Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

CAM

"NOTHING Like Leather."

AMILLE FLAMMARION, addressing the readers of his new periodical, L'Astronomie, tells them and other "citizens of heaven," that" only those who are familiar with astronomy have any real intellectual life, any existence in light and truth"; that "all others have their heads enveloped in a veil, they are but ants grovelling earnestly in the passages of their ant-hill; they may be good, they may help each other, they may have various enjoyments, they may cultivate the fine arts, succeed in business, revel in opulence, they may be academicians, deputies, senators, ministers, crowned with honours, they may be princes or kings; but, ignorant of astronomy, they are only blind men, are in fact incomplete beings."

We naturally smile at this, and yet, if we attempt to refute the assertions, we shall find that, wild as they appear, they are strictly logical and true. We are living and moving upon one of the heavenly bodies like Venus or Jupiter, and yet it is a fact that the majority of the human inhabitants of this planet are blindly unconscious of their own position in the universe; they really are "citizens of heaven, living as foreigners in their own country."

Similar exclamations may be made (better in French than in English) respecting the prevailing and wilful ignorance of other branches of science. We see around us a multitude of chemical mechanisms composed of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, &c., and standing on two legs. They believe that they are intelligent; they undertake to teach, to guide and govern, their fellow chemical compounds; they cram themselves with linguistic and antiquarian lore, study the outside doings of the past generations and distant peoples, while they wilfully ignore the continuous proceedings of their own inner selves, refuse to make themselves acquainted with the ascertained laws of those chemical changes which constitute the whole sum and substance of their own vitality and active existence. These are not merely "foreigners in their own country," but strangers in their own homes.

W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS,

509

THA

TABLE TALK.

THE DUCAL LIBRARIES.

HAT the sale of the Sunderland Library should be succeeded that of the Beckford Library, as it is just to call that superb collection of books which, descending to the Duke of Hamilton from the famous virtuoso of Fonthill, is now generally described as the Hamilton Palace Library, needs surprise nobody. It would be hard indeed if the right of a territorial nobleman to deal with his own property in the fashion adopted by his tradesmen or servants were disputed. So far, moreover, as regards scholarship, the dispersal of these princely collections is a boon. I know many of those who make most constant use of books, and I never heard of any one of their number having been able to verify a quotation at Hamilton Palace or at Blenheim. A few, a very few, of the Sunderland treasures now rest in my own book-cases, and, apart from the use to which I hope they will be put, are much better cared for in their new home than in the old, in which they were subject to such influences of damp and neglect that their bindings have dropped off or crumbled away. Before very long I hope to see a portion of the Beckford volumes gracing the same modest shelves. There is, however, one aspect of the matter that has not yet been put forward. At the present moment the question of the maintenance of the "great houses" is being every where discussed. If we are to have a nobility, its members must maintain some form of state. So long as that state is associated with literature and art, and is suggestive of taste and culture, it may commend itself to the public. The present is, however, an ill-chosen moment for the heads of great houses to dissociate themselves from what is most creditable in their past. It is scarcely worth the while of the most conservative to struggle hard for the maintenance of a body of men whose sole qualification should be capacity to act as their own game-keepers.

ΑΝ

DESTRUCTION OF LIFE AND SPORT.

N invention which reaches England from America, and has recently been successfully tested in Birmingham, may, if

generally adopted, do something to wipe off the bitterest reproach to which the younger members of our aristocracy have been subject. It consists of a pigeon made of hard clay capable of being projected from a trap, and of adopting movements as eccentric as those of the "blue rock" when seeking to escape from the gun. If those who at Hurlingham and other similar haunts pursue amusements which revolt the mass of Englishmen and degrade the nation in the eyes of Europe will accept this substitute in place of the living bird, they will at least furnish proof that cruelty is not the chief excitement in their pastime. I shall wait patiently to see what is done in this matter. Those in highest social position seek now, to a certain extent, to conciliate the opinion of the middle classes. If there is one thing more likely than another to disgust these classes, and to reconcile them to a vital change in methods of government, it is the fact that those who claim to be their leaders elect in their amusements to shock the moral sense of the majority. The continued maintenance of Hurlingham I can regard as nothing else than an outrage.

I

"THE BARGAIN WITH THE QUEEN."

HAVE received a communication from the Office of the Duchy of Lancaster, in which a correction is courteously made of a statement in Mr. Lucy's article published last month under the title "The Bargain with the Queen." In computing the Queen's income Mr. Lucy ascribed as the contribution to the privy purse from the Duchy of Lancaster, during the year 1880, the sum of £78,177. It appears from the balance-sheet that this was the gross revenue of the Duchy for the year, and that the payment made for Her Majesty's use to the keeper of the privy purse was only £41,000. The fact, therefore, is that the total income of the Queen from national sources (including the civil list and the Duchy of Lancaster) during the year 1880 was only £426,000. The gentleman who writes on behalf of the Chancellor of the Duchy faithfully describes the desire of Sylvanus Urban to be that "fair inferences should be drawn from truly stated premises," and I have much pleasure in making this correction, which, though interesting in itself, does not, of course, affect the general argument of the article. An apology is also due to Mr. Labouchere, who, in his speech in the House of Commons on the 23rd of March, following with flattering fidelity the argument and illustrations of the article in the Gentleman's Magazine (the name of the magazine being, indeed, the only important item omitted in his reference) adopted its error, and was immediately corrected by Mr. Bright.

