is the sufficient cause in the majority of cases; and this may be effected from above, by descent of the air from the upper regions; from below, by ascent, with the assistance of rising currents created by solar radiations; or, finally, in any and every direction under the influence of the winds and the general movements of the atmosphere. Furthermore, the cooling need not be very great in order to provoke rain under certain conditions of temperature and humidity of frequent occurrence.
Rain clouds very frequently descend a little below the altitude of the Puy-de-Dôme. It is, therefore, not difficult, in order to determine the degree of cooling necessary for the formation of rain, to take advantage of observations that have been made there. Thehygrometer sometimes remains near saturation without there being precipitation of vapor; and, supposing that the temperature is near 3° or 4° C., which is about the mean temperature of the year, it will require a cooling of only one or two degrees centigrade at most for the air to be unable to hold all its vapor and for the excess of it to be transformed into rain. This is confirmed by experiment and observation.
I will mention a remarkable example illustrating this point. Not rarely, when the west wind is blowing violently on the top of the Puy-de-Dôme, an east wind, blowing opposite to it, prevails at Clermont. Then an eddy is formed behind the plateau and the chain of puys that runs from north to south, a little west of Clermont. This eddy gradually becomes a vast whirlwind with a horizontal axis, several leagues long, a few kilometres wide, and seven hundred or eight hundred metres high. It commonly gives rise to an abundant and continuous formation of black clouds, which appear in an instant along its length, following its intersection with the upper current. The phenomenon is frequent, and is sometimes produced under very interesting conditions, as on a certain day when the temperature at Clermont was five degrees above zero, centigrade, while the hygrometer indicated that the air contained seven tenths of the quantity of vapor required for saturation. Under such conditions the temperature on the Puy-de-Dôme would have only had to be a very little above the freezing point for the vapor of the horizontal eddy to be transformed into rain on meeting the upper current coming from the west. Now, on the top of the mountain the thermometer marked 4°C. below the freezing point. Hence, every time the lower east wind increased a little, this having the effect of carrying the vapor and the air of the lower regions a little higher, the black clouds could be seen developing with a recrudescence of intensity. A few instants afterward a torrential rain fell at Clermont.
In some cases—and such frequently occur in summer—the mingling of strata of air of different temperatures is effected by ascending currents. The sky is clear; the moist air in contact with the soil is warmed under the action of the sun, rises, and more or less quickly reaches a much colder stratum. Light mists are formed; they may frequently be seen rising and spreading out over the warmer or moister spots. On the flanks of the Puy-de-Dôme one may often find himself among ascending currents of this sort which succeed one another intermittingly when the air is calm, after a rain; they rise with a velocity of four or five metres at least per second.
These fogs finally become stationary in a region of the same density with themselves. There they accumulate and form a cloud or a group of clouds that go on developing. When penetrated by therays of the sun, which they almost wholly absorb, these clouds are warmed up again in the interior, and budding protuberances are seen, which are especially developed on the upper parts of the cloud. These protuberances are formed and grow so rapidly as to almost suggest the presence of a steam generator within every cloud. The external parts of the cloud, however, cool very soon by radiation, evaporation, or dissolution, but especially by their contact with the cold air, into which they continue going. Hence, when the vapors emitted by the cloud reach its periphery, they are cooled at once as if in a condenser; they then take on a rapid movement of descent, which is easily distinguished, and suffer condensation in their lower parts. As the surface of the cloud in contact with the cold air around it is considerable in proportion to that which receives the influence of the solar rays, the warm ascending currents slacken speed and are extinguished, because the cloudy mass, drawn on by the higher currents, removes from the place where it is formed, or because it stops the rays of the sun and prevents their reaching the ground. There results a more and more complete condensation, and the watery vapor is at last transformed into drops of rain. The condensation into rain is accelerated and augmented when the mass of cloud rises with great rapidity, especially when it enters abruptly into very cold atmospheric strata. A sudden mixture of the cloud with the air around it takes place then, and sudden and abundant rains result like those which are produced at the instant of thunderstorms.
The formation and mixture of masses of air of different temperatures are effected by ascending currents in zones of restricted extent, but sometimes very numerous. Local showers and thunderstorms are produced in this way. The phenomenon becomes much more important and at the same time extends over vast regions, when it is brought about by the aid of the wind and the larger movements of the atmosphere, and general rains result.
Babinet, in his Studies on the Sciences of Observation, explains the formation of rain by supposing that when the wind meets an obstacle, it ascends; the moving air cools in rarefying, and deposits its excess of vapor over saturation. This fact, when it occurs, should indeed contribute to the condensation of the vapor contained in the air; but it does not afford an adequate explanation of all rains; for, first, how can it rain on the vast oceans which present no obstacles to cause the air to ascend? It is necessary to suppose that internal movements of the atmosphere intervene in the production of rain.
Monk, Mason, de Saussure, and many others fix the prime condition for the formation of rain in the superposition of two beds of cloud. This assertion, although it is still repeated in a number of treatises on physics, is inexact. A single stratum of cloud—yes, asolitary cloud—has been seen, on the Puy-de-Dôme, to produce rain and lightning, with thunder.
