CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION.--Wong Chin Foo may boast of the superiority of heathenism as long as pauperism shows itself to be a vast ulcer, as in the following despatch from London:
"Pauperism is on the increase in the metropolis. Last week relief was given to 53,164 indoor, and 35,110 outdoor paupers.
The total shows an increase of 2011 over the corresponding week last year. Trafalgar Square pavement is half covered nightly with houseless vagrants, and church steps, benches, and doorways in nearly all parts of London have their complements of dest.i.tute people after midnight. Many resort to the parks in the daytime to obtain on the gra.s.s the sleep which they are unable to get on the stones by night, and begging cannot be suppressed by the police."
WALT WHITMAN, the odd and original American poet, enjoys in his declining years and feeble health the admiration of a large number of literary friends, who are to build him a beautiful little cottage. His special admirers regard him as the greatest of American poets, and he has equally warm admirers among the foreign literati. A Walt Whitman club is to be established in his honor at Philadelphia. Yet it is not long since Mr. Whitman was made the target of the "prurient prudes,"
who carry on the Comstockian movement of the Vice Society, and was ordered to expunge some of his writings. Mr. Whitman defied them, and his literary prestige has sustained him; but Mrs. Elmina Drake Slenker, of Western Virginia, a woman of humble surroundings, has been pounced upon, arrested, and placed on trial for discussing in private correspondence physiological questions in reproduction which might have been discussed by physicians in medical journals with impunity.
Her friends regard this as an outrage, considering her exemplary character and philanthropic motives. The Congressional law under which the prosecution of Mrs. Slenker has been inst.i.tuted, is a specimen of hasty legislation, rushed through in the last hours of the 42d session, more than one-half of all the acts being pa.s.sed on the last day and night amid the most disgraceful confusion and uproar.
A well-educated community will learn that the charge of obscenity in such cases expresses a quality which belongs neither to nature nor art, but to the foul minds in which such ideas rise. This was ill.u.s.trated by an intelligent judge in Maine. _The Health Monthly_ says:
"Recently in Portland an art dealer was arrested for exhibiting immoral pictures in his window. Mr. Stubbs, the artist, gathered up samples of all the pictures that he had exhibited in his windows and took them with him into court. He placed them about the court room on chairs and benches. They were copies of masterpieces of the Paris Salon of well-known subjects, and such as are familiar to all art critics. As Judge Gould looked about him and saw these pictures he thought it unnecessary to take testimony, but descending from his desk he made a pilgrimage of the room, carefully inspecting each picture. He exhibited much appreciation, and after examining the last one, he complimented the taste of the art dealer and dismissed the case. A sensible judge."
This "prurient prudery" of the vulgar mind was once strongly exhibited in Baltimore. The millionaire Winans had imported from abroad quite a number of cla.s.sical statues, which he erected in the beautiful grounds around his palatial residence. The ignorant vulgarity of the neighborhood made such a clamor against his statuary as to excite his indignation and contempt. He built a wall about his grounds fifteen feet high, to exclude the vulgar gaze. The City Council being thoroughly ashamed of the circ.u.mstances as a discredit to the city, pa.s.sed a resolution requesting him to take down the wall, but Mr. W.
had been too profoundly disgusted with the vulgarity of the people, and refused to remove it.
TEMPERANCE.--"For the first time in the history of Iowa, Fort Madison Penitentiary is short of a sufficient number of convicts to enable it to fill contracts made upon the basis of the usual supply. This and many similar instances go to prove that prohibition _does_ decrease crime."
Hon. W. D. Kelley, the oldest member of Congress, argues that the whiskey tax of ninety cents a gallon ought to be taken off because it amounts to little more than half a cent a drink, and therefore does not discourage intemperance. Temperance men would think this was an argument for increasing the tax. The best temperance measure would be to send every drunkard to a reformatory prison.
SCIENTIFIC.
