THE GORILLA IN CONFINEMENT.
Great interest attaches to the career of the young gorilla now in the Berlin aquarium. Dr. Hermes described some of his peculiarities at a late meeting of the German Association of Naturalists and Physicians. He nods and claps his hands to visitors; wakes up like a man, and stretches himself. His keeper must always be beside him and eat with him. He eats what his keeper eats; they share dinner and supper. The keeper must remain by him till he goes to sleep, his sleep lasting eight hours. His easy life has increased his weight in a few months from thirty-one to thirty-seven pounds. For some weeks he had inflammation of the lungs, when his old friend Dr. Falkenstein was fetched, who treated him with quinine and Ems water, which made him better. When Dr. Hermes left the gorilla on the previous Sunday the latter showed the doctor his tongue, clapped his hands, and squeezed the hand of the doctor as an indication, the latter believed, of his recovery. Apparently he means to support, by every means in his power, the effort at a hot-house development of the ape to the man. A large glass house has been built for him in connection with the palm house.
INSTRUCTION SHOPS IN BOSTON.
The Boston Institute of Technology is somewhat noted for its boldness in making educational experiments; its efforts so far having been directed toward the introduction of practical trade instruction into an advanced school. Some years ago it endeavored to establish a model room for dressing ores and another for smelting them; but the success of this trial seems to be more than doubtful. Both of these pursuits are too extensive to be represented by one shop or by sample work. Nothing daunted by this failure, President Runkle has lately introduced a "filing shop" as the first step toward practical instruction in engineering work. This shop has about thirty work tables, each provided with a vise and tool drawers. Filing is one of the first things the young apprentice has to learn; and those who think that anybody can file who has hands may be surprised to learn that the filing of a hexagon bolt head is one of the tests for a Whitworth prize scholarship. The difficulty of making a flat surface is in that task combined with the necessity of having the faces of equal size and placed at equal angles to each other. The plan in the Boston institute is to have the student spend ten weeks in filing, and then the same length of time in each the forging shop and the turning shop. The two latter are not yet ready. These three steps form part of a two years' course in mechanical engineering, the tuition fee to which is $125 yearly. The main objection to such schools is that engineers and practical men persist in refusing to accept such instruction as a substitute for actual work. The Boston institute is making praiseworthy efforts, but it seems to be adopting a system which has never been in favor just at a time when the smelting works and machine shops of the country appear willing to unite with the scientific schools in supplying students with real experience of work as a requirement for a diploma.
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A new mode of compressing arteries is by the use of a hard pad having a prominent projection, which is pressed against the artery or vein by a strong elastic ring of rubber passed over the limb.
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The Harvard summer schools were so far successful that the last catalogue reports forty students in geology, twenty-five in chemistry, twenty-five in phenogamic botany, and six in cryptogamic botany.
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A case in which the heart was severely wounded without causing immediate death lately occurred in England. The wound was made by a knife which passed between the third and fourth ribs, through the wall of the heart into the cavity of the left ventricle. The man lived sixty-four hours.
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M. Peligot warns housekeepers against the advice so often given, to use borax for the preserving of meat. He finds that borax and the borates affect plants very seriously, and doubts whether it can be innocuous to animals. French beans watered once with a solution of borax quickly withered and died.
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A young American, Dr. James by name, was killed with his partner (a Swede) at Yule Island in September last, by the natives of New Guinea. They were hunting birds of paradise at the time. Dr. James left some valuable collections which have been described before the Linnæan Society of London.
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In extending the underground railway of London, the excavations disclosed Roman and other remains of considerable interest. Among the former there were found fragments of urns, specimens of pottery, and bronze coins. The most remarkable discovery was that of a thick stratum of bullock's horns, commencing about twenty feet below the surface, and extending to an unascertained distance beneath. Although the deposit was doubtless made many centuries ago, the horns had suffered so little by decay that they found a ready sale in the market. This road has carried in thirteen years 408,500,000 passengers. In 1863, the first year, the number was 9,500,000, which increased to 48,500,000 last year.
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Foreign papers say that Mr. Floyd, the President of the board of trustees for the Lick donation, has come to an arrangement with M. Leverrier, the celebrated French astronomer, for the better execution of the instruments to be made for the Lick Observatory. The masses of glass required are to be made in Paris, at Feil's glass works, and the object-glasses very likely by an English optician.
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Two distinguished men were officially superannuated last year: Profs. Milne-Edwards and Delafosse of the Paris Museum. The son of the former takes his place, and Descloiseaux succeeds to the chair of mineralogy. Professors Dove of Berlin and Wöhler of Göttingen have had theirjubiläumor fiftieth anniversary of their doctorates. All these facts illustrate the conservative influence of student life.
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The Western mines of gold and silver have lately yielded some new and interesting minerals. Roscoelite is a vanadium mica from a gold mine at Granite creek, California. The vanadic acid varies from 20 to 23 per cent. Psittacinite is a vanadate of lead and copper, which occurs associated with gold, lead, and copper minerals at several mines in Silver Star district, Montana. It is considered to be a favorable indication, for when that is found the vein is said to become rich in gold. Coloradoite is a telluride of mercury, also a new mineral and quite rare.
