See [Vandalism].
Detachment—See [Absent-mindedness].
DETAILS, PERIL OF
It is said of General Grant, when he was approaching Vicksburg, that his officers, brave enough and willing enough, had so little military experience that his orders to them were not mere directions as to what they should do, but instruction in detail as to the manner in which it should be done. It is said that a collection of those orders would form a compendium or handbook of the military art. The man of liberal training with us has always much of that experience. The sculptor in America can confide nothing to his workman. The editor often needs to know how to set type. Many a time will you have to instruct your bookbinder. Wo to you if you expect to hire a competent translator! The educated man in America is only a helpless Dominie Sampson if he can not harness his own horse, and on occasion shoe him. He must in a thousand exigencies paddle his own canoe. And the first danger which comes to him is that in all these side duties he will forget the great central object to which his life is consecrated.—Edward Everett Hale.
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Detected, Loss—See [Theft, A Check on].
DETECTION
One M. Le Roux demonstrated the value of the X-ray in detecting smuggled goods recently at the New York custom-house:
With every country using the X-ray at the custom-house and post-office smuggling would soon cease, for there seems to be no way to fool this little agent. Every means of baffling it were tried at M. Le Roux’s test. Articles were wrapt in many thicknesses of paper and woolen fabrics, and they were hidden in all sorts of queer places, but once the X-ray got busy they might just as well have shouted out their whereabouts, for not a single hidden article escaped detection.—The Technical World Magazine.
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