EXTENSION OF ASTRONOMY.--An interesting and important announcement is made by an English scientist, Dr. Pritchard, of Oxford, which, if confirmed, will give a great deal of satisfaction to all who study the evening skies. He has succeeded in throwing out his measure-line to one of the fixed stars. Hitherto measurement has virtually stopped with our own solar system. The angles which form the basis of calculations for the remoter stellar s.p.a.ces are so infinitesimal that human vision can take no certain and uniform cognizance of them. Until now science could only draw its great circle and say: Within this the millions of suns which shine upon the earth from all directions are not; how far they really are beyond, no one can tell, only conjecture.
But now comes the camera, a veritable new eye for science, as sensitive as the optic nerve and a thousand times more steadfast and tireless, being able to hold its gaze upon the minutest object of search hour after hour, without blinking. It is with this new eye that Dr. Pritchard has succeeded, as he thinks, in reading the infinitesimal figures on the milestone of the star 61 Cygni. He gives the distance as fifty billions of miles, and reminds us that this star is probably the nearest to us of all the bodies in s.p.a.ce outside our own planetary system.--_Home Journal_.
A NEW BASIS FOR CHEMISTRY has been published by Thos. Sterry Hunt, 165 pages, price, $2. Prof. Hunt dispenses entirely with the atomic theory, but that does not make the mystery of definite combinations any clearer. It is only "confusion worse confounded."
CHLOROFORM IN HYDROPHOBIA.--Dr. V. G. Miller, an old army surgeon of Osage Mission, Kansas, says that he once treated a terrible case of hydrophobia with chloroform, using altogether about three pounds. It conquered the spasms. A slimy, stringy secretion ran out of the man"s mouth which probably carried off the poison, and for a long time he could not swallow, but in three weeks he entirely recovered. The salivary glands seem to have a close relation to hydrophobia. Many years ago reports were published from Russia on the authority of M.
Marochetti, a hospital surgeon, of the cure of hydrophobia, by piercing with a red hot needle certain swellings that rose under the tongue, and giving a decoction of broom. Dr. M. said that fourteen were cured in this manner. This discovery seems to have been forgotten.
THE WATER QUESTION.--"It may naturally be asked, If Brooklyn has been so successfully supplied with water from driven wells, why has not New York adopted the same system? In answer to this it must be remembered that the drive-well is a new invention, and, before its application to Brooklyn, had only been used on a small scale. To this day no one can give satisfactory reasons why the water flows continuously from the earth through the pipe of a driven-well. Hence, to the public generally, this mode of obtaining water was new and little understood.
At the time of its introduction to Brooklyn a water-famine was threatened. All the ordinary sources of supply had been exhausted by the ever-increasing population, and the authorities were puzzled what to do. In this extremity Andrews & Bro., a firm which had much experience in working drive-wells, offered _at their own expense_, to put down wells and supply the town with water. Had Andrews & Co.
merely proposed to put down the wells and the town to pay the bill and run the risk of failure, the proposition would not have been entertained. Fortunately, Andrews & Co. offered to take the expense and risk of failure on their own shoulders. The city"s chief engineer at the time, Robert Van Buren, seconded by Engineer Bergen, with the approval of Mayor Low and Commissioner Ropes, accepted the contract.
"Engineers and scientists, at the time, scouted the idea and raised all sorts of objections. The summer it was completed there was a five-months drought, with less than 2-1/2 inches of rain. This, however, did not affect the drive wells, and at the request of the town authorities, they increased the speed of their pumping engines, and supplied all demands, even beyond their contract. And there the wells still remain, a standing example, a pharos to enlighten the world.
"In the meantime, the neighboring city of New York, across the river, was alarmed for fear their Croton water should give out. Plans had been laid down and estimates made for enlarging their supply by bringing the whole Croton river to New York and building a new aqueduct. This involved an expenditure of fifty or sixty million dollars, and such a chance was not to be lightly given up by those who expected to be enriched by the job. To put down auxiliary driven wells would have required not one-twentieth the expense, and they would have furnished the town with water for all time, and moreover might have been put down within the city limits."--_J. Donbavand_.
