AN AERIAL RIDE.—The recent ascents, first at Berlin, then at Baden,
of Herr Lattemann, who is the inventor and constructor of an entirely
novel miniature balloon, “Rotateur,” are remarkable, if foolhardy,
performances. The intrepid aëronaut rises in the air merely suspended
to a balloon by four ropes to a height of 4,000 feet. The Rotateur
has the form of a cylinder, with semi-spherical ends and a horizontal
axis. It holds about 9,300 cubic feet of ordinary gas, just enough to
lift the weight of a man, without car, anchor, or other apparatus,
about 4,000 feet. The balloon may be revolved round its horizontal
axis by two cords attached at the periphery of the cylinder. The
aëronaut is able by these cords to turn the valve, placed below,
through which the gas is taken in and allowed to escape, when desired,
round either the sides or to the top. This circular hole, as soon as
the balloon is filled, is stretched out by a thick cane to such an
extent longitudinally as to close it almost entirely, only leaving a
narrow slit, through which, it is asserted, no gas can escape. If the
aëronaut desires to let off the gas, he turns the cylinder balloon
round its axis by manipulating the cords, the opening is moved to
the side or top, and the cane removed by sharply pulling the cord
attached to it, so that the opening becomes circular again, and allows
the gas to escape. This is the new valve arrangement —the egg of
Columbus—patented by Herr Lattemann. For up to the present time the
valve was the Achilles heel of the balloon, because it was placed at
the top, sometimes failing to act, at others not closing air-tight.
Herr Lattemann in his ascents wears a strong leather belt, through the
rings of which two ropes are drawn, and by which he fastens himself to
the right and left of the balloon net. He thus hangs suspended as in a
swing. Two other ropes, attached to the balloon, and passing through
other rings in his belt, end in stirrups, into which the aërial rider
places his feet. At his earlier ascents Herr Lattemann used a saddle,
which he has now discarded, preferring to stand free in the stirrups.
As soon as the aëronaut has balanced himself in his ropes, the signal
“Off!” is given, and the balloon sails away. Herr Lattemann has
hitherto been entirely successful in his ascents, which last about half
an hour.
* * * * *
THE CONDITION OF SCHLESWIG.—A graphic description is given in an
article written by a correspondent of the _Times_ in Copenhagen of the
treatment to which the Danish inhabitants of Schleswig are subjected
by the Germans. All the efforts of the authorities governing the duchy
tend to the goal of crushing, and, if possible, exterminating the
Danish language and Danish sentiment. The Danes in Schleswig cling with
characteristic toughness to their language and to the old traditions of
their race; they hate the Germans; they groan under the foreign yoke
of suppression. Resisting all temptations and all menaces from Berlin,
they still turn their regards and their love toward the Danish King and
the Danish people, and they swear to hold out, even for generations,
until the glorious day comes, as it is sure to come in the fulness
of time, when the German chains shall be broken. It would be a very
trifling sacrifice for Prussia, that has made such enormous gains and
risen to the highest Power in Europe, to give those 200,000 or 250,000
Danish Schleswigers back to Denmark, the land of their predilection.
The northern part of Schleswig is of no political or strategical
importance to Prussia, and the proof of this is that the fortifications
in Alsen and at Düppel are being levelled to the ground. Several
instances of these petty persecutions are given by the correspondent.