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Dr. Piggott proposes to replace the spider's web of telescopes by a star illuminated transit eye-piece. A sheet of glass, on which a thin film of silver is deposited, is placed in the focus of the eye lens; transparent lines are drawn on the film, instead of wires, and as the star passes across the lines it is seen to flash out brightly. The film of silver is made sufficiently thin to permit of the star being seen when it is between the lines, but it appears that the lines themselves are only visible, except in the case of very large stars, when the star disc is in transit across a line.
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Singular results of strains existing in the granite rocks through which the St. Gothard tunnel is passing are recorded. When the shots are fired at the end of the gallery they are sometimes succeeded at unequal intervals by other explosions at points where there is no drill hole and no powder. Workmen have been injured by these spontaneous explosions, which are to be explained only on the theory that there are strains in the rock; and when this tension is increased by the shock of a heavy explosion, the rock flies in pieces with noise. Similar effects have been noticed in other granites.
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It is said that aniline colors are now used to color wines, and that enough of them is taken into the Bordeaux district of France to color one-third of its whole product. Husson gives the following method for detecting it: Take a small quantity of the wine and add a little ammonia, when the mixture turns a dirty green. Steep a thread of white woollen yarn in the liquor and allow a drop of vinegar to flow along it. If the color of the wine is natural, as the drop advances the original whiteness of the wool is restored; but if the wine has been sophisticated with magenta, the wool will take a rose color. This test is simple, easily tried, and effective.
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An inquiry into the results of systematic gymnastic exercises in a French military school shows that the strength is increased on the average 15 to 17 per cent., and is also equalized on both sides of the body. The capacity of the chest is increased at least 16 per cent. and the weight 6 to 7 per cent. Coincident with this increase is a decrease in the bulk of the body, showing that fat is changed to muscle. The improvement is confined to the first three months of the course unless the exercise is then moderated. If continued at too high a rate, weakness succeeds the increase of strength. It would be a good plan to place a dynamometer in every gymnasium as a measure of the changes which take place in the gymnast.
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MOON MADNESS.
The popular belief that the moon's rays will cause madness in any person who sleeps exposed to them has long been felt to be absurd, and yet it has appeared to have its source in undoubted facts. Some deleterious influence is experienced by those who rashly court slumber in full moonshine, and probably there is no superstition to which the well-to-do pay more attention. Windows are often carefully covered to keep the moonbeams from entering sleeping rooms. A gentleman living in India furnishes "Nature" with an explanation of this phenomenon which is at least plausible. He says: "It has often been observed that when the moon is full, or near its full time, there are rarely any clouds about; and if there be clouds before the full moon rises, they are soon dissipated; and therefore a perfectly clear sky, with a bright full moon, is frequently observed. A clear sky admits of rapid radiation of heat from the surface of the earth, and any person exposed to such radiation is sure to be chilled by rapid loss of heat. There is reason to believe that, under the circumstances, paralysis of one side of the face is sometimes likely to occur from chill, as one side of the face is more likely to be exposed to rapid radiation, and consequent loss of its heat. This chill is more likely to occur when the sky is perfectly clear. I have often slept in the open in India on a clear summer night, when there was no moon; and although the first part of the night may have been hot, yet toward two or three o'clock in the morning, the chill has been so great that I have often been awakened by an ache in my forehead, which I as often have counteracted by wrapping a handkerchief round my head, and drawing the blanket over my face. As the chill is likely to be greatest on a very clear night, and the clearest nights are likely to be those on which there is a bright moonshine, it is very possible that neuralgia, paralysis, or other similar injury, caused by sleeping in the open, has been attributed to the moon, when the proximate cause may really have been thechill, and the moon only a remote cause acting by dissipating the clouds and haze (if it do so), and leaving a perfectly clear sky for the play of radiation into space."
THE ARGUMENT AGAINST VACCINATION.
An English physician opposes compulsory vaccination on the ground that it prevents further discovery, and compels medical science to halt at just that point, because it forbids experiment upon methods of prevention that may prove to be better. He says: "It stereotypes a particular stage of scientific knowledge, and bars further progress. If I remind you of the great improvement thought to have been made by the introduction of inoculation by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu at the end of the last century, and ask you to suppose that Parliament might then have passed an act to compel every one to be inoculated, you will, I think, see what is meant. This method was tried for some years with greatéclat, but afterward it was found to spread the smallpox so much that an act of Parliament was passed to forbid its use. Vaccination, introduced by Dr. Jenner, has followed, and this was another step in advance. I was the first child in my father's family vaccinated seventy-one years ago, several elder brothers and sisters having been inoculated. Both methods answered in our cases. But for many years I have been satisfied that other diseases besides the modified small-pox (called cow-pox) are now introduced by the old vaccine, and have steadily refused to use it, seeking rather, at increased trouble and expense, new vaccine. And the question which comes forcibly to the front is this: May not some other preservative be discovered which shall be a further improvement? This question cannot be answered so long as vaccination is compelled by law. There are no persons upon whom experiments can be tried." So far as it goes, this is valid ground for criticising vaccination laws. But the proof that small-pox is more disastrous to the human race than the evils that vaccination brings with it is so strong that there is little likelihood society will subject itself to the attacks of the greater enemy in order to avoid the lesser. The evils of the old system of using vaccine taken from human beings for new inoculations are now no longer inevitable. Fresh vaccine direct from the calf, and called "Bovine," can be had everywhere. A large establishment for obtaining it is situated near New York.
