PHOTOGRAPHY PERFECTED.--In 1838 I conceived it possible, by chemical
means, to fix in permanency, on a suitable ground, the images of
objects formed by the camera. While speculating on this, the discovery
of Daguerre was announced, but I was disappointed, as he had not
photographed colors as well as forms. I felt sure that it was
possible, and a half century has realized it. Mr. J. J. E. Myall, a
London photographer of great scientific skill, has succeeded in
photographing the colors as well as forms of objects and fixing a
permanent picture. More recent advices throw some doubt on this.
THE CANNON KING.--Alfred Krupp, the greatest cannon-maker of the world,
died at his works, Essen, Prussia, on the 14th of July, seventy-five
years old. His works covered nearly a square mile, while his fortune
was about $40,000,000. He employed 10,000 men at Essen, and over 7,000
at other places. He owned nearly 600 iron and coal mines, 6 smelting
works, 14 blast furnaces, 5 steamers, and 140 steam-engines. He was a
plain, industrious man, shunned all ostentation, refused titles, and
took good care of his workmen. Yet was his business an honorable one?
If the man who supplies alcoholic beverages to drunkards is condemned
by the general sentiment of the temperate community, what should we
think of one who supplies slung-shot, poison, and daggers to
assassins? But how little harm is there in such implements compared to
the slaughtering work of the terrible cannon of Krupp, which are to be
used only for wholesale homicide. Such questions must be considered by
moralists. The _Boston Herald_ in a sudden and unexpected flash of
ethical sentiment, says, "Herr Krupp sold his guns to different
governments for the purpose of enabling them to fight each other.
There is no code in modern ethics that would condemn an action of this
kind, and yet it seems to us that the time may come when a man who
made his fortune by supplying men with arms for the purpose of killing
each other will be looked upon as one engaged in a highly immoral
enterprise." Is it not a terrible indictment of the _so-called_
Christian church to say, "There is no code in modern ethics that would
condemn" war and its accessories?
LAND MONOPOLY.--The United States government has squandered its rich
domain with signal folly, but Mexico has been far more reckless. It
has recently given away 60,000,000 of acres in Durango, Chihuahua, and
other regions to an American company represented by Henry B. Clifford.
It is not stated that any very valuable consideration has been given
for this grant.
THE GRAND CANALS.--Lesseps' Panama Canal has no bright prospect. The
enterprise has been badly managed, has cost a great sacrifice of life,
and over $200,000,000. It is employing from 12,000 to 14,000 men, but
its finances are nearly exhausted, and an American engineer says it
would take ten years for the present company to finish it, if they
could raise the money. The Nicaragua Canal, if started now by
Americans, would be finished first, and that would kill it entirely.
Meantime Captain Ead's Ship Railway at Tehuantepec is likely to make
canals unnecessary, for since his death his associate, Col. James
Andrews, has undertaken to finish it, and $1,500,000 more has been
raised at Pittsburg. This will carry the ships over the Isthmus by the
railroad method. The German government has just begun a grand canal at
Kiel, to connect the North Sea with the Baltic, large enough to allow
ships to pass, drawing twenty-seven feet. Greece is slowly at work on
a canal at the Isthmus of Corinth, and Massachusetts on a canal to cut
off Cape Cod. Russia has determined to build a grand railroad to the
Pacific Ocean across Asia, through Siberia, beginning next spring and
finishing in five years. When finished, Russians could travel from St.
Petersburg to the Pacific in fifteen days.
THE SURVIVAL OF BARBARISM.--Amid the fussy pomposity of the Queen's
jubilee, the voice of the thinkers has not been entirely silent. The
utter failure of her reign to present a single noble thought or
impulse, a single evidence of sympathy with the immense mass of
suffering, has been sharply commented on, not only in prose, but in
the vigorous verse of Robert Buchanan.
The scientific periodical _Nature_ suggests very appropriately that,
although the progress of the last half century has been due mainly to
the labors of scientific men, the leaders in science have been unknown
to the head of the government, and their labors prosecuted without aid
or sympathy from the throne. "The brain of the nation has been
divorced from the head."
But why not? Has it not always been so; did not the barons who once
ruled boast of their illiteracy? Science and philanthropy produce
wealth and elevate the people. The rulers consume that wealth and keep
the people down. Of course two classes so opposite are not in
sympathy. In the late jubilee, the titled, the wealthy, and the
hangers-on of government were given the prominent positions, and the
scientists ignored; as Nature said: "England is not represented, but
only England's paid officials and nobodies."