Frequently, under the influence of the centers of perturbation which often exist south of the Alps, a vast sea of clouds, the upper face of which does not exceed an altitude varying from seven hundred to twelve hundred metres, covers all central France, and probably other countries. Only the high table-lands and mountains rise above this stratum of clouds over which the sun shines in a perfectly clear sky. Yet rain is found in such strata of clouds, however homogeneous they may be, and it rains in the regions they cover. I have long been able to affirm this fact, important because it destroys old errors elaborated in the isolation of the study, and to support it with authentic proof.
We may witness the formation of rain when we rise into the usual region of the clouds, either in balloon ascents or by climbing mountains.
The phenomenon may be observed under five aspects: First, we may find ourselves in a fog of greater or less thickness, the hygrometer indicating that the air is nearly saturated with vapor, without one being able to detect the fall of the smallest liquid particle, and without exterior objects being moistened. Second, while we can not observe the fall of a single liquid drop, however small, everything enveloped in the cloud will be rapidly moistened. We are in the atmospheric stratum where the rain is beginning to form. Inhabitants of mountainous regions say at such times that there is a wet fog. At the top of the Puy-de-Dôme, when this condition lasts for a day, we can collect three, four, or five millimetres of water. Third, we may remark, in the fog, the fall of exceedingly fine droplets, which we can hardly distinguish—it is drizzling. Fourth, the rain is falling, while we are still in the fog; and, fifth, the rain is falling and we are below the fog—that is, below the clouds.
These five aspects may be present in the same cloud, when we will find them in the order given in successive strata, one beneath another; so that, entering such a cloud from the upper part, we may traverse, in regular order, "dry" fog, wet fog, fog with drizzle, fog with rain, and, as we leave the cloud at the bottom, rain without fog. Mr. Glaisher, the English scientific aëronaut, thus records his experience in an ascension he made July 1, 1863: "We let ourselves drop at eight hundred metres, and went into a fog which was dry for the first thirty metres, but shortly afterward became moist. As we descended, the fog seemed to become more charged with water, and seemed very dark beneath us; at five hundred or six hundred metres we heard the sound of the rain striking the trees, so violent was the fall."
Rain drops, in fact, grow as they fall, whether by continuance of condensation, or by union with other drops. They should, therefore, be larger when they issue from the cloud in proportion as the region where drizzle is formed is higher above the base of the cloud. There is, however, a limit to the size they can attain, for the velocity of their fall increases with their mass, and they are divided by the resistance of the air.
The five aspects under which we have regarded the formation of rain are evidently five phases distinguished by our senses in the progressive transformation which the vapor of water undergoes in passing to the liquid state. It also sometimes happens that the condensation of the vapor in a cloud can only reach the first or second stage of the transformation without extending to the other stages. At other times it stops at the third phase, that of drizzling, which may then, as rain does, cross atmospheric regions below the cloud, and reach the ground, provided the base of the cloud is not too high and the air passed through is not too dry. In short, we may conclude that the formation of rain is due simply to variations in the temperature and moisture of the air. There is, however, another element, the intervention of which is indispensable, if not to reduce the vapor to water, at least to cause that water to fall in rain, or under the form of drops. This element is the atmospheric dust.
We designate generally as atmospheric dust all the corpuscles which the atmospheric envelope of the earth holds in suspension; but distinctions should be made. Some dust occurs in the air fortuitously and for the moment, such as troubles us in dry weather when the wind is blowing. This is coarse, and so evident that we say "It is dusty," and soon falls by its weight to the ground. There is other dust which remains in the air almost permanently. It becomes visible to the eye when illuminated against a dark background, as when a sunbeam comes into a dark room. Other dust may be studied under a microscope of low power; and still other, and the largest proportion of that in the atmosphere, is so fine that it can not be distinguished, even with the most powerful instruments.
This extremely fine and light dust is disseminated to heights that may exceed fifteen or twenty or more miles. Cyclones, volcanic eruptions, and immense prairie fires are the principal causes of its production and expansion in the atmosphere. Mr. Aitken, a Scotch meteorologist, has made some remarkable experiments to demonstrate the existence of this dust. For that purpose he employed a very ingenious method, which permitted him to count all the particles, even those which could not be seen with a microscope. The principle of his method is as follows: If we fill a receiver with air that has been deprived of all its dust by passing it through a liquid,and saturate it with vapor, and then by cooling cause the vapor to condense, the resultant water is deposited directly. If the receiver is filled with air not cleared of its dust, the cooling of the mixture of air and vapor provokes first the formation of a fog that marks the presence of dust, because each particle of dust becomes a nucleus, a center of condensation, for the vapor. Finally, if the cooling is carried far enough, the water formed falls in very fine droplets, each one of which incloses a dust particle. Mr. Aitken has succeeded in counting these droplets, by introducing only a very small volume of dusty air into the receiver and finally filling it with absolutely pure air. He has thus found that the external air contains on the average 32,000 particles of dust per cubic centimetre after a rain of considerable duration, and 130,000 particles in fine weather. There are 1,860,000 particles in the same volume of air in the middle of a room, and 5,420,000 particles near the ceiling. The figures look fanciful, but they are exact, for they have been corroborated by numerous consistent experiments and agree with the determinations that have been made by other methods.