Colonel Dodge's "Plains of the Great West"[O]is one of the most entertaining and important books of the kind we have met with. Whether he treats of the chase, the natural history of the wild animals found on our continent, or the Indians, he draws upon abundant resources of observation and experience. His description of the much talked of "plains" is new. He distinguishes three of these, the first lying next the mountains, the next known as the "High Plains," being to the eastward, and finally the broad surface of the lower plains. As the high plains are more fertile than either of the others (owing to diversities of soil), we have the singular effect of a country suddenly becoming more fertile as the interior of the continent is more deeply penetrated. Of other peculiarities exhibited in this region our author gives a vivid account, and it requires all our faith in his accuracy to have confidence in the following description of the famous Bad Lands, the scene of so much Scientific search:
The ground is covered with fragments of the bones of animals and reptiles, and the man must indeed be insensible who can pass unmoved through these most magnificent burying-grounds of animals extinct before the advent of his race.Almost everywhere throughout the whole length and breadth of the plains are found, in greater or less profusion, animal remains, fossils, shells, and petrifactions. Bones are very numerous and in great variety, from the saurian and mastodon to the minutest reptile, ranging in point of time from the remotest ages to the present day.
The ground is covered with fragments of the bones of animals and reptiles, and the man must indeed be insensible who can pass unmoved through these most magnificent burying-grounds of animals extinct before the advent of his race.
Almost everywhere throughout the whole length and breadth of the plains are found, in greater or less profusion, animal remains, fossils, shells, and petrifactions. Bones are very numerous and in great variety, from the saurian and mastodon to the minutest reptile, ranging in point of time from the remotest ages to the present day.
His description of other features of this vast region is full of interest. The two remarkable belts of forest, called the cross timbers, stretching for a hundred miles through a trackless country, but not increasing their width beyond their normal eight to twelve miles; the extraordinary rivers, half sand, half water, the mazes of which confound the Indian, usually so acute in the field; the sand streams, which repeat in that material the puzzle of the cross timbers, and are even more inexplicable. While the desert does not narrow the cross timber belts, nor water widen them, the wind seems to have no effect on these sand streams, though the material that composes them is so light as to rise on every puff of air. Like the cross timbers, the sand streams pursue their way across the country, regarding neither wet nor dry, hill nor stream. Their origin lies in forces not yet known, and though they may seem to be the sport of existing conditions, they really maintain themselves indifferent to their surroundings. Things like these prove that Americans need not go to the Sahara for novel aspects of nature. Our author has a quick perception of what is striking in these scenes, and describes them in vigorous and pictorial language.
Colonel Dodge is one of the most noted hunters in our army, and his descriptions of the chase deserve to rank with those of Cummings, Baker, and other great African sportsmen. It is true our country does not afford the hunter such a slaughter field as South Africa has been. A few animals have increased on our soil to such an extent as to afford at certain seasons opportunities for unlimited slaughter. But the past five years have seen such destruction of the last of these—the buffalo—that wholesale killing is no longer possible on any ground the white man is suffered to visit. Three years more will carry us to the end of the decade, and probably of the buffalo hunt as it has been in the past. About five years ago a change came over the pursuit of this animal. He began to be killed for his hide alone, and the results are almost incredible. Colonel Dodge shows that in three years no less than 4,373,730 buffalo were killed by whites and Indians. It is evidently impossible for any animal, bringing forth but one at a birth, to maintain its increase against such heedless destruction. The present winter has witnessed what is probably the last grand attack upon these animals, as they took refuge in the sheltering mountains of northwestern Texas from the cold and snow-covered plains. Very soon the noblest prey of the sportsman on this continent will be one of his rarest prizes. Colonel Dodge does not lack the usual hunter's fund of anecdote. His own adventures are modestly told, and when "seven antelope and a fine dog" are bagged with one shot, the story is credited (with the Colonel's guarantee) to an anonymous "old hunter"! We have said that the plains do not rival the African field in quantity of game, but the dimensions of two separate "bags," shot in successive years, shows how great even in this country the rewards of the chase may be. In 1872 five gentlemen, of whom Colonel Dodge was one, bagged 1,262 head, and next year four shot 1,141 head on the same ground, and the author thinks "the whole world can be safely challenged to offer a greater variety of game."