The names of towns and villages have been Germanized; railway guards
are not permitted to speak Danish; in the public schools primers and
songs and plays are to be in German, and the children are punished
if they speak among themselves their maternal language; history is
arranged so as to glorify Germany and disparage Denmark; the Danish
colors of red and white are absolutely prohibited; in short, from the
cradle to the grave, the Danish Schleswiger is submitted to a process
of eradicating his original nature and dressing him up in a garb which
he hates and detests. This petty war is carried on day after day under
the sullen resistance and open protests of the Schleswigers, and proves
a constant source of hatred and animosity between two nations destined
by nature to be friends and allies. Of late the Prussian functionaries
in Schleswig have entered upon a system of positive persecution that
passes all bounds. Last summer several excursions of ladies and girls
from the Danish districts in Schleswig were arranged to different
places, one to the west coast of Jutland, another to Copenhagen; they
came in flocks of two or three hundred, were hospitably entertained,
enjoyed the sights and the liberty to avow their Danish sentiments,
and then they returned to their bondage. Such of them as did not
carefully hide the red and white favors or diminutive flags had to pay
amends for their carelessness. But the great bulk of them could not be
reached by the law, for, in spite of all, it has not yet been made a
crime in Schleswig to travel beyond the frontier. With characteristic
ingeniousness, the Prussian functionaries then hit upon a new plan, and
visited the sins of the women and girls upon their husbands, fathers,
or brothers. If these turned out to have, after the cession, optated
for Denmark, and to be consequently Danish citizens only sojourning in
Schleswig, they were peremptorily shown the door and ordered to leave
the duchy within 48 hours or some few days. An edict authorizes any
police-master to expel any foreign subject that may prove “troublesome”
(_lästig_), and this term is a very elastic one. If the male relatives
were Prussian subjects no law could be alleged against them, but
among these such as filled public charges, particularly teachers and
schoolmasters, have been summarily dismissed. In this way, farmers,
small traders, artisans, dentists, school teachers, and so forth,
whose wives or sisters or daughters did take part in the excursion
trips, have been mercilessly driven away and deprived of their means of
living. New cases of such expulsions are recorded every day. A system
of the most petty persecution is at the same time enforced against
those who cannot be turned out.
CHINESE NOTIONS OF IMMORTALITY.—A writer in a recent issue of
the _North China Herald_ discusses the early Chinese notions of
immortality. In the most ancient times ancestral worship was maintained
on the ground that the souls of the dead exist after this life. The
present is a part only of human existence, and men continue to be
after death what they have become before it. Hence the honors accorded
to men of rank in their lifetime were continued to them after their
death. In the earliest utterances of Chinese national thought on this
subject we find that duality which has remained the prominent feature
in Chinese thinking ever since. The present life is light; the future
is darkness. What the shadow is to the substance, the soul is to
the body; what vapor is to water, breath is to man. By the process
of cooling steam may again become water, and the transformations of
animals teach us that beings inferior to man may live after death.
Ancient Chinese then believed that as there is male and female
principle in all nature, a day and a night as inseparable from each
thing in the universe as from the universe itself, so it is with man.
In the course of ages and in the vicissitudes of religious ideas, men
came to believe more definitely in the possibility of communications
with supernatural beings. In the twelfth century before the Christian
era it was a distinct belief that the thoughts of the sages were to
them a revelation from above. The “Book of Odes” frequently uses the
expression “God spoke to them,” and one sage is represented after death
“moving up and down in the presence of God in heaven.” A few centuries
subsequently we find for the first time great men transferred in the
popular imagination to the sky, it being believed that their souls
took up their abode in certain constellations. This was due to the
fact that the ideas of immortality had taken a new shape, and that
the philosophy of the times regarded the stars of heaven as the pure
essences of the grosser things belonging to this world. The pure is
heavenly and the gross earthly, and therefore that which is purest on
earth ascends to the regions of the stars. At the same time hermits
and other ascetics began to be credited with the power of acquiring
extraordinary longevity, and the stork became the animal which the
Immortals preferred to ride above all others. The idea of plants
which confer immunity from death soon sprang up. The fungus known as
_Polyporus lucidus_ was taken to be the most efficacious of all plants
in guarding man from death, and 3,000 ounces of silver have been asked
for a single specimen. Its red color was among the circumstances which
gave it its reputation, for at this time the five colors of Babylonian
astrology had been accepted as indications of good and evil fortune.
This connection of a red color with the notion of immortality through
the medium of good and bad luck, led to the adoption of cinnabar as the
philosopher’s stone, and thus to the construction of the whole system
of alchemy.
