_Luccheni Redivivus_ the London Lancet gives some interesting
psychological data which have been obtained since the imprisonment of
Luccheni, the assassin of the Austrian Empress. Twice since his trial
and conviction he has attempted suicide. Within the last few days (May
13th) his moral condition has undergone a change confirmatory in a
significant degree of the diagnosis which found vanity or megalomania
at the root of his crime. The cantonal juge d'instruction in an
attempt to ascertain if possible his associates in the crime, visited
him in his cell and approached the subject with what seemed to himself
due dexterity and caution. At once the previously downcast and abject
creature brightened up, his eyes sparkling with gratified
self-importance. "_I giornali riparlano di me?_" (So the journals are
talking of me again) he exclaimed interrogatively. The judge disclosed
the object of his visit. Luccheni thereupon dallied with his
interlocutor, smiling at his reminiscences of the crime, assuming airs
of reticence, even indulging in self-contradiction to tease if not
torment his judicial antagonist. It was learned, however, that in the
preliminaries leading up to the assassination he really had
accomplices; beyond this nothing new was elicited from him. The point
of chief importance, however, to be observed in this account is the
large part which vanity and a desire for the widespread public
attention which such crimes bring about plays in reconciling the
criminal to his fate, and even leading to the commission of the crime
in cases where the mental balance is very unstable. Hence this class
of criminals should always be tried and punished with as little
publicity as possible, not only because this policy deprives the
individual of a show, with himself as the center, but also because
every such public trial is liable to lead to the commission of similar
crimes by other mentally unsound degenerates, who are sure to attend
such spectacles whenever it is possible.
=Bounties and Free Trade.=--Much discussion is going on in England
over the question of bounties and the propriety of putting a tariff on
those imported articles which, owing to bounties or other form of
government aid at their place of manufacture, can be sold "too
cheaply." The following paragraphs are taken from an article in the
London Spectator: "In our opinion there can be no question between the
policy of free and open market and the policy of only allowing goods
to be sold here 'at the natural price of the world's market.' We hold
that the maintenance of an open and unhindered market is essential to
our welfare; ... that is the real principle involved, and that is the
ground on which this question of bounties must be fought out. It is
not Cobdenism or free trade that is involved, but that which underlies
them both--the great principle of the free and open market.... We
attach such immense importance to the open market because we believe
not only that our internal prosperity is essentially bound up with the
right, not merely of consumers, but of producers, to buy as cheaply as
they can and where and how they will, but that the empire itself rests
upon the preservation of a free and open market. Mr. Morley never
spoke a truer word than when he insisted that Cobden and Bright and
the old free traders were empire builders. That they were so and that
our empire could not possibly have grown up except with the help of
free trade and a market always open must be clear to all whose eyes
are not blinded by that evil and foolish spirit of commercial jealousy
under which a man, in order to injure his neighbor, wounds himself.
Free trade made our empire possible and created what the world before
had never seen, overwhelming commercial power wielded without jealousy
or narrowness and based on wide and liberal ideas. How long would our
colonies have tolerated the connection with us had we been forever
worrying them with tariffs and excluding this or that product because
it was unnaturally cheap?... As it is, we bid all men welcome in our
markets and none are aggrieved.... Foreign powers may hate us for our
wealth and prosperity, but not one of them would care to spoil their
best market. How would the commerce of France, or Germany, or Russia
get on if England were ruined and the English market destroyed? The
principle of maintaining a free and open market, coupled with our
moral and physical energy, and our liberal aims and aspirations have
given us a great and splendid empire. Are we to risk its destruction
because the sugar refiners grumble, and because the words of Cobden on
another subject may possibly be interpreted to show that he would not,
were he alive, have voted against the imposition of countervailing
duties?"
=Forest and Animal Life of the Catskills.=--The interior region of the
Catskill Mountains surrounding Kaaterskill Junction is assigned, by
Dr. E. A. Means in a paper of the United States National Museum, to
the Canadian faunal region, with a slight mixture of the Alleghanian
in the farming lands on the banks of Schoharie Creek. A few mammals of
the Upper Austral zones, however, such as the New England cottontail,
the deer mouse, and the gray fox, appear to have extended their ranges
into the locality by following up the clearings. Though the region is
now again well wooded, only the barest tags and remnants yet remain of
the splendid forests that once covered the area. All is second growth
except in the rockiest gulches, whence the lumber can not be
extracted, and about the rocky summits of a few mountains of the East
Jewett ranges. While the original forests seem to have been of
conifers, the woods are now very thoroughly mixed, and the succession
of trees according to altitudes, with its strongly marked division
lines, is no longer seen. Specimens of fifty-eight species of trees
and shrubs have been collected and placed in the National Museum. Only
ten species of mollusks, one crustacean (the common crawfish),
probably a dozen fishes (the author identifies eight and mentions
others), eight batrachians, two snakes, and a turtle have been found.