As to the formation of rain, it should be observed that absolutely pure air can not give either fog or drops of water when it is supersaturated with vapor. If there were no dust in the atmosphere we should have no clouds or rain. The sky would always be clear, and the sun would shine uninterruptedly as long as it was above the horizon. There would be no dawn or twilight, and day and night would succeed one another instantly, without transition. Atmospheric water would be deposited only when in contact with things, as in Aitken's experiments, very much as dew is deposited.
The causes of the formation of rain are evidently the same everywhere. The secondary conditions change only according to climates; but they vary so much that rains are distributed very unequally over the earth. According to Desanis, the quantity of vapor contained in a column of air as high as the atmosphere would give, in France, a layer of water about four centimetres thick. Few rain storms would furnish so much; but there are storms sometimes that give much more. On August 17, 1888, seven centimetres of water fell at Clermont in five hours; and September 12, 1875, the pluviometer measured ten centimetres for the whole day. Still more copious rains fall in some tropical countries; at Purneah, in India, eighty-nine centimetres have fallen in twenty-four hours.
Mr. John Murray has calculated, from the charts of Elias Loomis, that the quantity of rain falling every year over the whole earth would form a bed of water averaging nine hundred and seventy millimetres in depth.
When we consider the annual quantities of rain in particularregions or localities, we find the numbers exceedingly variable, and some of them surprising. Clermont receives 630 millimetres, and the mean of the fall in Europe is about the same. About one metre falls on the western coast of Iceland, two metres in Norway, 2.80 metres in Scotland, 4.60 metres at Vera Cruz, 5.20 metres at Buitenzorg, in the Dutch East Indies, 7.10 metres at Maranhão, Brazil, and 12.50 metres at Cherrapunji, in British India. On the other hand, it rarely rains in some regions of the globe north and south of the equator; as in the center of the Sahara and of Arabia, the plateau of eastern Persia and Beluchistan, the desert of Kalahari, and the desert of Atacama. The plains or pampas of the eastern slopes of the Andes, in about 23° south latitude, are likewise subject to extreme droughts, in one of which, lasting three years, three million head of cattle perished.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from Ciel et Terre.
[12]An address before the Society of Horticulture and Viticulture at Clermont-Ferrand.
[12]An address before the Society of Horticulture and Viticulture at Clermont-Ferrand.
ByM. CAMILLE MELINAND.
Thereis a very striking resemblance between dreams and waking perceptions. We see in dreams objects, persons, and events identical with those of the waking state. The belief in their reality is as complete as in that of what we see when awake; the emotions are as deep and vivid. Pleasures have a delicious savor, and pains are even more intense than those of the reality—as, for instance, those of nightmare, and the distresses to which we give ourselves up in full. In all cases these dream troubles seem as real as those of life, and are taken by us quite as seriously; and the existence of everything we see and feel is as evident as in life.
Still we oppose the dream to the reality. The waking world is our true, our only world; the world of the dream seems to us purely interior and chimerical. The incoherence and absurdity of our dreams surprise and amuse us, and we are amazed to find that we have been able to believe, while asleep, in such foolish things. In short, dreaming is synonymous to us with illusion, phantasmagoria, and falsehood. The clearest of the prevailing theories about dreams rest upon the postulate that waking perceptions are the true ones, and the visions of the dream are false. They have answers to the three questions we are used to ask concerning dreams—Where do they come from? why are they incoherent? and why do we take their visions for realities? They explain dreams as former sensations reviving within us under different combinations, and as therefore simply confused reflexes of the reality. Dreams may, however, sometimes be produced by a present impression suffered by one of our senses, half awakened—a contact, the way we are lying, and the condition of the organic functions being thus the causes or occasions of dreams. The incoherence of dreams seems no more mysterious in these theories, and is explained as the result of two causes—the slumber of the "reflecting" faculties, judgment, reason, the will, the exercise of choice and control; and, secondly, the unrestricted reign of imagination and the association of ideas. Our faith in the reality of the things dreamed is accounted for by the mechanical play of the images, the law being set up that every image that is not opposed by stronger images appears to us a real object. The problem, therefore, resolves itself: the senses being asleep, the images that arise within us are not contradicted by normal sensations, and that is why we take them for realities. Further, our reflective faculties, being likewise dormant, can not contradict the images, in the absence of sensations, reasonings, or recollections. Hence a credence, as absolute as unreasonable. We purpose to show that there is something artificial and prejudiced in the classical theory of opposition between dreams and waking, which assigns illusion, confusion, and incoherence to the former, and solid and permanent reality to the latter, and that the difference between them is not so clean cut.
Most persons in talking of this subject say that they are sure of the reality of things when awake because their different senses concur in attesting it. They see a tree, and satisfy themselves that it is a tree by going up and touching it. They smell a rose, and go find the rose, look at it and handle it; while in dreams we are not able to apply these supplementary tests. The distinction is imaginary, for our senses likewise seem to support one another in dreams. We dream not only that we see an object, but also that we feel and hear it. When I dream of meeting a friend, I believe that I see him and shake hands with him and hear him speak. There is, therefore, a complete identity of the two conditions as to this point, and the thing that appears to me in a dream is a "bundle of sensations," visual, tactile, auditive, muscular, and often olfactory, just as it appears to me when awake.