But interesting as the chase is in our author's hands, the most important part of the book is that in which the Indians are described and discussed. To one who knows the unanimity of army opinion concerning the much debated Indian question in the West, it is almost unnecessary to say that Colonel Dodge wishes to see the tribes transferred to the sole control of the War Department, treaty-making stopped at once, discipline introduced, the vagabond whites eliminated from the tribes, and the never-ceasing stream of outrages stopped. These opinions, which the author shares with the Western community at large, are founded on a very intimate knowledge of the Indians, and while they are invaluable as the testimony of so competent an authority, they must yield in immediate interest to the very vivid picture which the author gives of Indian life and his estimate of Indian character. While what he says is not novel, and could hardly be novel after the many thousands of works on the same subject, his views are based on his own observation, and the facts are presented with so much force that we gain a new idea of the American savage. His essential moral characteristic is his love of cruelty. What the savage thinks about in the frequent and long continued seasons of idle solitude, it has long puzzled the ethnologist to discover. Colonel Dodge says that a large part of the Indian's brooding thoughts are given to the invention of modes of inflicting pain when he has the opportunity to do so, and many of the camp fire discussions are upon suggestions for cruelty. When the captive is brought in his tortures are not inflicted in mere accordance with the momentary promptings of a brutal nature. They may have been invented years before in some far distant camp, in the profoundest peace, or may be copied from some noted example of successful cruelty. They may have grown by one suggestion added to another, among men whose knowledge of natural history includes a marvellous perception of what parts of the frame are most sensitive to pain. The Indian's cruelty is his pride. He gains credit by it among his people, and he who invents a new torture is a leader. Cruelty is a merit among these savages. It has rewards which make this passion one of the most noticeable elements in their system of morality. No other author has presented this aspect of Indian character with the clearness of Colonel Dodge. His frequent illustrations show that it is no temporary impulse, but a race characteristic carefully fostered by tradition and perhaps by religion. But what position does all this give the Indian among other races of men? Clearly he stands apart. The cannibal may dance around the living victims who are soon to appear upon his table, and the prisoner may be made to grace his conqueror's triumph, or the altar of his conqueror's god, at any cost of suffering to himself, but no other race, savage or civilized, has ever been shown to cultivate cruelty for its own sake as the American Indian does. It is not from fear, revenge, hate, or any other extraneous cause that he studies so fondly and long over the means of giving pain. Cruelty is a thing to be enjoyed for itself. The author has spoken with such plainness upon the position of captive women in the hands of Indians, that we fear his book will be objected to in just those quarters where its revelations are most likely to do good. There is one thing which we wish he had made clear—whether the brutality shown toward captive women is a practice which has grown among the Cheyennes since they were driven from their old home, or whether that has always been their mode of procedure. In some quarters this particular brutality has been spoken of as the outgrowth of their sufferings at the hands of the whites.
Colonel Dodge's book shows a rare combination of acute observation, long experience, and the spirit of good fellowship. It is one of the best books of hunting we know of, the best book ever written about the plains, and its pictures and anecdotes of hunting life and Indian fighting are a faithful reproduction of the peculiar conditions to be found only on our great plains, with the anomalous relations of the civilized and barbarous races that haunt them. The publishers have illustrated it liberally. The Indian portraits are worthy of especial mention for the minute accuracy which makes them ethnological examples of unusual value.
The zoölogical collections described in the fifth volume of Reports, Survey west of the Hundredth Meridian,[P]were all obtained in that zoölogical province known as the "Campestrian region," from the great plains which it includes. There the animal colors are pale and tend toward uniformity, corresponding to the low rainfall of from three to twenty inches per year. In this peculiarity, and also in comparison with the surrounding more humid regions, the district of country in which the Government surveys are now carried on sustains the general theory that coloration in animals is closely dependent on rainfall, a humid atmosphere serving to cloak the sun's rays and preserve the natural dyes (mostly organic) from bleaching out. Dr. Yarrow thinks that the entirely rainless parts of this vast Campestrian region may ultimately deserve recognition as a separate zoölogical province. The observations made as to the mimicry of color which some animals, especially reptiles, exert or suffer lead him to believe that "a law may yet be formulated in this respect which will equally apply to all classes of animals." This mimicry was especially noticed in serpents and lizards found near red sandstone deposits, the well-known littlePhrynosoma, or horned toad, being greenish gray, nearly white, or deep red, as it was found on the plain, the alkali flat, or the sandstone soil. But however profound the change, the skin returned to its normal color within a day or two after removal from the determining locality. In regard to the rattlesnake, we have the welcome information that it is apparently decreasing in numbers, and the less agreeable fact that with other serpents, it principally frequents the neighborhood of settlements. The collections of all kinds made by the explorers prove to be unexpectedly perfect in spite of the rapidity with which they are forced to move, and losses by fire and railroad accident. The report upon these collections is drawn up with the care and thoroughness that are such creditable features of recent American official work. A copious bibliography and synonomy is attached to the descriptions of species. The allotment of reports is as follows: Geographical Distribution, Dr. H. C. Yarrow; Mammals, Dr. Elliott Coues and Dr. Yarrow; Birds, H. W. Henshaw; Batrachians and Reptiles, Dr. Yarrow; Fishes, Prof. E. D. Cope and Dr. Yarrow; Insects, E. T. Cresson, E. Norton, T. L. Mead, R. H. Stretch, C. R. Osten-Sacken, H. Ulke, R. P. Uhler, Cyrus Thomas, H. A. Hagen; Mollusca, Dr. Yarrow. These names show how carefully the head of the survey, Lieutenant Wheeler, has sought assistance in the important work of classification. But these are by no means all from whom he and his assistants acknowledge service. The list given in the preface numbers more than forty persons, and includes the best known specialists in this country. Forty-five plates, colored when necessary, accompany the text. In every respect the report is worthy the important survey from which it emanates.