PROGRESS OF h.o.m.oEOPATHY.--h.o.m.oeopathy was first introduced into America in the year 1825 by Dr. Gram. It now numbers 11,000 pract.i.tioners, 14 medical colleges, 1,200 matriculants annually, 400 graduates annually, 57 hospitals with 4,500 beds, 3 insane asylums, 48 dispensaries, 150 societies, 23 journals, 33 pharmacies, 1 college of specialties.
ROUND THE WORLD QUICKLY.--A copy of the _London Times_, sent to Lord Huntly, j.a.pan, went round the world, returning to London in 69 days.
GLANCES ROUND THE WORLD.
(_Continued and concluded from August No._)
In vain have I appealed to the educators of our country in "THE NEW EDUCATION." It will be half a century before our systems of education will be organized for the _elevation_ of society. Heretofore, our systems have had a positively demoralizing effect by inculcating a love of military glory, a love of ostentatious pedantry, a stubborn adherence to old opinions, and a scorn of useful industry. The gradual establishment of industrial schools, however, is the most hopeful sign in our educational system, and the establishment of ethical education will be the last and most glorious change. But that is a task for the next century which will understand how to save and reform criminals.
The thought is already entertained, and the new _Princeton Review_ says, that in coming time "the world will look back with amazement upon the days when it let known, determined criminals run at large, only punishing them occasionally, by a temporary deprivation of their liberty in short and determinate sentences. We can see to-day that it is a thoroughly illogical proceeding. The man determined upon a life of crime is of no use to himself at large, and he is both a danger and expense in his community. He commonly gives evidence in his character and his acts of this determination--evidence sufficient for the court which tries and sentences him; but if that is too uncertain, then conviction for a second offence may be legally taken to define his position. After the second offence the criminal should be shut up, on an indeterminate sentence, where he will be compelled to labor to pay for his board and clothes and the expense of his safe-keeping."
AFRICAN POPULATION.
We have another disturbing element in the negro population, a large portion of which is unfitted for a republican government by ignorance and social debas.e.m.e.nt, but fortunately free from the violence and turbulence of the lower cla.s.s of immigrants. This degradation is fast being removed by education and the ambition inspired by freedom. The latter is shown by the formation of the Afro-American League for the protection of the blacks, especially in the Southern States, and the advancement of their interests and influence. This idea originated with Mr. Fortune, the editor of the _New York Freeman_.
Few are aware of the progress of negro education. We have already 16,000 colored teachers. In the Southern States alone there are said to be 1,000,000 of pupils,--in the male and female high schools, 15,000. There are sixty normal schools, fifty colleges and universities, twenty-five theological seminaries, and in the churches 3,000,000 worshippers. The colored population pays taxes on from 150 to 200 millions of dollars.
The black race will be free from slavery at the close of this century.
The Brazilian Parliament pa.s.sed a law for gradual emanc.i.p.ation in 1871, when there were about 2,000,000 slaves. In 1885, the number was reduced to 1,200,000, and measures have been introduced to hasten the completion of emanc.i.p.ation.
In Cuba, slavery seems to be at an end. The queen regent of Spain has signed a decree freeing the Cuban slaves, some 300,000, from the remainder of their term of servitude. The work, thus consummated, began in 1869, which provided for the conditional emanc.i.p.ation of certain cla.s.ses of slaves in Cuba, and for the payment of recompense to the owners of the men and women liberated. From the first, slave-owners have been paid for their slaves.
FOREIGN PROGRESS.
When we look abroad the most encouraging progress is in the race to which this republic owes its origin. In spite of the cruel oppression in Ireland, Great Britain has been prospering in the last twelve years. Mr. Mulhall, the able statistician, has shown in the contemporary _Review_ that in the United Kingdom, since 1875, the population has increased twelve per cent., the wealth twenty-two per cent., trade twenty-nine per cent., shipping sixty-seven per cent., and instruction sixty-eight per cent. Hence there is a marked increase of knowledge and wealth. During this period the natural increase of population has been 1200 daily and the immigration to the United States and Colonies has averaged 600 daily. In addition to the national increase, there has been an immigration of 1,317,000, consisting of foreign settlers and returned colonists. Two-thirds of the emigration went to the United States.