We are told of another difference. When awake, we find others agreeing with us in recognizing the reality of things. I see a tree, and so do those with me; I show it to them, and they look at it; I feel of it, and they touch it; I hear the rustling of the leaves, and so do they. Our perceptions in practical life are thus tested by comparison with those of others, whereas in our dreams we have our solitary and fanciful visions all within ourselves, with none to participate in our perceptions of them.
This supposed contrast is no more real than the former one.What is true is that when we are once awake we change our point of view, and our vision of the night then seems to have been wholly interior, solitary, and subjective. But, notwithstanding the common illusion,while we are dreamingaffairs pass, to us, exactly as when we are awake. It is true that in the waking state we find ourselves mingled with other men, who perceive the same objects that we do. Do we not sometimes dream that we are one of an audience looking at a play? that we are talking with a friend, and exchange views with him? and that we understand one another perfectly? There is, therefore, in this aspect, not a difference but identity between the dream and the waking. The interior condition, the sensation, the credence, are identical. The dreaming man believes, sees, and feels himself in intercourse with his fellows, just as the man awake believes, sees, and feels it. When we wake, we discover our mistake, but what of that? It does not prevent us from believing completely in it while we are asleep. And this is the point; for, after all, am I sure that I shall not awake some day from what I now call my waking life? And who knows whether I shall not then judge that I have been dreaming a solitary dream? It may be added that the agreement of witnesses is not a decisive sign by which to distinguish the reality from the dream. There are collective hallucinations.
We come now to a more important difference, which includes the principle and has a characteristic apparently essentially distinguishing the dream—its looseness, disorder, inconstancy, and incoherence. In the dream visions succeed one another without connection; no law determines their order; an unrestricted fancy reigns among them, and the normal is broken up in them at every point. We are transported instantaneously from one country to another. We pass without transition from childhood to age, and causes have the strangest effects. The most essential laws of thought are constantly violated. There are facts without any causes, metamorphoses, magical disappearances. Even the absurd is realized, and the "principle of contradiction" does not seem to be any more respected than the others. We are at the same time in two places; we pronounce words, we hold conversations of which we can not when we wake recover the thread, so strange is their logic, so fugitive the sense, and so fanciful the combination. A practiced psychologist, M. Delbœuf, succeeded in taking down in the morning the last phrase of a book which he had been reading in a dream, and which had seemed then remarkably lucid. Here it is: "The man raised by the woman and separated by aberrations pushes facts disengaged by the analysis of the tertiary nature into the way of progress."
Is this distinction, then—that the dream is incoherent and thereal rational—any more just than the others? It is doubtful if it is. There are rare dreams in which everything proceeds in a regular and natural way; and, on the other hand, reality is not always exempt from capriciousness and improbability. But to me the capital objection to the distinction is that it is illusory, and the contrast between the disorder of dreams and the coherence of the real is only apparent. The dream, it is true, appears disordered to us, but that is when we are awake. An essential point which we always ignore is thatwhile we are dreamingeverything seems simple and normal and regular to us. We are not at all astonished at what happens. We find it all right to be in two countries at the same time, and we understand very well how one person can be changed into another. The conversations we have—those which are utterly unthinkable when we are awake—usually appear to us marvelously lucid, and we admire the ease, theverve, and the luminous continuity of our words. We enjoy that moving with so much suppleness and precision among ideas; our demonstrations are infinitely convincing; and it is perhaps in the dream that we have the most perfect sense of evidence.
Everything, then, that passes in the dream is—to the dreamer—as natural as events in the waking condition. When awake, events seem, without exception, natural and regular; they also seem natural and regular in the dream. It is true that we find them absurd when we wake, but what of that? They are absurd only by comparison, as looked at from the point of view of the waking man, who is no longer the same that he was when dreaming. Who can tell if we shall not awake some day from what we now call our waking condition, and that we shall not then find the events absurd that we now consider rational and real? Who can tell that we shall not be stupefied at having been so firmly attached to invisible phantoms and disordered combinations?
In setting up a fourth distinction it is said that real life forms a continuous whole, while dreams are not connected with one another. The series of my days forms a single life, which holds together. I resume to-day my life of yesterday, and shall resume to-morrow my life of to-day. While I am asleep, the course of it is only suspended. I begin again in the morning at the very point where I stopped in the evening. I find myself in the same medium, occupied with the same thoughts, subject to the same cares, involved in the same routine of events, the same storm of passions. The same thread runs through it all. On the other hand, it is said, our dreams do not form a consecutive existence. The dream of one night has no connection with the dream of the previous night. On going to sleep to-night I have no assurance that I shall find the landscapesor the personages or the circumstances of my last dream. The most diabolical nightmare may succeed a most delightful romance. In short, not only is the form of the same dream incoherent, but our successive dreams are incoherent as to one another. This was what struck Pascal when he wrote: "If we dreamed the same dreams every night, we should be affected by them as we are by things we see every day; and if an artisan was sure to dream every night, for twelve hours, that he was a king, I believe he would be nearly as happy as a king who dreamed every night, for twelve hours, that he was an artisan.... But because dreams are all different, and the same one is so diversified, what we see in one affects us much less than what we see when awake, because of the continuity of the waking life, which is not so continuous and even, however, but that it changes, too, though less abruptly, if only rarely, as when we travel; and then we say, 'It seems like a dream to me,' for life is a somewhat less inconstant dream."
