“How like Portia in the trial scene of the ‘Merchant of Venice.’”
It was known to Miss Bradley’s college mates and other friends that her thesis would be on “Iodism,” and that she had taken a year to write an elaborate book on the subject, which will soon be republished in England from the original French. For an hour and a half she was questioned with great shrewdness and ability by four of the leading professors of the Ecole de Medicine,—Drs. Fournier, Gautier, Porchet, and Robin. Each of these gentlemen had previously received a copy of Miss Bradley’s bold book, and they had brought their copies to the examining room, with multitudinous interrogation marks on the margins, showing that the new treatise had not only been very carefully read, but had excited much curiosity and attention. Miss Bradley had the great advantage of an unhackneyed theme, which she skilfully illustrated by a numerous array of unfamiliar facts.
Her triumph was of a very peculiar character. Her four examiners said to her, with admiring frankness: “You have been working a new field; we cannot agree with many of your conclusions; further investigation may lead either yourself or us to different views; but, meanwhile, you have presented to the college a thesis which does you uncommon honor, and for which we unanimously award you the maximum mark of merit.”
After the announcement of the award, Miss Bradley was entertained at dinner by Miss Augusta Klumpke, the first female physician who has ever been admitted to practice in the hospitals of Paris. Both these ladies are Americans—Miss Klumpke from San Francisco, and Miss Bradley from New York.
A Woman’s Bible.—We have not reached the end of revision. A woman’s translation of the Bible is expected next. Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the chairman of the American committee having this matter in charge, and a woman’s Bible and commentary are to be expected in due time.
Work for Women.—Miss Katie Young, of Ironton, Mo., writes The Voice a letter upon the advantages of plating, as a new and pleasant field of work for women. A relative made her a plating-machine at a cost of $4; she readily obtained orders for work from everybody in the neighborhood; the outlay for chemicals, etc., proved slight; and in 22 days she netted $95.45. Her brother, working 24 days, cleared $90.50. Miss Young states that she is making a collection of curiosities, and that to any lady sending her a sea-shell, fancy stone, piece of rock, ore or crystal, an old coin, or curious specimen of any description, she will be glad to mail complete directions for making a machine similar to hers, that will do gold, silver and nickel-plating.
F. Henry Greer writes: “Two young gentlewomen are studying electrical engineering, which profession has not yet been overcrowded. Great fortunes have been made in its pursuit. If any readers of your valuable journal are interested, I will freely give them any information in my power.”
Mrs. Stanton on the Jubilee.—“If mine has been the one discordant note in the grand jubilee chorus to the Queen, it is because behind all the busy preparations for the most brilliant pageant the world has ever witnessed, of gilded royalty and nobility, my eyes beheld the dark shadows on the background of homeless, starving men, women and children, into whose desolate lives would never come one touch of light or love. There is something to me unspeakably sad in the eager, gazing multitudes that crowd the streets on these grand gala days. There is ever a sphinx-like questioning look in their upturned faces that seems to say, ‘Ah! must the many ever suffer that the few may shine?’ As the sun went down on that 21st of June, what a contrast in the close of the day’s festivities between the children of luxury and want.
“Who that can share in imagination one hour the miseries of England’s impoverished people, can rejoice in a reign of fifty years that has cost the nation 22,000,000 of pounds sterling in extra allowances to the Queen and her children, in addition to the legitimate cost of the royal household and the hereditary property rights of the throne?” Nevertheless the Jubilee was a fine exhibition, and the London Baptist says that $4,000 was paid for the use of the windows of one house to see the Jubilee.
Electricity seems destined to be the motor power for street cars. In Montgomery, Alabama, the mule has already been superseded, and there are fifteen miles of street railways operated by the electric motor. Some satisfactory experiments have been made on the Cambridge Street railway. Edison’s latest discoveries in the conversion of heat into electricity are expected to produce important results, dispensing with the intermediate use of steam, and ultimately getting the power from the sun’s rays.