Though it is now quite common to find the life of two or even three continents mingled in one web of fiction, few writers make so close a subjective study of the immigrant's experiences as Mr. Boyesen has done in his "Tales from Two Hemispheres."[Q]In fact he stands almost alone in this field, and for a good reason; he is a participant where others are onlookers. We are often told of the impression American ladies make on foreign gentlemen, but rarely receive an analysis of it or are offered even an attempt to analyze it. And yet this appears to be one of the most promising exhibitions of human feeling ever studied. The intercourse of the sexes, necessarily the subject of all romance, may obviously have its situations heightened in every way by the juxtaposition of two races, two diverse educations, and two opposite moral systems, conjointly with the customary incidents of love-making. Our author is fully alive to his opportunity, and, short as his tales are, they bristle with dramatic scenes, and have an element of the mythical and legendary in them, even when they are removed from such professedly mystical subjects as he has treated in "Asathor's Vengeance." Even in drawing-room scenes in New York the love-making is ideal and romantic instead of calculating or passionate, as the current novel commonly paints it. This mode of treatment implies that the tales are either pathetic or fanciful, and in Mr. Boyesen's hands they are all pathetic. He shows unusual power in this style of writing, and has the natural and quiet humor which it demands. But there is a rudeness in the construction and language of all of these stories which sometimes blinds the reader to the really delicate insight into human feeling displayed in them. The author writes like one who has the conception of what he wants to do, but not yet the full command of the means. But this is a fault that practice cures, and we trust Mr. Boyesen will continue his studies in this essentially novel and peculiarly promising field of literature.
—In "Captain Mago"[R]we have a kind of book which with proper attention may be made extremely interesting and valuable. It is an attempt to reconstruct the life of three thousand years ago, not merely among the Phœnicians, but in many other countries. Under the guise of an expedition sent by the King of Tyre to Tarshish for the purpose of collecting materials for the Jewish temple which King David was then planning, we are taken to Judæa, Egypt, Crete, Italy, Spain, France, England, and Africa. Such an expedition of course gives the author an opportunity to present a panoramic view of the civilization in those countries thirty centuries ago. We cannot say that he has performed the task well. He dwells too much upon what he imagines to be the language and conversation of the ancients and too little on those material facts in their life which can be proved or plausibly imagined from the remains of it which we have gathered. Ancient habits are but very obscurely exhibited in the rude tools, the fragments of village houses, the necklace of the Man of Mentone, the whistles and other toys of the caves, the funereal fireplaces, and similar objects, but they are much more plainly discernible than are the peculiarities of speech which must have made up the bulk of daily conversation among our ancestors. A reconstruction of ancient life based on a good knowledge of these objects is likely to be more instructive and real than one that depends for its force on a fanciful conception of theirthouingandtheeing, their love-making, and what oaths they swore. In fact, real service could be done to "popular" science by a book that should exhibit our remote forefathers as we really know them, and not attempting to go beyond that point. Difficult as it will necessarily be to make such an undertaking successful, we have no doubt that it will one day be accomplished. "Captain Mago," though falling far short even of excellence in this field, is nevertheless an interesting and peculiar book.
—The defect of "Captain Mago" is that its author has endeavored to reconstruct from remains of a purely literary kind the life of a time which was antecedent to the most of our oldest literature. Another author, Mr. Mahaffy, has had great success in a similar field because he chose for reconstruction a society which has left literary monuments of a very varied character and great abundance. His "Social Life in Greece" and other works about the ancient Greeks were written before he ever saw that historic country, and yet he tells us in his last work,[S]written after a personal visit and stay of some time, that his former writings were sufficiently true to the Greece of to-day to deceive living Greeks into the belief that he had been intimately acquainted with their landscapes and familiar customs. Mr. Mahaffy's "Rambles" among modern Greeks are a very interesting finish to his idealizations of their ancestors. It is comforting to know that after all her spoliations the country is still so rich in remains of ancient art as to retain more fine and pure specimens of the best work than are to be found in all the rest of the world. Very little is done toward uncovering and nothing toward restoring these sculptures, for the Greeks are jealous of foreigners and unable or not sufficiently interested to do this themselves. They are willing to allow others to do the work, but Greece must have all the profit. Still, there the works lie, and may be recovered at some future day. We may even be comforted to think they are well covered with soil, for the present inhabitants of the country, with exquisite barbarity that their ancestors could not have practised, use the standing monuments of art as a mark for pistol practice! Another point in which they show a constitutional divergence from their forefathers is in the singular barrenness that has fallen upon their women. Once their land teemed with a native-born population. Now the household remains so long childless that it is very common to find the wife's mother a permanent member of the household, being retained for companionship! Even the mature family contains but few children, and this in the best agricultural parts of the country. While these differences exist the author is not at a loss to find strange resemblances. The yellow hair and fair complexion, the forms which are even now types of the same race that stood for the old statues, the language, and a multitude of other things prove that the old race continues in purity and that Greece is not now filled with a mere mixture of Turks, Albanians, and Sclaves. Our author has a poor opinion of the Greek's capacity for government, and likens them to the Irish. He thinks that both these races are constitutionally incapable of government, and need subjugation by a foreigner. In this characteristic he finds a strong resemblance between the modern and the ancient Greek, for both have suffered personal jealousy to outweigh the strongest promptings of patriotism. Mr. Mahaffy shows himself to be as able as an observer as he is as an historian.