But it is too soon for scientists to demand an honorable position.
They should be content to escape the prison and the ostracism which
was once the reward for nobly doing their duty.
CONCORD PHILOSOPHY.--The summer school of (so-called) philosophy still
meets at Concord in July--the last survival of the speculative
ignorance of the dark ages, and the worship of Greek literature. The
copious ridicule of the press has no effect upon this serious
gathering. Its verbose platitudes and pretentious inanities continue
to be repeated, furnishing almost as good an antithesis to science and
philosophy as Mrs. Eddy and her disciples. There is no lack of fluency
and ingenuity in the use of language, and occasionally there are
glimmering and flashes of common sense, but to wander through the
first report of the present session, in pursuit of a correct
philosophic idea, is as unprofitable as to wander all day through
wintry snows to find a little game already dying of starvation. The
first lecture on Aristotle is the most unmitigated rubbish that the
year has produced. I regret that I have not space to criticise the
proceedings into which, however, Dr. Montgomery of Texas has injected
some bright thoughts, and the displays of learning relieve the general
monotony, while considerable intellectual energy is displayed in the
discussions; but to see a conclave of learned professors devoting
their time to the examination and discussion of Aristotle's writings
is about as edifying as to see a geographical society devoting its
time to discussing the geography of Ptolemy.
THE ANDOVER WAR to enforce the damnation of the uninstructed heathen
has been very unlucky. It has not disturbed the teachings of the
professors, but it has shown the public very plainly that it was
simply a _malicious_ attack on the president, Professor Smyth, the
other professors, who teach exactly the same doctrines, being entirely
undisturbed, although they presented themselves for trial. The time is
coming when intelligent men will be ashamed to confess a belief in the
devil, and the old-fashioned hell-fire,--indeed the time has already
arrived among the most intelligent.
THE CATHOLIC REBELLION.--About five years ago it was predicted,
through Mrs. Buchanan, that Catholicism in New York would undergo a
change, as many spirits were actively at work to liberalize the minds
of Catholics, especially at the time of Easter, and to wean them from
their attitude of abject submission. There were no indications of such
a tendency at that time, and the movement of the Catholic masses in
sympathy with Dr. McGlynn, who tells the Pope that he shall not meddle
with the politics of Americans or dictate their political action has
come like a sudden storm from a clear sky. Liberalized Catholics may
move in advance of Protestants for they have preserved a more vivid
spiritualism and religious faith.
STUPIDITY OF COLLEGES.--Clairvoyance and spiritual phenomena have been
in progress all over the world from periods beyond historic record,
but colleges have not yet learned of their existence. They are now
becoming familiar to millions, from the emperor to the beggar, and
still the colleges plod on in sanctified ignorance where the priest
rules, or in insolent dogmatism where the medical professor rules. Is
there anything in the way of demonstration that can overcome this
pachydermic stupidity?--doubtful! Clairvoyants have described
diseases, described distant places, described things in public, while
their eyes were bandaged--but the colleges learn nothing. Now there is
another test of the collegiate amaurosis, or cataract, or whatever it
may be, which has lasted 700 years, and has thus attained its
incurable character. A blind man is clairvoyant and psychometric. He
travels about almost as well as those who have eyes. His name is Henry
Hendrickson. The _Chicago Herald_ gives an interesting description. He
can find his way, can skate well, can read finger-language, and can
describe objects with a cloth thrown over his head. But this is only
another demonstration of second sight which has been demonstrated a
thousand times. Why should colleges recognize such facts? have they
not old Greek books for oracles which were written before the dawn of
science! What are Gall and Spurzheim, Darwin and Wallace, Crookes and
De Morgan, to professors who can fluently read Aristotle in Greek, and
can tell how Plato proved that a table is not a table but only a
mental phantasy!
CREMATION is making great progress in Europe. It is an old idea, not
only among the ancients but in modern times. In the last century it
was advocated in a very artistic way by Dr. Becker, a physician of
Germany, and Guirand, an architect in France. These gentlemen proposed
that the ashes of cremation should be fused into a glass and moulded
into all sorts of ornamental designs, fit for trinkets, monuments,
etc. This has a very fantastic appearance. What would we think of
General Washington's remains preserved in the Capitol as a crystal
globe of green glass? or how should we like to have our own remains
preserved in that brilliant manner? A beautiful woman might thus be
converted into some brilliant "thing of beauty--a joy forever."