H

A MAN IN FLAMES.

ERE is something which should possess an interest for Mr. Mattieu Williams. A person writes to a scientific journal to say that, on February 18, as he was out in a storm in Aberdeenshire, he found himself enveloped in a "sheet of pale flickering white light." The light seemed to proceed from every part of his clothes; and though he turned and tried to shake off the luminosity, it still clung to his person. The flames disappeared only with the violence of the storm, having continued to invest the person for two or three minutes. The phenomenon is believed to be analogous to "St. Elmo's fire," well known to sailors in the tropics. Other correspondents have come forward with testimony to the same effect. Heather in the Scottish Highlands has been seen to exhibit flames, but I suspect the appearance should have been termed "luminosity"; and by way of showing that North Britain is not peculiar in its fiery visitations, a third writer mentions that he experienced a like visitation of luminosity near Great Yarmouth. Now, I am not in the least concerned with the scientific aspect of the matter-that phase will probably receive attention from competent authorities. What, however, does strike one very forcibly is the result, say, to a supposed witch, that would certainly have accrued some two centuries ago, had she been suspected of conniving to set some respectable person on fire. I am afraid to say how long ago it is since the statutes against witchcraft were repealed, but I think I am within the mark when I say that it is only about one hundred and fifty years since the crime of conspiring with the devil was deleted from the criminal code of the land. Imagine the splendid "case for the prosecution" which the occurrence of the luminosity in Aberdeenshire or at Yarmouth would have afforded. I suppose at least a batch of old women in the neighbourhood would have been burnt with high glee by the popular voice-headed by the parish minister as a fit and just means of renouncing the devil and all his works. Elderly ladies of solitary habits may feel thankful that to-day they live under a dispensation which has seen fit to disbelieve in their special friendship and acquaintance with the evil one.

[ocr errors]

THE SALMON-DISEASE.

OOD news for fishers at last!-Professor Huxley has just given. us the first fruits of his investigations into the disease which for years back has caused the disciples of the gentle Izaak to bewail the fate of many a silver-coated denizen of Tweed and other rivers. The pest is a fungus-Saprolegnia by name-and a near relation of that which causes the potato-disease. We are told its normal

habitat is dead insects, and Huxley has certainly shown that it can be made to infect a dead fly from the salmon. From each diseased patch on the salmon, myriads of germs or spores pass into the water to attack other fishes, and thus the fell disorder continues to increase. Of course the only remedy is to be found in the destruction of every infected fish. The same policy of isolation pursued in the case of a small-pox patient is, in short, to be extended to the finny races; with this difference, that whilst we can isolate our human patients without necessarily killing them off, we must extinguish the piscine patients or want of "hospital accommodation." Whatever be the result of these researches, we may at least be grateful that the energies of practical biology are at length beginning to be exerted on behalf of the fishes. Fishes as a rule are the enemies of the insects; would it not be a singular revenge if the dead flies prove to be the means of afflicting the finny races with the salmon-disease?

I

"JUMBO" AT THE ZOO.

T is certainly by no means a common occurrence for the animals at the Zoo to become public characters-save, indeed, when a new and rare specimen, such as a gorilla, a bird-eating spider, a cannibal snake, or a manatee is the attraction. But the very ordinary African elephant, " an old familiar friend" of everybody, has lately afforded subject-matter of universal talk, and has inspired I am afraid to say how many leaders and notices in the public prints. There is decidedly more philanthropy-or shall I say national "Zoophily"?-at the root of the popular excitement, than zoological curiosity. Mr. Barnum, of New York fame, has bought "Jumbo," and across the seas he has perforce gone. Meanwhile, the bairns are breaking their hearts over the loss of the big African, who ingested their buns with the calmness and suavity proper to a great mind and body, and who bore them on his back in the matutinal and afternoon rides with such serene contempt for the weight of his load. I have seen "Jumbo" march gravely about the gardens with a load of children and their elders (chiefly of the nursemaid species) which would have filled a 'bus of respectable calibre. Despite his load, the big beast, of course, marched unconcernedly on, but with an eye-which, though small, is a twinkling orb-on the buns. Trotman's stall, near the elephant-house, used to be the resting-place where his "passengers" disembarked, and I have often wondered if the animal ver thought of the possibility of a raid on Trotman's buns. The

person in the stall would have had nothing to say in the way of ical remonstrance, I suppose, if Mr. Jumbo had cleared the decks rything eatable some fine morning.

SYLVANUS URBAN,

« НазадПродовжити »