Of mammals, thirty-five species are described as known to occur at the
present time, and eight as of doubtful occurrence now.
=Geology of Block Island.=--In a study of the geology and natural
history of Block Island, of which Arthur Hollick gives a summary in
the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, the most important
problem was whether the Amboy clay series was represented in the
island. Of fifteen species of fossil leaves and fruit capable of
identification, represented by about twenty-five specimens, at least
nine were typical of the Amboy flora. Observations on dip and strike
of strata tended to emphasize the fact of contortion of glacial
action, the dip in all cases being toward the north, indicating that
the strata had been pushed southward in a series of overthrust folds
by the advancing ice front. The flora may be divided physiographically
into that of the hills, the peat bogs and pond holes, the salt
marshes, the sand dunes, and the salt water. Trees are rare, and such
vegetation as is dependent on forestal conditions is absent. The bulk
of the surface is that of a typical morainal region, with rounded
hills and corresponding depressions, many of the depressions being
occupied by swamps or ponds, often without any visible outlet. Running
streams are few and insignificant, and permanent springs occur only in
a limited number of localities. The soil is bowlder till and gravel,
with sand in the dunes and beaches, and there are no outcrops of rock.
The flora is morainal in its general character, except in the peat
bogs and on the limited sand dunes and sea-beach areas, and has its
nearest analogue in that of Montauk Point. "In fact, if we could
imagine Montauk Point to be despoiled of its few remaining trees and
converted into an island it would bear a striking resemblance,
geologically and botanically, to Block Island." Considering the
geological features of Long Island, Block Island, Martha's Vineyard,
and Nantucket, and comparing their floras, we find that all except
Block Island have some of the plain region remaining with them, on
which a characteristic flora finds a home. Block Island has lost all
its plain region and accompanying flora, and is now merely an isolated
portion of the terminal moraine, with small areas of modern sand beach
and dune formations, affording a home only for such species as can
exist under such conditions. The island appears to have been
extensively wooded before it was settled, and large stumps, together
with roots and branches, are found in some of the peat bogs. The
scarcity of animal life on the island is sure at once to attract the
attention of the observer from the mainland. Tree-living birds are
absent, but robins, bank swallows, red-winged blackbirds, and meadow
larks occur with some frequency. Among mollusks, the periwinkle of the
Old World, an importation or migration, is the most abundant. Frogs
and spotted turtles are plentiful, and a few small striped snakes were
seen by Mr. Hollick. The archæology of the island is being studied by
persons specially interested in the subject.
=The Claims of the High School.=--In considering the right of the
public high school to be a just charge upon the public treasury, Mr.
Frank A. Hill, of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, finds
that less than one fifth of the school money raised in the State is
expended on account of these schools, whereas if the number of pupils
in each of the thirteen grades of school was equal and the money was
evenly divided, the higher grades would be entitled to four
thirteenths, or nearly one third of it. To an objection sometimes
raised against the high-school system that the "toiling millions" will
have no use for more than the teaching of the elementary grades, Mr.
Hill asks, Who has a right to decide whether one child shall have a
greater or less amount of instruction than another? "And so freedom of
choice, when the question of what one's life work shall be comes up,
is a basic thing in government by the people. Upon the wisdom of this
choice turns the welfare of each unit in the State, and therefore of
the State itself." Hence the State has no right to refuse to one any
opportunity of preparing himself to exercise this freedom of choice
which it accords to another. There has never been a time since 1647
when the laws of Massachusetts did not require certain towns to
maintain grammar schools, of which the high schools are the modern
equivalents, at public expense, and when the colony became a State a
perpetual obligation was imposed upon the Legislature and magistrates
"to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences and all
seminaries of them, especially the university at Cambridge, public
schools, and grammar schools in the towns."
=Degeneration.=--Dr. William C. Krauss, in a paper on The Stigmata of
Degeneration, describes degeneration as meaning, in pathology, the
substitution of a tissue by some other regarded as less highly
organized, less complex in structure, of inferior physiological rank,
or less suited for the performance of the original function. The same
definition may apply equally well, according to Dr. Krauss, in human
ontogeny, "where we can regard a normal man as possessing a certain
number of units of strength capable of supplying or exerting a certain
number of units of work or force, varying of course according to the
environment, education, and fixity of purpose of the individual. It
would be obviously unfair to compare a professional man or a
brain-worker, whose units of work are intuitively manifold more than a
hand-worker, and declare the latter a degenerate because his force and
energy, as measured by the world's standard, are not as productive as
the former. The questions of money standard and time-worth are foreign
to the laws of degeneracy, and are not to be regarded in any way. The
degenerate must be considered solely and alone upon the physical,
mental, and abnormal stigmata which brand him as an abnormal or
atypical man, and prevent him from exerting himself to the highest
limit commensurate with his skill and development." The author's paper
treats in detail of the various aspects of degeneracy.