COL. HENRY S. OLCOTT,--President and founder of the Theosophical
Society, is travelling in India, lecturing before the branches
scattered in every part of the country. He has been for months on this
tour, and spent last winter in Ceylon, where he was royally welcomed
and entertained by the Buddhists. Some years ago Col. Olcott joined
the Buddhist sect, and has done it good service in publishing a
Buddhist catechism, which has been widely circulated in the West. He
was, at last accounts, at Allahabad, where the thermometer stood, day
after day, at 105°, and at nearly that night after night. Despite the
heat his lecture rooms are crowded with interested listeners, and his
popularity was never so great as at present. He will return to Adyar,
the headquarters of the society in southern India, in October. The
report that he had returned to Europe this summer is incorrect, and
arose from the fact that Mme. Blavatsky was on the Continent very ill,
and her companions were several Theosophists who had been in India and
had returned to Europe. She is at present in London.--_N. Y. Sun._
JESSE SHEPARD,--the musical genius has built himself a beautiful
residence at San Diego, California. He has evoked unbounded admiration
and astonishment by giving one of his inspired performances in the
service of Father Ubach's Catholic church, at the morning mass.
PROHIBITION--has been very successful in Atlanta, Georgia in the past
18 months. It is well enforced. The wealth of the city has increased;
property has advanced in value; the laboring classes are more
prosperous; the schools are better attended; gambling has been
checked; crime has been checked, and the criminal courts transact
their business in one-seventh of the former time; there are about half
as many arrests, and the streets on which it was unsafe for a lady to
go alone, have become orderly. Local option has established temperance
in Georgia. Out of 137 counties 115 are controlled by prohibition. In
Iowa under prohibition, the Fort Madison Penitentiary is for the first
time short of the supply of convicts sufficient to fulfil the usual
contracts. England now has a national prohibition party, and Mr. Axel
GUSTAFSON is its leader.
LONGEVITY.--A news item from Columbia, S. C., reports a case of great
longevity as "attested by family records": that of Amy Avant, a
colored woman on the plantation of Major James Reeves, in Marion
County, who died May 24th, of measles, at the advanced age of 122
years. She was remarkably well preserved and retained all her
faculties up to the time of her fatal illness, previous to which she
claimed that she had never taken a dose of medicine. During the last
cotton-picking season she took her place regularly in the cotton
fields and always performed a good day's work.
ST. THOMAS, July 6.--Peter Barlow, who took part in the American
Revolution under Washington, died recently in Demerara, aged 130
years.
ROCKLAND.--John J. Whipple of this place was 100 years old to-day, and
as he is in excellent health, the old gentleman bids fair to live
another decade at least. Mr. Whipple says he believes in the "good old
way" of eating and drinking according to inclination, and though he
has never indulged in intoxicants to excess he has never abstained
entirely from either the use of tobacco or strong drink. Grandfather
Whipple is one of the authorities in the place where he lives, and his
memory is remarkable. His eye has a merry twinkle, and he can enjoy a
joke and tell a good story with any of the boys.--_Globe Democrat._
KNOXVILLE, Tenn., July 23.--Henry Cleggy of Meigs County, Tennessee,
is undoubtedly one of the oldest men in the State, having recently
celebrated his 105th birthday. Mr. Meigs takes pleasure in walking
about his farm, and has no idea of taking a trip from this world to
the next for at least a decade. The old gentleman's memory is
excellent and he remembers many incidents of long ago.--_Globe Dem._
INCREASE OF INSANITY.--Louisiana, like New York, Massachusetts, and
all highly civilized countries, is realizing the increase of insanity.
The State Asylum has recently been greatly enlarged but now there are
hundreds that it cannot receive.
EXTRAORDINARY FASTING, Jackson, Tenn., June 15.--W. M. Murchinson,
whose long fast has been mentioned before, died yesterday at Medon in
this county; having lived ninety days without drink or food. His
record is probably without parallel in the history of the medical
world. He was a gallant soldier in the Fourteenth Tennessee Cavalry
and followed the fortunes of that daring leader, Forrest, through the
Civil war, and lost an eye. He was about 45 years of age at the time
of his death. He had been in declining health for some months. His
throat became paralyzed one night three months ago while he was
asleep, and he could never swallow any nourishment after that time. He
was an honest, brave man and an esteemed citizen. He never married.
Several citizens from Jackson and surrounding country visited him
during his fast, and all were astonished that he could live so long
without food and drink.
SPIRITUAL PAPERS.--The Spiritual Offering, Light for Thinkers and
Light in the West, have died and been succeeded by "The Better Way,"
at Cincinnati.