What are we to say to this distinction? I do not believe it is necessary to take it seriously, any more than the others. When is it that we pass judgment on the discontinuity and incoherence between our successive dreams? Not while we are dreaming them. When I am dreaming, I seem to be pursuing a life that has always been the same. I have no sort of an impression that the present dream has been preceded by different dreams having no connection with it. I have, on the contrary, exactly as I have when awake, the impression of an indefinite and single series of events, of an unrolling of them without arrest and without break. There is, therefore, on this point, no difference, but another resemblance between the dream and the reality, and the same impression of continuity and unity prevails in both. It is true that the aspect changes in waking, and our several dreams then appear detached from one another. But what of that? Are we sure that we shall not awake some day from what we now call the waking state, and find then that that state, continuous in appearance, was in reality composed of a series of separate, incoherent, and incongruous fragments?
Thus we are all the time coming upon the same illusion. We judge of the dream, not by what it is, but by what it seems to have been after we have waked. Instead of observing the impressions of the dreaming man while he is dreaming, we take notice of what he thinks about them after he has waked up. This is to falsify the comparison of the normal and dream life by regarding the normal life while we are in it, and the dream life when we have come out of it. The several other difficulties on which psychologists have insisted are capable of solution by the application of the same principle: the seeming suspension of the will; the want of correspondence of the moral standards of the dream with those of the waking condition; the confusion of temporal duration and sequence; and the transformations of personality and character, concerning which I would ask, however, if the eccentricities betrayed are not rather in the nature of more complete exposure. I have sometimes been surprised at the psychological revelations of dreams; faults and weaknesses that we do not avow when in the normal condition reveal themselves then with inexorable frankness; we yield to temptations that we evaded when awake, though inclined to them; to wickednesses which we kept closely shut up within us; reveal antipathies which we had dissimulated. Base desires break out, latent loves declare themselves, and things take place which, as in a play, bring the farthest depths of our hearts into the light; and when we wake we say: "That is true; it is just what I should have done under like circumstances. I had never thought of it, and I am not proud of it, but it is so."
There is this real distinction between the dream and the waking state: that when awake I know there is another condition, while in the dream I take no thought of the waking state. Awake, I know that I have been living the fantastic dream life, and have come out of it into a real life completely distinct from the other. I am in a first state, and know there is a second. But when I am dreaming I have no thought of another state that I have come out of and must return to; I do not feel that there is another existence, radically separated from this one; and I never compare the visions of my dreams with my waking world, for I know nothing of it. I have the impression of having always lived the life I am in, which seems natural; and even if I ask whether I am not dreaming, it is a merely verbal expression, with no accompanying sense of the meaning of it. Another distinction, and the only absolutely clear one, is that while we always wake from the dream, we never wake from the reality. This is why we believe in the reality and not in the dream.
These two differences are differences in degree, but they do not necessarily indicate differences in nature. Similar facts are frequent among hypnotics. We may plunge them into a condition of somnambulism which we will call a second state; and then, from that, magnetize them over again into another somnambulism, which we call the third state. Now the curious fact comes to pass that the subject in the third state recollects the second state, but when in the second state again, knows nothing of having been in the third state. "Lucie 3," says M. Pierre Janet, "recollected her normal life perfectly; she also recollected previous somnambulisms, and all that Lucie 2 had said.... It was a long and hard task to awaken thissubject after she had passed a few minutes in the syncope already described. She then returned to ordinary somnambulism, but Lucie 2 could not tell me a word of what had happened to Lucie 3, and supposed she had been asleep and said nothing." Thus we have the same difference between two successive stages of somnambulism as between the dream and the waking state. But as the stages 2 and 3 are evidently of the same nature, so we have a right to suppose that the dream and the waking, whose phenomena as to each other are similar, are likewise of the same nature.
In the ordinary experience of mankind we do not awake from our normal condition; but is it proved that there is never any awakening, any third state into which we may pass? The supposition of some such state into which we pass by death is one of the fundamentals of nearly all religions; and in this sense we might contemplate the possibility of an awakening in which we shall be astonished at having given ourselves up go completely to the world of sense, at having taken a passing state for the definite one, an ephemeral world for the sole and absolute world, a provisional existence for the real one.
Even among men as we find them, we see some making an approach to a third state, if not living in it. What is science but the revelation of a new world, different from the visible one? When we see light and colors, they tell us of an invisible ether with particles vibrating with almost incalculable rapidity; when we hear faint or loud sounds, sharp or grave, they tell of the more or less ample and rapid vibrations of matter. When we perceive a multiple or varied reality, it shows us the single phenomenon of motion. These formulas do not, however, signify, as some mistake, that light, color, and sound do not exist, but that there is something else; and that if we could gain new senses, a new universe would open out to us. This means, simply, that the scientific man is already half waked up from his ordinary life, and has half entered a new world.
