Pictures cannot be considered too much as books; such truth, Art, by the concurrence of testimony, has manifested in its destiny from time immemorial, confirming afresh benefits on man. Open discussion will not only add to, magnify, or deduct from their lustre, but cause their aims, in short, to redound to the public weal. Such being so, it is rational to expect an expression of opinion thereupon. They are not, universally, to be regarded as graven tablets, to be gazed at, nor to be received as infallible oracles of law. They are—at the same time, barometers, charts, and weather-glasses—chronicles towards the fine ends of justice, peace and mercy.
Your correspondent has stated that my remarks are ambiguous. They may have been technical and recondite, but, as such, are excusable, and, in their sphere, just.
J. ATWOOD.SLATER.
4, Hill Side, Cotham Hill, Bristol.
SOCIAL SCIENCE.
From the WESTERN DAILY PRESS, Aug. 1st, 1901.
LOCOMOTIVE STEAM WHISTLES.
To the Editor of the Western Daily Press.
Sir,—It is essential, and, according to my instincts of decorum, necessary, to call the attention of those charged with authority in such matters, and the public generally, to the growing misuse, in the hands of engineers, of the locomotive steam whistle, the employment thereof having especially in town districts, grown to be out of all dimensions of private service, injurious to those whether officially called, or who, pending the pleasure of mercantile circumstance, are publicly obliged to pursue abstruse mental occupation, necessitating labour and much concentration of though[t]. A reasonable use of this means, or instrument, of signal and alarm, must be conceded to those in whose hands resides its use, but at the same time a firm directorship or jurisdiction ought to repress its extravagant or wanton employment.
To warn passengers of the starting and of the approach of trains only a moderate application of the whistle is needed, whilst for the diplomatic the discreet purpose of practical manoeuvre, namely, to draw the attention of signalmen to the passing of points by trains, extra power is requisite; but the gruesome display, I maintain, of vocative sounds tuned to an intellectual point of mood is needless.