—The peculiar character of De Quincey's work gives unusual opportunity for such a volume of selections as this, published under the untasteful name of "Beauties."[T]He had all the mental power required for sustained efforts in composition, though his plans for such works were always defeated by physical weakness. His productions, therefore, though incomplete, are not those of a literary trifler. His genius and methods seem to be especially suited to the tastes of the present day, for he excelled in the qualities that make the professional magazinist: great learning, research, and acuteness, combined with a humor that sports most waywardly through everything he wrote, a vivid fancy, a wonderful use of words, and a style which even in its faults exhibits the needs of periodical literature. He was, perhaps, more exactly fitted to serve the world in its chosen field of current publications than any other man who has written for it. Were he living now he would be acknowledged the prince of the nebulous gentlemen who occupy easy chairs, gather in contributors' clubs, and fill up "editors' baskets" with their effusions. We have additional respect for the somewhat chopped up productions of these gentlemen, after reading the numerous volumes that bear his name, for there we find how much of every sort of literary good they can contain. The editor of these selections is a lucky man, for his work has the merit, rare among such books, of being thoroughly good in itself. He has with excellent judgment given us somewhat of autobiography, somewhat of the rare and indescribable dream life of De Quincey, and somewhat of his tales, essays, and critiques. The character of his author's writings relieves these morsels from the air of incompleteness and decapitation which so often attaches to selections. What he has given us is not all of De Quincey, but each chapter is complete in itself. Selections usually repel us. We cannot join in the argument so often found in prefaces to such works, that the reading of them may lead to the reading of the author's whole works. On the contrary, we are of that class to whom the cutting up of a good author is apt to seem like vivisection—necessary, perhaps, but revolting. This book, however, does not leave such an impression. On laying it down we wonder why we are not constantly reading the great essayist, the precursor of the literary spirit of our own times, probably a better example than any now living of the many virtues demanded from the popular writer.
Under the editorship of Mr. John Austin Stevens we may look for a valuable and permanent publication in the "Magazine of American History, with Notes and Queries," of which A. S. Barnes & Co. are the publishers. The position of the editor as librarian of the New York Historical Society will, or at all events should, be an additional source of strength to the publication. Experience shows that literary undertakings which possess more merit than popularity can derive great advantages from the official countenance of societies pursuing allied subjects of investigation. Properly managed, the two modes of obtaining union in action can be made to help each other materially. This hint will perhaps be considered not amiss since the pamphlet, printed with the neatness characteristic of such works, which lies before us, is but a specimen and preliminary number, which is to be followed by monthly issues in quarto form, at $5 yearly, if sufficient support is obtained. The editor says: "Each number will contain: I. An original article on some point of American history from a recognized and authoritative pen. II. A biographical sketch of some character of historic interest. III. Original documents, diaries, and letters. IV. Reprints of rare documents. V. Notes and queries in the well-known English form. VI. Reports of the proceedings of the New York Historical Society. VII. Notices of historical publications." He also promises to keep it free from sectional prejudices and "from personality and controversy in any form." He has ready for publication a large number of interesting old manuscripts contributed by historians and collectors, and it is to be hoped his attempt to establish a periodical for historical literature will be sustained.
[O]"The Plains of the Great West and their Inhabitants." By (Lieutenant-Colonel)Richard Irving Dodge. With an Introduction by William Blackmore. Illustrated. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.
[O]"The Plains of the Great West and their Inhabitants." By (Lieutenant-Colonel)Richard Irving Dodge. With an Introduction by William Blackmore. Illustrated. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.
[P]"Report upon Geographical and Geological Explorations and Surveys West of the Hundredth Meridian," in charge of First LieutenantGeorge M. Wheeler. Vol. V., Zoölogy.
[P]"Report upon Geographical and Geological Explorations and Surveys West of the Hundredth Meridian," in charge of First LieutenantGeorge M. Wheeler. Vol. V., Zoölogy.
[Q]"Tales from Two Hemispheres." ByHjalmar Hjorth Boyesen. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co.
[Q]"Tales from Two Hemispheres." ByHjalmar Hjorth Boyesen. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co.
[R]"The Adventures of Captain Mago; or, A Phœnician Expedition B.C. 1000." ByLeon Cahun. Translated by Ellen E. Frewer. Illustrated. New York: Scribner, Armstrong&Co.
[R]"The Adventures of Captain Mago; or, A Phœnician Expedition B.C. 1000." ByLeon Cahun. Translated by Ellen E. Frewer. Illustrated. New York: Scribner, Armstrong&Co.
[S]"Rambles and Studies in Greece." ByJ. P. Mahaffy. Macmillan&Co.