Metaphysics is a waking up of this kind. A metaphysician who really believes his doctrines, like Plato or Spinoza, is already living in a new world and contemplating the supposed reality in which we are still immersed as a matter of indifference away off in the dim twilight. To him, what we regard as reality is only appearance, while the eternal rain of atoms or the play of immaterial forces, or whatever he supposes the world to be made of, is the true reality.
Religion is another such awakening, and to the devout man this life is only a provisional one, a trial, the prelude to the true life; and while he may regard the world of sense as real too, he looks forward to the superior reality, which it is the privilege of the electto contemplate; and it is some feeling of this kind that has sustained martyrs and has incited men of all ages and all faiths to suffer and endure, and die for what they believe.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue des Deux Mondes.
ByJ. H. GORE.
Holland, Scotland, and Switzerland, quite unlike physically, have in their institutions many points of similarity, and the impulses and character of their people are almost identical. In religious matters the resemblance is also striking, even though the creed professed be known by different names.
In Scotland the struggle for existence demands something more assertive than the doctrine oflaissez faire; the terrible sweep of the avalanche in Switzerland, without any apparent cause for its starting, suggests an acceptance of the belief that "it is, because it must be"; while Holland, in its incessant war with the sea, is continually bidding defiance to natural laws, and protesting against their unrestrained action.
Calvinism found its strongest adherents in the two countries first named, and the faith of Luther answering to the active instincts of the Batavian race was at once adopted by it. In Holland as well as in Switzerland man is ever reminded of life's realities by the watchful care necessary for his very existence, and the material obstacles which must be conquered at every step. Patriotism never becomes dormant because the face of the land shows in its scars its history, and love for home grows with each reckoning of the cost of its retention. The possessions of one day are in many instances no guarantee of the wealth of the next, and the hand now extended in giving assistance may on the morrow be held out to receive. Thus we find the charitable instincts always awake, and societies for the relief of the needy thoroughly organized.
The conditions under which Holland began its geographic formation and the processes afterward employed to hold or enlarge her boundaries, together with the social unrest of the time, caused thoughtful men to put in operation every agency that could direct the innate desire to do good and to give direction to the forces within the kingdom, as well as those which came from without. In Holland, therefore, we find numerous societies for the relief of suffering humanity, and people ever ready to give due attention to the complaints and necessities of the laboring classes. No other country offers such an excellent field for the study of charitable institutions. The Dutch are eminently practical; they made an early beginning in the work of alleviating distress, and this relief, from the nature of things, as pointed out, is not spasmodic as in other countries where nothing short of famine, earthquakes, or floods can awaken the people to a realization of the duty they owe to mankind. Here the call for aid may come at any time, so that those charitably inclined must be ever ready to respond, and the organizations for relief can never become lax or inefficient.
Then, too, the population of the Netherlands is very homogeneous, and the leaders in all good works are not only administering to their own people, but are unbiased by prior experiences under other auspices. Consequently, this country furnishes institutions organized under normal conditions, with an entire absence of external influences, and where the helped and the helpers are of the same race.
England, France, and Germany have sent commissions to Holland to study its organized charity, its school system, workingmen's societies, and like institutions. These countries have but little in common, even though their forms of government are, or have been, outwardly similar, while on the other hand we have always found in the Dutchman "a friend and a brother," and an example well worthy of following. And since it is only after examining remedies for evils found without complications, that we can prescribe for abnormal conditions, the study of Dutch institutions is the best possible preparation for arriving at the means for meeting the necessities in our own country.
In Holland the general awakening to the demands of the people came in the eighteenth century, when the social life was lacking in strength, when the rich were largely given over to extravagance, while the poor were neglected, uneducated, and exposed to want. Everything seemed to separate the two classes—nothing emphasized their interdependence. The citizen class was restive under these oppressive conditions, and needed only the successful example of some neighboring people to start the revolution within their own country.
There was in the Netherlands at this time at least one thoughtful man who foresaw the approaching social revolution and realized the danger which threatened his native land if unaccustomed rights and powers should become the possession of those who heretofore had felt the power of others. This man was Jan Nieuwenhuizen, the founder of the Society of General Welfare. It is impossible to estimate the good which has been accomplished by this organization. It instituted free schools, and gave to the state the scheme on which the present public-school system rests; it established savings banks, and the Postal Savings Bank—now the model of the world—wasglad to copy after them; it conducts a sort of neighborhood loaning banks, and it is likely that its plans will be incorporated in the agricultural banks now under consideration. Through its instrumentality people of different classes are brought together in periodical meetings, when the lower can learn by observation from the higher, and lose much of the prejudice and envy which is so often felt, while the higher will become more tolerant toward the lower as they realize the burdens which the latter carry, and appreciate the obstacles which mar their progress, thus leveling many of the artificial class distinctions.
What this society has done for Holland, "Ons Huis" is trying to accomplish in Amsterdam; and though the latter is occupying a more limited field, its energies are more concentrated and its methods are such as to warrant its characterization as a practical charity.
The founder of "Our House," Mr. Janssen, fully realized that outright giving while blessing the giver is of questionable value to the recipient, and alms once accepted suggested in the ease with which it was obtained that a second be asked for, and the feeling of dependence soon calls into existence the belief that the uncontracted debt of a living must be collected. We therefore find a charitable organization in which everything must be purchased, but at cost so slight as to be within the reach of all, yet being a charge, no benefit is esteemed for naught because it was obtained for nothing.