=Birds as Pest Destroyers.=--The French journal, _Le Chasseur_, puts
in a plea for the animals that should not be killed. "Why destroy
spiders, except in rooms, while they check the increase of flies? Why
tread on the cricket in the garden, which wars upon caterpillars,
snails, and grubs? Why kill the inoffensive slowworm, which eats
grasshoppers? Why slay the cuckoo, whose favorite food is the
caterpillar, which we do not like to touch? Why destroy the nuthatch
and de-nest the warbler, foes of wasps? Why make war on sparrows,
which eat seeds only when they can not get insects, and which
exterminate so many grain-eating insects? Why burn powder against
starlings, which pass their lives in eating larvæ and picking vermin
from the cattle in the fields? (But they eat grapes too.) Why destroy
the ladybird, which feeds on aphides? Why lay snares for titmice, when
each pair take on an average one hundred and twenty thousand worms and
insects for their little ones? Why kill the toad, which eats snails,
weevils, and ants? Why save the lives of thousands of gnats by
destroying goat-suckers? Why kill the bat, which makes war on night
moths and many bugs, as swallows do on flies? Why destroy the shrew
mole, which lives on earthworms, as the mouse does on wheat? Why say
the screech owl eats pigeons and chickens, when it is not true, and
why destroy it when it takes the place of seven or eight cats by
eating at least six thousand mice a year?"
=The Yang-tse-Kiang.=--In a lecture before the London Foreign Press
Association Mrs. Isabella Bishop describes the Yank-tse-Kiang as one
of the largest rivers of the world, it draining an area of 650,000
square miles, within which dwell a population of 180,000,000. In the
journey to the far East, the scenery at Szu-chuan changed from savage
grandeur and endless surprises to the fairest scenes, with prosperity,
peace, law, and order seeming to prevail everywhere. Erroneous ideas
were often entertained about Chinese social life and surroundings.
China had many trade associations, which were often strengthened by
alliance with guilds. They were composed of men in any particular
trade or employment, who bound themselves for common action in the
interest of that trade. They might rightly be called trade unions,
for through their elected officers they prescribed hours of labor and
minimum wages and made trade rules, the breach of which was punishable
by fine and expulsion. The Chinese people displayed much benevolence
and social kindness one to another, and had societies for providing
free coffins and seemly burial in free cemeteries for the poor, soup
kitchens, foundling institutions, asylums, orphanages, and medical
dispensaries. Throughout the whole of the Yang-tse basin the author
was impressed with the completeness of Chinese social and commercial
organization by the existence of patriotism or public spirit, by great
prosperity, and by the absence of the decay often attributed to the
nation. Of the prevailing "expansion" or territorial robbery fever
Mrs. Bishop said that we were coming to think only of markets and
territories, and to ignore human beings, and were breaking up, in the
case of a fourth of the human race, the most ancient of the earth's
existing civilizations without giving for our supposed advantage a
fair equivalent.
="Somewhat" Poisonous Plants.=--In Prof. B. D. Halsted's paper in the
State Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletins on The Poisonous
Plants of New Jersey, besides the descriptions of plants recognized as
poisonous internally and to the touch, a list is given of "many
somewhat poisonous plants." Among these the catalpa and ailantus
produce emanations that are disagreeable and sometimes poisonous, and
catalpa flowers, when handled, will produce an irritation of the skin.
The thorn of the Osage orange leaves a poisoned wound. The young
leaves of the red cedar and the arbor vitæ are irritating to the skin
and may produce blisters, and the pitch of the spruce causes itching.
Balm of Gilead may cause blistering. The green bark of the club of
Hercules is irritating to the skin. The herbage of oleander affects
some persons like poison ivy, the bark of the daphne causes blisters,
and the juice of the box produces an itching with many persons. To
some the herbage of the wild clematis is acrid and unpleasant. Many of
the wild herbs have acrid properties, among them skunk cabbage, Indian
turnip, cow parsnip, several of the mustards, and the juice of red
pepper and stonecrop. Garden rue and the short bristles of the borage
are irritating. Some persons have had their skin inflamed by handling
the garden nasturtium. Other plants not always pleasant to handle are
meadow-saffron bulbs, garlic, juice of bloodwort and celandine, the
smartweed, the herbage of the poke, monkshood, larkspur, bearberry,
some of the buttercups, anemone, star cucumber, various burs, daisy
flowers, hairy plants, the nettles, sneeze-weed, the corpse plant, and
some of the toadstools. Flax spinners have a flax poison, jute workers
a rash, hop pickers a disagreeable irritation of the hands, and the
grinders of mandrake root find the powder irritating to the face. It
is not unusual for persons who gather plants in field and forest to
receive sensations akin to those produced by mosquitoes, which are
often chargeable to the plants. Other animals than man are less
susceptible to the effects of contact poisons.