[S]"Rambles and Studies in Greece." ByJ. P. Mahaffy. Macmillan&Co.
[T]"Beauties Selected from the Writings of Thomas De Quincey." New York: Hurd & Houghton.
[T]"Beauties Selected from the Writings of Thomas De Quincey." New York: Hurd & Houghton.
"Materialism and Theology."James Martineau, LL.D.G. P. Putnam's Sons.
"Waverley Novels," Riverside Edition, "Heart of Midlothian." Hurd & Houghton.
The Same."Bride of Lammermoor."
The Same."The Monastery."
"Footsteps of the Master."Harriet B. Stowe. J. B. Ford & Co.
"Functions of the Brain." Illustrated.D. Ferrier, M.D. G. P. Putnam's Sons.
"The Plains of the Great West." Illustrated. Lieutenant ColonelRichard I. Dodge. G. P. Putnam's Sons.
"The Sons of Godwin." A Tragedy.William Leighton, Jr. J. B. Lippincott & Co.
"Personal Relations Between Librarian and Readers."Sam. S. Green. Chas. Hamilton, Worcester, Mass.
"Special Report on Worcester Free Library." The same.
"Tales from Two Hemispheres."H. H. Boyesen.Jas. R. Osgood & Co.
"The Problems of Problems."Clark Braden.Chase & Hall, Cincinnati.
"Archology; or, The Science of Government."V. Blakeslee. A. Roman & Co.
"Woman as a Musician."Fanny Raymond Ritter. Ed. Schuberth & Co.
"Vivisection." Copp Clark & Co., Toronto.
"Cholera Facts of the Last Year."E. McClellan, M.D. Richmond & Louisville Medical Journal office.
"Art Journal." Photo-Engraving Co., New York.
"History of the City of New York." Parts 5 to 10. Mrs.M. J. Lamb. A. S. Barnes & Co.
"The Magazine of American History."Jno. Austin Stevens, editor. A. S. Barnes & Co.
"National Quarterly Review."D. A. Gorton, editor.
"National Survey West of 100th Meridian." Vol. 5, Zoölogy. Dr.H. C. Yarrowand others. Government Printing Office.
"Catalogue Siamese Exhibit International Exhibition." J. B. Lippincott & Co.
"Planetary Meteorology, Mansill's Almanac of."R. Mansill. R. Crampton, Rock Island.
"Notes on Assaying."R. De P. Ricketts. Art Printing Establishment.
"Mental Powers of Insects."A. S. Packard, Jr. Estes & Lauriat.
"Beauties of De Quincey." Hurd & Houghton.
"The Convicts."B. Auerbach. H. Holt & Co.
"Philosophical Discussions."C. Wright. H. Holt & Co.
"The Sons of Goodwin."W. Leighton. J. B. Lippincott & Co.
"Rambles and Studies in Greece."J. P. Mahaffy. Macmillan & Co.
"Mother and Daughter."F. S. Verdi, M. D. J. B. Ford & Co.
"Marie.A Story of Russian Lore."Marie H. de Zielinski. Jansen, McClurg & Co.
"The Barton Experiment." By the author of "Helen's Babies." G. P. Putnam's Sons.
—It would seem that we must return to the old fashion of strong boxes, old stockings, and cracked pipkins as the receptacles of our savings. As to savings banks and trust companies, and life insurance companies, the revelations of the last few months go to show that they do anything but save; that they are no longer to be trusted, and that they ensure nothing but total loss to those who put their money into them. Ere long it will be said of a young man that he was poor but honest, although he had the misfortune to have a father who was a director in several important financial institutions. The state of affairs in this respect is frightful; and it frightens. The financial panic has been followed by a moral panic which is really as much more deplorable than its predecessor as moral causes are more radical in their operation and more enduring than those which are merely material. Confidence is gone. How it is to be restored is a problem far more perplexing than how to revive drooping trade. For that the real wealth of the country, never greater than it is now and constantly increasing, must bring about sooner or later. But if men of wealth and of fair reputation are no longer to be trusted, what is the use of saving, to put money into a box where it gains nothing and where thieves break through and steal? Robbery seems to be the fashion; on the one hand masked burglars with pistols at your heads and gags in the mouths of your wife and children, and on the other hypocritical, lying, false-swearing, thieving scoundrels who get your money under fair pretences, and because of your trust in their characters and good faith, and then waste it in speculations and in luxurious living. Of the two, the burglars seem to be rather the more respectable. It is said, on good authority, that the West India slaves of a past generation could be trusted to carry bags of gold from one part of the Spanish Main to another, and that they were constantly so trusted with entire impunity. They would kidnap, and on occasion stab or cut a throat; but if they were trusted, they would not break their faith. The honesty of the Turkish porters is so well known that it has become almost proverbial. Does not the honesty of these pirates and pagans put to shame the Christians who with the professions and the faces of Pharisees "devour widows' houses"?