We find this unique society in a sort of "people's palace" in the very center of Amsterdam's working population. The building, which is the gift of Mr. Janssen, is on Rozen Street, Nos. 12, 14, and 16, extending through to Rozen Gracht, and contains a board room, reading room, library, gymnasium, lecture room, assembly rooms, large hall, kitchen, quarters for the janitor's family, and a restaurant.
The purpose is declared to be "to promote the moral and material development of the people—poor as well as rich—both in giving and receiving by inducing those who are blessed with knowledge or money to assist their fellow-beings whose lives are monotonous and devoid of comforts and pleasures." The very name—"Our House"—is intended to show that within its walls all enjoy equal rights, that the less learned are the younger members of the family whom the less ignorant will gladly instruct, and that the purposes and aims of all classes should be the same. Both sexes have equal privileges, and the religious and political views of those who attend the meetings or enjoy the benefits offered are never inquired into. The adherents of all faiths are treated with equal deference, and the only condition imposed is the observance of such principles of etiquette as should find favor in every home.
Since the day of rest of the various religious sects is not the same, all days are regarded as of equal importance, but, to meet the objections of the Protestant clergy that the exercises here kept people away from the church services, it has been decided not to open the building on Sundays until noon. But as the hours of employment of many persons are so long that their evenings are not free, the reading room is open on this day after the hour named, and certain instructive lectures are given during the afternoon. At these the average attendance is about five hundred. A strong effort was made to have the building closed during the whole of Sunday, however. The argument was made that as long as beer gardens and places of amusement were open on this day, the people should not be restricted on the only holiday of the week to those places where money is spent for trifling pleasures. The large number of persons who spend Sunday afternoon in the reading room proves that the opportunity to make good use of their time is fully appreciated.
Before giving in detail the plan of work in hand, it should be said that the director has secured the assistance of about one hundred and fifty men and women who are willing to contribute their time to the furthering of the purposes as outlined. They are divided into fourteen groups, or committees, each looking after a single interest. The means as at present constituted for attaining the ends in view may be classified as follows:
1. Reading room for men and women not under eighteen years of age; open daily.
2. Wednesday evening lectures on literature, history, physics, pedagogy, political economy, and travel. These lectures are open for debate.
3. Courses of lectures on different topics for men and women separately, or for both together. These discussions are marked by an intimate tone.
4. Sunday evening meetings: musical or theatrical performances, magic-lantern pictures, tableaux, etc. These are given in the large hall, which accommodates five hundred and twenty-five persons.
5. Legal advice.
6. Clubs for boys, girls, men, and women. Friendly intercourse. Discussions on scientific subjects. Chess club. Travel club.
7. Lessons in Dutch, French, English, and German, bookkeeping, reading and writing for adults, needlework, mending, making and cutting of one's own clothes, cooking, drilling for boys and girls, fencing, acting, chorus singing.
The reading room is provided with a large number of daily and weekly papers, magazines, and technical journals, together with such books as could be purchased or obtained as donations. The user ofthe reading room pays ten cents a quarter, with the privilege of bringing one friend a week as a guest. Every conceivable device is employed to induce visitors to make use of the books; for example, the lecturers frequently choose a literary topic, and refer to the books in the library, or one of the members of certain manual-training classes read aloud while the others work. Then some of the social evenings are given up to the discussion of a new or popular author, and persons skilled in reading aloud are asked to read or recite choice extracts. To accommodate those who feel that three months' subscription is for too long a period, the regular admission fee of two Dutch cents—equivalent to eight tenths of a cent of our money—gives the right to make use of the library during the visit. It now looks as though the impulse to secure a shortening of the work day would come from this organization in its desire to secure for its beneficiaries a longer time in which to profit by the use of the books and special opportunities for study here placed at the disposal of the workingmen. The reading room is looked after by a committee of twenty, some of whom are always present to give aid and advice to the readers, to answer such questions as may arise, and to keep the books and papers in place.
The lectures conducted in Our House are of a twofold character—individual discourses and a series of discussions of a given topic. Every Wednesday evening between November and April is provided with a speaker by the lecture committee, who treats in a popular manner a subject of his own choice, and allows the auditors at the close of his talk to ask questions regarding the topic in hand. The average number of persons attending these lectures last winter was about three hundred, and the charge for a single admission is two cents, with a considerable reduction when four or six tickets are purchased for one family. In the course lecture the most popular topic so far has been natural science, especially botany, physics, and chemistry. In this connection it is interesting to note that the luxuriant flora of the East Indies, with which the Dutch became acquainted long ago, gave an impetus in Holland to the study of botany. The people of all classes are fond of plants and flowers, and it is not surprising to learn that twenty persons followed a course of instruction in botany. A prominent physician of Amsterdam gave a course of ten lectures upon "The First Aid to the Injured," and eighty men and women profited by the practical discussion of this subject. The cost of these lectures is four cents apiece.
