'Well, Mr Manager, I had not thought of the matter. For several years I have been running my train to the best of my ability. Never looked at the matter in this light before. Never thought I was doing anything wrong. I have done nothing more than other conductors; tried to earn my salary and get it, and think I've succeeded. I don't know that I owe the Company anything. If you think I do, why, there's a little difference of opinion, and I don't want any trouble over it. I have a nice family, nice father and mother; relatives all of good standing; they would feel bad to have me arrested and charged with dishonesty. It would kill my wife. She has every confidence in me, and the idea that I would take a penny that did not belong to me would break her heart. I don't care anything for the matter myself; but on account of my family and relatives, if you won't say anything more about it, I'll give you say—a dollar!'
[THE MONTH:]
SCIENCE AND ARTS.
Mr Charles Barry, President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, in his opening address, mentioned that with a view to facilitate the studies of young men, the library of the Institute is open from ten in the morning till nine at night, to members of the Architectural Association, to the architectural classes of the Royal Academy, of University College, and King's College. A fee of five shillings a year and a proper recommendation are the conditions on which this valuable privilege may be obtained; and it is to be hoped that earnest-minded students—the architects of the future—will hasten to avail themselves of this generously offered store of knowledge.
The Council of the Institute have given notice of lectures which are to be delivered at University College, London, during the present session, comprising Ancient Architecture as a Fine Art; on Construction and Materials; on Roofing, Masonry, Quarries, Arches, and Groining. At King's College also there will be lectures on the Mechanics of Construction; on Constructive Design and Practice, besides classes for the study of Architectural Drawing, Descriptive Geometry, and Surveying and Levelling. Young men who wish to study architecture and allied subjects have in the courses thus provided for, a favourable opportunity. Among the papers announced for reading at the meetings of the Institute are: On the Architecture of Norway; On the Prevention of Corrosion in Iron; and Syria, the Cradle of Gothic Architecture; which may be expected to present especial points of interest.
The Council of the Royal Agricultural Society have published a statement of members' privileges which is worth attention. On payment of a moderate fee the advice of a competent veterinary inspector can be had in cases of disease among the live-stock; post-mortem examinations can be made, and the animals may be sent to the Brown Institution, Wandsworth Road, London, where the Professor-Superintendent undertakes 'to carry out such investigations relating to the nature, treatment, and prevention of diseases of cattle, sheep, and pigs, as may be deemed expedient by the Council of the Society.' Reports on the cases are drawn up quarterly, or specially as may be required. Analyses of guano and other fertilisers, of soils, of water, of vegetable products, may be had; also reports on seeds, with determination of the quantity of weeds mingled among them; on vegetable parasites; on diseases of farm-crops. And besides all this, any member whose lands are infested by noxious intruders may have a 'determination of the species of any insect, worm, or other animal, which, in any stage of its life, injuriously affects the farm-crops, with a report on its habits, and suggestions as to its extermination.'
Experiments on the fattening of animals by Messrs Lawes and Gilbert help to settle the much-debated question as to whether fat is produced exclusively from nitrogenous food or not. Their conclusion is, that excess of nitrogen contributes to growth but not to fatness. 'There is, of course,' they say, 'a point below which the proportion of nitrogenous substance in the food should not be reduced; but if this be much exceeded, the proportion of the increase, and especially of the fat-increase, to the nitrogenous substance consumed, rapidly decreases; and it may be stated generally, that taking our current fattening food-stuffs as they are, it is their supply of digestible non-nitrogenous, rather than of nitrogenous constituents which guides the amount, both of the food consumed and of the increase produced, by the fattening animal.'
Since the outbreak of discussion on spontaneous generation and the germ theory, many readers have become familiar with the term Bacteria, by which certain minute organisms are described. The question involved may be studied from different points of view, as appears from a communication addressed to the Royal Society by Dr Downes and Mr Blunt, a chemist, on the Effect of Light upon Bacteria and other Organisms. Properly prepared solutions were inclosed in glass tubes; some of the tubes were placed in sunlight, others were covered with paper or some material that excluded light. The dark tubes became turbid; the light tubes remained clear. The experiments modified in various ways were continued from April to October; and the conclusions that the experimentalists came to were that—Light is inimical to the development of Bacteria and the microscopic fungi associated with putrefaction and decay, its action on the latter being apparently less rapid than upon the former—That the preservative quality of light is most powerful in the direct solar ray, but can be demonstrated to exist in ordinary diffused daylight—and That this preservative quality appears to be associated with the actinic rays of the spectrum. 'It appears to us,' say the two gentlemen, 'that the organisms which have been the subject of our research may be regarded simply as isolated cells, or minute protoplasmic masses specially fitted by their transparency and tenuity for the demonstration of physical influences. May we not expect that laws similar to those which here manifest themselves may be in operation throughout the vegetable, and perhaps also the animal kingdom wherever light has direct access to protoplasm? On the one hand, we have chlorophyll (colouring substance of leaves, &c.) owing its very existence to light, and whose functions are deoxidising; on the other, the white protoplasm or germinal matter oxidising in its relations, and to which, in some of its forms at least, the solar rays are not only non-essential, but even devitalising and injurious.
'This suggestion,' continued the gentlemen, 'we advance provisionally and with diffidence; nor do we wish to imply that the relations of light to protoplasmic matter are by any means so simple as might be inferred from the above broad statement.'
A paper by Dr Burdon Sanderson, F.R.S., read before the same Society, contains, amid much that is controversial about Bacteria, germs, organised particles, development and so forth, a few passages which all intelligent readers will be able to understand. On the question of disease-germs, the learned doctor remarks: 'In order that any particle may be rightly termed a disease-germ, two things must be proved concerning it: first, that it is a living organism; secondly, that if it finds its way into the body of a healthy human being or of an animal, it will produce the disease of which it is the germ. Now there is only one disease affecting the higher animals in respect of which anything of this kind has been proved, and that is splenic fever of cattle. In other words, there is but one case in which the existence of a disease-germ has been established. Comparing such a germ with the germinal particles we have been discussing, we see that there is but little analogy between them, for, first, the latter are not known to be organised; secondly, they have no power of producing disease, for it has been found by experiment that ordinary Bacteria may be introduced into the circulating blood of healthy animals in considerable quantities without producing any disturbance of health. So long as we ourselves are healthy, we have no reason to apprehend any danger from the morbific action of atmospheric dust, except in so far as it can be shewn to have derived infectiveness from some particular source of miasma or contagium.'