This healthy increase of population contrasts favorably with the condition in France. England had in 1883 a surplus of births over deaths of 367,000 in a population less than 27,000,000. In France the surplus of births in 1881 was but 108,229, in 1884 but 79,000, and in 1885, 85,464. The excessive militarism cultivated in France is adverse to national growth, and justly so; while the peaceful condition of America insures great national growth--a beneficent law. No nation has ever grown with the rapidity of ours, but our rate of growth has greatly diminished during the present century. Dr. Fonce"s statistics show that twice as many children were born in proportion to population at the beginning of the century, as have been born since 1850. What is the reason?
PROGRESS IN FRANCE.
France has taken a very important step in emanc.i.p.ating education from the power of the church--completely secularizing education. Under the present law religious a.s.sociations are no longer allowed, as such, to give instruction in public schools, and all schools taught by priests are to be superseded by public schools. The Ultramontanes are bitterly hostile to this law, and call it religious oppression, but it is firmly maintained. The Minister of Instruction says that in public instruction there cannot be two authorities, church and state, with equal sovereignty. There is but one sovereignty, that of the State.
Clerical studies do not now attract young men as formerly, either in America or France. The University of Paris last year had 11,000 alumni, but only thirty-five theological students. 3,786 studied for the legal profession, 3,696 for the medical, 1,767 attended to pharmacy, 928 to letters and 467 to science. There were 167 female students, 108 of them preparing for medicine, fifty-one in literary studies, seven in science and one preparing as a lawyer.
When France shall be sufficiently civilized to abolish duels and dismiss her standing army, she may have an opportunity of reaching the front rank in civilization and progress. Even at present France has many elements of the highest civilization in courtesy and refinement of manners, artistic skill, scientific progress and advancing wealth.
The French might give some valuable lessons to Americans, especially in journalism. Mrs. J. C. Croly (Jennie June) in her recent address to the Women"s Press a.s.sociation in Boston, gave a pungent criticism on American journalism which, in justice it must be said, is not applicable to the press generally, although the immense s.p.a.ce given to baseball, pugilism, races, and all species of crime, by our leading journals, is disgraceful. "If the tail were large enough," said Dundreary, "the tail would waggle the dog!" certainly the tail end of society wags its journals. Mrs. Croly said:--
"What the newspaper seems to be princ.i.p.ally valued for, just now, is for doing individual gossiping, scolding and backbiting on a large scale, and in a way that relieves the individual from responsibility. The old women of the past have been royally revenged for all the sneers and slights put upon their spectacled talks, and tea parties; for back-door t.i.ttle-tattle of the meanest, most reckless sort, has been made a business, has become the staple of some journals. That people read such stuff does not seem to me reason enough for printing it. Shall we not have a daily paper some time, that is at once bright, clear, pure, honest and strong; one that works upward, instead of downward; that has its hold upon the best things, and inspires us with new faith in them, and in their power to work out race redemption."
Such criticisms do not apply to the Parisian press, which employs and pays liberally the ablest writers.
The French have at last begun the publication of cheap literature for the people. A firm in Paris "have begun the issue of what is termed the Nouvelle Bibliotheque Populaire (the New Popular Library), at ten centimes, or two cents, an issue, this to be a collection of the most remarkable works of all literature, histories voyages, romances, plays, religious and philosophical treatises, and poetry, etc. Each volume is to be complete, and is to have thirty-two pages, printed in clear text, the equivalent in its entirety to one hundred pages of an ordinary French book. These volumes are to be published one each week, at a subscription price of seven francs, or a little less than $1.40 per year."
They propose "to give a resume of those parts of secondary interest, and to publish in their entirety those salient pa.s.sages which cannot be ignored, the works thus presented having the appearance and the interest of the originals. The reader who cannot spare the time to carefully read the original may thus in a few hours acquire a fair idea of its purpose and value. The second cla.s.s will be a large number of works that are now out of print, or which can only be procured at a very high price. The third, and perhaps more popular cla.s.s, will be the works of authors of all ages, of all countries, and of all schools, such as Shakespeare, Corneille, Pascal, Chateaubriand, Sophocles, Racine, Lord Byron, etc. Ten of these volumes have already been published."