In a district of Glasgow where the death-rate used to be forty
in a thousand, sanitation has brought it down to twenty-eight,
and it has been brought down to seventeen or eighteen in
some parts of London. Boston reduced its death-rate from
thirty-one to twenty, and Croydon, Eng., from twenty-eight
to thirteen. Even the friction-match has had its share in
prolonging life. “Doubtless many a fatal pneumonia and pleurisy
has been contracted when the luckless householder’s lire had
died out overnight, and he was struggling with flint, steel
and tinderbox.” In London during the last century nearly two
hundred thousand persons perished of smallpox. Macaulay says
that a person without a pitted face was the exception. But,
thanks largely to vaccination, in a recent year there were only
fourteen cases of smallpox among New York’s inhabitants, and
in the German army, where vaccination is compulsory, the dread
disease has been eradicated. The production of pure water by
distillation has done much to abolish alimentary diseases among
sailors at sea, and lime-juice defends them from scurvy. When
the first emigrant ships went out to Australia, one-third of
the passengers perished on the voyage, but when the ship-owners
were forced to alter their terms and receive pay only for those
they landed safely, the death-rate became smaller than when
these same persons were living upon shore. In Queen Elizabeth’s
time, one in two thousand of her London subjects was murdered
annually. At the same rate there would be 2,500 murders every
year in London now, whereas the number is no more than twelve.
This is what the lighter street and a more efficient police
have done for the British metropolis. Facts like these are a
most wholesome and agreeable corrective for the lament over the
departure of the “good old times,” so much affected by the cynic
and the pessimist.--Boston _Journal_.
(1560)
=IMPROVEMENT=
He came to my desk with a quivering lip,
The lesson was done--
“Dear teacher, I want a new leaf,” he said,
“I have spoiled this one.”
In place of the leaf so stained and blotted,
I gave him a new one all unspotted,
And into his sad eyes smiled--
“Do better now, my child.”
I went to the throne with a quivering soul,
The old year was done--
“Dear Father, hast Thou a new leaf for me,
I have spoiled this one?”
He took the old leaf, stained and blotted,
And gave me a new one all unspotted,
And into my sad heart smiled--
“Do better now, my child.”
(1561)
* * * * *
We can all help make the world better, as suggested by Annie Aldrich in
these verses:
Make the world a little better as you go;
And be thoughtful of the kind of seed you sow;
Try to make some pathway bright
As you strive to do the right,
Making the world a little better as you go.
Make the world a little better as you go;
You may help to soothe some fellow-creature’s wo;
You can make some burden light,
As you try with all your might
To make the world a little better as you go.
Make the world a little better as you go;
As you meet your brother going to and fro,
You may lend a friendly hand,
Lift the fallen! Help them stand!
Make the world a little better as you go.
(1562)
* * * * *
If Christian methods of felling the tree of evil had advanced as far as
the art of tree-cutting described below, we should soon be rid of bad
institutions and tendencies:
“It is reported in the German press,” says _Forestry and
Irrigation_, “that successful experiments have been made
in various forests of France in cutting trees by means of
electricity. A platinum wire is heated to a white heat by an
electric current and used like a saw. In this manner the tree is
felled much easier and quicker than in the old way, no sawdust
is produced, and the slight carbonization caused by the hot wire
acts as a preservative of the wood. The new method is said to
require only one-eighth of the time consumed by the old sawing
process.”
(1563)
* * * * *
Some day we shall be wise enough to utilize the hint suggested in the
extract, by caring as much at least for improving the human race as we
now care for improving our domestic animals:
A. Ogerodnikoff, a wealthy Russian dealer in furs in
Vladivostok, while visiting San Francisco, told an interesting
story of experiments made by his cousin, Rachatnikoff, who
has been devoting himself for years to the propagation of a
beautiful race of people. Ogerodnikoff, according to the press
reports, said:
“Years ago Rachatnikoff attracted to his estate especially
handsome men and girls of more than usual beauty by offering
free land to forty or fifty men carefully picked from among
a large number of applicants and selecting for them as wives
fine-looking young women from different parts of Russia. This
selected colony has flourished beyond all expectation, and over
a hundred children have been raised from these unions.
“These children are so pretty as to make the Rachatnikoff estate
famous.” (Text.)
(1564)
=Improvement, Material=--See ADVANCEMENT, RAPID.
=Improvement Meeting With Disfavor=--See SAFETY VALVES.