=The Dangers of Hypnotism.=--In a review of the medico-legal aspects
of hypnotism Dr. Sydney Kuh inquires whether the hypnotized can be
injured physically or mentally by hypnotization, and whether they can
fall victims to crime. Summing up a number of cases cited as bearing
on the former question, he finds that hypnotism is now generally
conceded to be a pathological and not a physiological condition; that
its use, when resorted to too frequently, is liable to bring on mental
deterioration; that it may be the cause of chronic headache or of an
outbreak of hysteria; that at times it has an undesirable effect upon
pre-existing mental disease; and that in some cases it may even
produce an outbreak of insanity. He has learned of a few cases on
record in which hypnotism was directly or indirectly responsible for
the death of the patient. On the other hand, "we all know that
hypnotism is a useful therapeutic agent practically only in cases of
functional disease which only very rarely endangers the patient's
life." Seeking simpler, less dangerous methods of treating maladies
for which hypnotism has been recommended, the author has experimented
upon the use of suggestion in the waking state, with results that
encourage him. A large series of cases convinced him that a
hypodermic injection of _aqua destillata_, given under proper
precautions and circumstances, so as to impress the patient deeply,
will produce very nearly, if not quite, as many cures as
hypnotization. As for the other question, laboratory experiments
indicate that a hypnotized person may be induced to commit acts
bearing the aspect of crime, but that when the case becomes a serious
one something will most likely occur in the mind of the patient or the
conditions to prevent the consummation. The result is too uncertain
and difficult, and the risks are too many and various, even to permit
the use of hypnotism as an instrument of crime to become common or
really dangerous. And the author's conclusion is that the dangers of
hypnotism lie much more in its use for experimental and therapeutical
than for criminal purposes.
=Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb.=--Of the two principal methods of
instructing deaf-mutes in this country, as defined by Mr. J. C.
Gordon, of the Illinois Institution, in the sign method, deaf-mutes
are taught a peculiar language of motions of the arm and upper part of
the body, to which they learn to attach signification through usage.
For instance, to teach the word _cat_ to a deaf child a sign teacher
would show the child a cat or a picture of a cat. He would next direct
attention to the cat's whiskers, drawing the thumb and finger of each
hand lightly over them. "A similar motion of the thumb and hand above
the teacher's upper lip at once becomes a sign for cat." After the
sign has become familiar the child is trained to write the word cat on
a slate, blackboard, or sheet of paper, and by frequent repetition the
pupil associates the written word with the sign for cat, so that the
written word recalls the gestural sign, and the gestural sign serves
to recall the concept cat. This language is acquired more readily than
any other means of communication. The other method is the intuitive,
direct, or English-language method, and, while it would require the
use of the living cat or the recognition of the picture of a cat by
the deaf child, would connect the written or spoken word directly with
the object, without the intervention of any artificial finger-sign.
Wherever this method prevails the English language in its written or
spoken forms, or in its finger-spelled form, becomes the ordinary
means of communication between teachers and pupils, so that every step
in instruction requires the use of the English language, which is
practically both the instrument and the immediate end of instruction.
All the schools called oral use this method. It can be used in
connection with finger-spelling, but not with the sign method.
=Experiments in Nature Study.=--Some very interesting features of
school children's Nature study--not the teaching of science, but the
seeing and understanding of the common objects of the external
world--are illustrated in a report of Cornell Agricultural Experiment
Station, from incidents of school life in some of the New York
schools. The children in the sixth grade of one of the schools of
Saratoga Springs provided themselves with eggshells filled with earth
and sown with wheat. "The botanical side was made a lesson well
flavored with active interest. The pride of ownership and a plant
coming from a spoonful of earth had the charm of a creation all the
pupil's own, and it was much more real to study the thing itself than
to read about it and make a recitation." Geographical applications
were made by tracing the introduction and extension and transportation
of the crop, and by means of the exchange of correspondence the wheat
belt could be traced and plotted in every State of the Union. The
children of Corning gathered seeds and divided them into classes as
indicated by the means of travel with which they are provided. A small
boy felt himself a profound investigator when he discovered the
advantage some seeds have in being able to float and ride on the
water. It required no hard drill to learn the names. The summer
planting of flowers by the children of Jamestown resulted in a flower
show in the fall. Many children took the tent caterpillar, reared it
from the eggs, and learned all about its metamorphoses. "Nature study
can be made elastic. In the kindergarten it can be idealized so as to
approach a fairy story. It can be intensified so that in the high
school it will have all the solidity of pure science." The best proof
that the idea is bearing fruit is that teachers are asking for
definite instruction on the subject, and a course has been provided
for them. The study should be so informal as not to admit of
systematic examination.