Somewhat related to the above are the concerts, Sunday evening meetings, and performances of various kinds which are given under the auspices of the appropriate committees. Perhaps one of the most profitable evenings of the winter is when manufacturers and employers are invited to meet those of the working class who may wish to be present to discuss in an informal manner questions of common interest. Under the genial leadership of Mr. Janssen and the director, much of the restraint usual on such occasions is thrown aside and the employer and employee sit side by side, and each listens to the undreamed opinions and experiences of the other. At one of these meetings the question of a shorter work day was discussed from the standpoint of the employer, the laborer, and the humanitarian. The investigations of our own Bureau of Labor were quoted to show the benefits resulting from a shortening of the day of work, and it is more than likely that the outcome of the discussion will be an intention on the part of the manufacturer to curtail the hours of work just as soon as possible, while the laborers, in learning of obstacles of which they were ignorant, will await more patiently the action desired.
The classes or individual pupils contribute their services to the committee in charge of entertainments. This committee sees to it that three Sunday evenings of each month are provided for, either from the ranks of home talent or with the aid of outside artists. In the concerts some of the best performers of the land have gladly taken part, and the music of the greatest composers has been heard here. As in all other cases, there is a charge for admission—four cents for one and six cents for man and wife. A feature here in vogue might well be copied. In arranging the selections for a concert the effort is made to always include at least one popular piece, or a song of national, artistic, or patriotic interest; then on the programme the words of this song are printed. The audience may be asked to join in the chorus, but even if this is not practical the people can catch the air, and with the words before them in later days they can make melody in their homes. If we recall the class of people for whom these provisions are made, and keep in mind the limited avenues of enjoyment open to them, we will appreciate the boon of such a considerate act.
It might be tedious to enumerate the various classes here conducted, and give even in brief an outline of the methods, experiences, and results. Each lesson costs from two to four cents, and the pupils—many of whom have reached middle life—show a commendable zeal in prosecuting their studies. However, two topics deserve mention—the lessons in mending and in cooking. Since it is the poorer people who are to be benefited by the work of Our House, lessons in economy are needed, if not demanded, and the earlier opportunities for acquiring these lessons have been meager. The authorities have therefore wisely decided to so instruct the housewives of these people that their clothing may look well even if mended andthe family meals be palatable though simple. It is believed that the result of such teaching will make many homes more attractive, and keep the men from seeking outside of the house conditions which they should find within.
The clubs also serve as valuable adjuncts to the work in hand. They are usually groups of persons of the same sex and near the same age who meet under the guidance of some experienced man or woman for social intercourse, for practice in debate, playing of chess, the reading of some standard author, or the discussion of places and peoples. In all of these meetings, as well as under all circumstances, the people in attendance are taught polite behavior by example rather than precept, and every precaution is taken to avoid any reflection or invidious comparisons that might tend to keep away the people whom Our House is intended to benefit.
A word might be said about the travel club. Early in each autumn a proposition is made that during the following summer a trip will be taken to such and such places, usually naming one near by, within the kingdom, and another farther away, as Brussels or the upper Rhine. Persons desiring to visit either of the places named unite in forming a club. They meet at stated times to listen to accounts of the place selected, its historical associations, and the points of interesten route, and also to pay into the treasury an amount agreed upon. For example, last summer one club, upon the saving of a cent a week by each member, was able to go to Haarlem and spend the day in seeing the city and the many places of interest in the neighborhood. In another, each member contributed ten cents a week, and the club was able to make a two days' trip to Brussels. By this simple means persons otherwise unable to go beyond the confines of their native city have the opportunity to get at least a glimpse of the outside world, and under such conditions and with such special preparations as to obtain from the trip the maximum interest and profit.
The only thing that is free in Our House is legal advice and the writing of legal documents. In Amsterdam, as elsewhere, the poorer people have too frequently an exaggerated idea as to their rights, and rush into "law" for fatuous protection. Such persons are liable to fall into the hands of unprincipled lawyers who help to nurse the fancied wrong and encourage a suit for damages, or put up an idle defense for the sole purpose of winning a fee. To protect this class by giving them the most unselfish advice possible, a number of the best lawyers of the city have cheerfully offered their services, and every Thursday evening from eight to twelve o'clock one or two stand ready to give gratuitously the best advice they can upon such legal points as may be presented. That this service is appreciated may be seen in the fact that from ten to twenty persons profit by this privilege every evening. On this evening persons are present for the purpose of writing letters for those unable to write, and also to draw up legal documents for such as need them.
Mr. Adma van Scheltema—a name closely identified with every good work in Amsterdam—has organized in Our House art loan exhibits. For one half of the days during which the exhibit is open there is no charge for admission, while a slight fee is exacted on the other days. From these exhibitions much pleasure as well as instruction has been derived, and, located in a section which sends but few visitors to the art museums, one can realize that they perform a good work, as missionaries in cultivating the people's taste.
Such is, in short, an account of a practical charity—a charity, in truth, not because something is furnished for nothing, but that so much is given in return for so little. During the past year more than three thousand persons were registered as enjoyers of the privileges offered. Mr. Janssen gave the building and in one sense endowed the work; Mr. Tours gives his time, wisdom, and energy in directing its affairs; they both ask the wiser men and women of the city to give a few hours of each month or year. They have not asked in vain, and the cheerful responses give promise of the coming of the time when the only answer to the question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" will be an energetic "Yes."