—For as to the business of life insurance, savings banks, and trust companies, it is somewhat more, or surely somewhat other, than mere business. And so those who practise it and profit by it profess that it is. A life insurance company is a grand combination philanthropico-financial corporation whose motto is, "Cast thy bread upon the waters, and after many days thou shalt receive it again." But the truth of the matter turns out to be that if you cast your bread upon the waters, the chances are that you will see it devoured before your eyes by financial sharks. One case in point has come directly to our knowledge. A gentleman, a Government officer, who has a moderate salary, with little or no hope of acquiring property, insured his life twenty years or more ago in what was thought a good company. His premium was always promptly paid even in the flush times of the war and afterward, when the fixed salaries of public officers lost more than half their purchasing power. Within the last few months he has suddenly found that his policy is not worth the paper on which it is magnificently printed. But worse than this: within the last few years, as age has crept upon him, there has come with it a disease which is incurable although he may live for some time longer. Now, however, he cannot get his life insured at all; no company will take his life; (it is a rueful jest to say that the company in questiondidtake his life); and he has the prospect before him of a widow left entirely without provision, although for nearly a quarter of a century he and she stinted themselves to provide against such a contingency. Meantime the officers of the company lived luxuriously, and used the money in their hands for speculation, and in living which if not riotous, was at least shameless and dishonest. And they were all men of reputation, were selected for their positions because it was thought that men of their position and habits of life and outward bearing were incorruptible. Have they not devoured that prospective widow's house? If He who condemned the hypocritical Pharisees of old were on the earth now, would he not pronounce Woe upon them? And much would they care about His condemnation if they could get their commissions, and their pickings and stealings, and live in splendid houses, and be known as the managers of an institution that handled millions of dollars yearly, and whose offices were gorgeous with many-colored marbles, and gilding, and inlaid wood, and rich carpets!
And like their predecessors in the devouring of widows' houses for a pretence, they make long prayers. They, we say; but of course we do not mean all; for there are honest officers of life insurance companies, and even sound companies; but the number of both is shown day after day to be less and less; and when we think that those that we hear about are only they which have reached the end of their tether in fraud, perjury, and swindling, the prospect before us is one of the most disheartening that could be presented to a reflecting people. For remember, these defaulting, false-swearing life insurance and savings bank officers are picked men, and that their dishonest practices are from their very nature deliberate, slow of execution, and that in fact they have gone on for years. It is no clutch of drowning men at financial straws that we have here; it is the regular "confidence game" played on an enormous scale by men who are regarded as the most respectable that can be found in the whole community. They are vestrymen, and deacons, and elders, and grave and reverend signors, and these men have deliberately used and abused the confidence not only of the community in general, but of their friends and acquaintance, to "convey" in Nym's phrase, to steal in plain English, money which was brought within their reach because of their pretended high principle and their philanthropic motives. For, we repeat, it must constantly be kept in mind as an aggravation of these wrongs, that life insurance companies and savings banks are essentially and professedly benevolent institutions. They are, and they openly profess to be, chiefly for the benefit of widows and children. The man who takes to himself the money of a life insurance company or of a savings bank is not a mere thief and swindler; he robs the widow and the fatherless; he takes his place among those who are accursed of all men; and moreover, in all these cases he is a hypocrite of the deepest dye.
—In any case, however, there is reason for fearing that the business of life insurance has in the main long been rotten, even when it has not been deliberately corrupt. Professedly and originally a benevolent contrivance by which men of moderate incomes could year by year make provision for wives and children who might otherwise be left destitute, it was reasonable and right to expect that the business of life insurance would be conducted upon the most economical principles and in the simplest and most unpretending fashion; that there would have been only as much expenditure as was absolutely necessary for the proper conduct of the business; and that safety for the insured would have been the first if not the only ruling motive with the insurers. And such indeed was life insurance in the beginning. But by and by it was found that there was "money in it," and the sleek, snug hypocrites that prey upon society under the guise of philanthropy and religion began to swarm around it. Life insurance companies began to have a host of officers; they had "actuaries," whatever they may be, who, by whatever motives they were actuated, contrived and put forth statements which to the common mind were equally plausible and bewildering; they entered into bitter rivalry with each other in their philanthropic careers; they had agents who went abroad over the land in swarms, smooth-speaking, shameless creatures who would say anything, promise anything so long as they got their commissions; they published gorgeous pamphlets, tumid and splendid with self-praise, and filled with tabular statements that justified and illustrated the denying that there is nothing so untrustworthy as facts, except figures; they contrived the "mutual" plan, by which they made it appear to some men that they could insure their own lives—which is much like a man's trying to hoist himself over a fence by the straps of his boots—and yet these mutual officers, benevolent creatures, were as eager to get business and as ready to pay large commissions as if, poor, simple-minded souls, they had expected to get rich by life insuring; and then they put up huge and enormously expensive buildings, more like palaces than any others known to our country. And all this came out of the pockets of those who are, with cruel mockery, called the insured. It is the old story: ten cents to the beneficiary and ninety cents to the agent through whose hands the money passes. Is it not plain, merely from the grand scale and the large pretence on which this life insurance business has been carried on of late years, that it is rotten? It is a scheme for making money. Now, making money is right enough; but when it is carried on under philanthropic and benevolent pretences its tendency must naturally be, as we have seen that it has been, to gross corruption and the most heartless fraud.