The plant of immortal life is spoken of in ancient Chinese literature
at least a century before the mineral. In correspondence with the tree
of life in Eden there was probably a Babylonian tradition which found
its way to China shortly before Chinese writers mention the plant of
immortality. The Chinese, not being navigators, must have got their
ideas of the ocean which surrounds the world from those who were,
and when they received a cosmography they would receive it with its
legends.—_Nature._
* * * * *
AN APPROACHING STAR.—One of the most beautiful of all stars in the
heavens is Arcturus, in the constellation Boötes. In January last
the Astronomer Royal communicated to the Royal Astronomical Society
a tabulated statement of the results of the observations made at
Greenwich during 1883 in applying the method of Dr. Huggins for
measuring the approach and recession of the so-called fixed stars
in direct line. Nearly 200 of these observations are thus recorded,
twenty-one of which were devoted to Arcturus, and were made from March
30 to August 24. The result shows that this brilliant scintillating
star is moving rapidly towards us with a velocity of more than fifty
miles per second (the mean of the twenty-one observations is 50.78).
This amounts to about 2,000 miles per minute, 180,000 per hour,
4,320,000 miles per day. Will this approach continue, or will the star
presently appear stationary and then recede? If the motion is orbital
the latter will occur. There is, however, nothing in the rates observed
to indicate any such orbital motion, and as the observations extended
over five months this has some weight. Still it may be travelling in
a mighty orbit of many years’ duration, the bending of which may in
time be indicated by a retardation of the rate of approach, then by no
perceptible movement either towards or away from us, and this followed
by a recession equal to its previous approach. If, on the other hand,
the 4,500,000 of miles per day continue, the star must become visibly
brighter to posterity, in spite of the enormous magnitude of cosmical
distances. Our 81-ton guns drive forth their projectiles with a maximum
velocity of 1,400 feet per second. Arcturus is approaching us with
a speed that is 200 times greater than this. It thus moves over a
distance equal to that between the earth and the sun in twenty-one
days. Our present distance from Arcturus is estimated at 1,622,000
times this. Therefore, if the star continues to approach us at the same
rate as measured last year, it will have completed the whole of its
journey towards us in 93,000 years.—_Gentleman’s Magazine._
GERMANS AND RUSSIANS IN PERSIA.—A correspondent of the _Novoje Vremja_
recently had an opportunity of ascertaining some interesting facts
from a naval officer who is in the service of the Shah, and whom he
met on board a Persian steamer in the Caspian Sea. The Persian cavalry
is organized and commanded by Russian officers, while the artillery is
commanded and instructed by Germans. The Persian soldiers, however,
dislike their German superiors, who treat them very badly and are
arrogant to a degree with the native officers. On the contrary, the
Russians are generally popular—so it is said. There is the worst
possible feeling between the Russians and the Germans, who seize
every opportunity of annoying each other. A short time ago their
military manœuvres were held, attended by the Shah and the whole Corps
Diplomatique. The infantry made a splendid show, and the cavalry, too,
was much admired, but the firing of the artillery was execrable, and,
as ill-luck would have it, the German Consul was wounded in the foot.
The Shah was furious, whereupon the German officers called out that the
ammunition had been tampered with by the Russians. At once the Shah
ordered an inquiry to be made, the only consequence of which was to
give mortal offence to the Germans. But it is, perhaps, not necessary
to go quite so far as Teheran to find traces of the profound antagonism
existing between Russians and Germans. Czar and Kaiser may embrace to
their hearts’ content, but, strange to say, wherever their subjects
meet abroad they quarrel. At the market town of Kowno, in the Russian
Government district of Saratoff, a sanguinary encounter took place a
few days ago between German settlers and Russian peasants, who had
come from the neighborhood for the annual fair. As many as ten were
killed and thirty wounded. The outbreak of a large fire interrupted the
fighting, otherwise the list would have been far more considerable.
* * * * *