As Parliament does not meet for another week, there must be a delay of
a few days before the recommendations of Convocation are carried into
effect, but it is unnecessary to remark that they will be adopted
unchallenged by the Legislature. Since the solemn Protest, carried by
the 50,000 doctors, who marched down Whitehall in procession, “against
the Interference of the Secular Power in Things Medical,” no Minister
of the Crown, much less any private member, has attempted to move an
Amendment to any of the numerous Bills presented by the profession.
After the Report of Convocation, the _Age of Science_ contains one
column of STOCKS AND SHARES, not possessing any special interest for
readers of the present day, but appearing to prove, strangely enough,
that investments are much fewer than in our time, and cannot be made in
any Foreign securities. After these, in lieu both of NAVAL AND MILITARY
INTELLIGENCE, and of the CHURCH, five columns are devoted to MEDICAL
APPOINTMENTS AND PROMOTIONS, and to a considerable correspondence on the
proposed endowment of two new Physicianships (with seats in the House of
Lords) at St. Albans and Truro. After all these we find twenty columns
devoted to LATEST INTELLIGENCE, in short paragraphs, of which we cull a
few of the most interesting.
_OCCASIONAL NOTES._
The magnificent Joss House now in process of erection by the Chinese
of London forms a striking ornament to Regent Street, standing as it
does on the site of the old deserted Langham Chapel. It will, we
imagine, be the only place dedicated to religious purposes which has
been built during the last twenty years in the metropolis, and almost
the only one in actual use. Although we cannot, of course, ourselves,
as a Scientific nation, formally join in the worship of Buddha, we
must all regard with sympathy and satisfaction the honours paid to
that great Teacher by the very important section of our community, the
Chinese day labourers and domestic servants, of whom it is said more
than half a million have contributed to the erection and adornment of
this Temple. Considering the impossibility of inducing Englishmen to
undertake in these days the lower kinds of work, we should come
altogether to a standstill were it not for the tens of thousands of
industrious Chinese who have replenished our labour market. The statue
of Buddha is a noble work of modern sculpture by Mr. Merino. The
traditional pose of the crossed legs is slightly altered to bring them
within the rules of scientific anatomy, and the Sage is obviously
pondering those profound lessons of Pessimism (that it is a bad world
we live in, and that we need not expect a better) which have justly
secured for him the reverence of cultivated Europe.
* * * * *
An accident of the ordinary sort occurred last night to the new
Magnetic train, which was at the moment passing under the Channel,
about 10 miles from Dover. From messages sent by the portable electric
machine along the wires the moment before the catastrophe took place,
it would appear that the engineers have been again at fault in the
construction of the roof of the tunnel, and that the sea was rushing
in with such violence that little hopes were entertained of bringing
the train to the next watertight compartment. The result justified
these fears, for the whole compartment of the tunnel in which the
train was stopped is to-day entirely full of water, and it must be
assumed that the unfortunate passengers—numbering, it is supposed,
about 800—have been drowned like so many rats in a trap. The accident
is unfortunate for the proprietors of Submarine Tunnel Stock, and also
for several Insurance Companies, as extensive repairs will be
required; but Science teaches us to regard these occurrences with
composure, as serving to check the increase of a superabundant
population.
* * * * *
The Simian Educational Institute (on Frobel’s system), for members of
the Ape family, continues to attract the strongest interest. In
testing the educability of the Simian tribe we are solving one of the
most important problems of Science, and hitherto everything seems to
promise the triumphant success of the experiment. There are now among
the pupils at the Institute three Chimpanzees, whose grandfathers and
grandmothers have all been well-educated monkeys; so that the set of
the brain of these young people is already marked towards progress and
civilization. It is needless to observe that all the students are
required to wash and dress themselves every morning in the becoming
male and female habiliments provided by the taste of the Governors of
the Institute. Great pains are also taken with their manners at meal
times, and, to avoid temptation, nuts are not admitted at dessert. One
of the young gentlemen (Joseph Macacus Silenus, Esq., generally known
by his intimates as “Joe”) is said to exhibit extraordinary talents,
and to be able to answer any question in elementary science by means
of an alphabet and a system of knocks, which (in view of the yet
unconquerable speechlessness of monkeys) has been accepted as the best
substitute for language, having been formerly invented by an ingenious
race of impostors named Mediums, who flourished in the obscurity of
the Victorian age. The plan adopted in France, in deference to the
advice of the great French naturalist, M. Houzeau, to employ the
anthropoid apes as domestic servants, has proved, we are informed,
altogether successful in several families. Madame Le Singe, a fine
specimen of the Gorilla tribe, has acted for some months as
confidential Nurse in the family of a distinguished Member of the
Institute (M. Gobemouche), and is said to maintain discipline among
her charges excellently well. It is an instructive spectacle to see
Madame Le Singe walking on a fine day with the children, and pushing a
perambulator in the Gardens of the Tuileries. The more ordinary
employment found, however, for domestic Apes is that of cooks, when it
is observed they occasionally call in the services of the household
cat to assist them as kitchenmaid, especially when roast chestnuts
form part of the entertainment.
* * * * *
The cheerful ceremony of opening the new “Incineration Hall” was
performed an hour ago in Manchester by the Lord Doctor of Manchester,
attended by the Mayor. It is a magnificent building, with a furnace
capable of reducing 12 bodies at a time to ashes, which, after a
certain period, will be used in the manufacture of water-filters for
the drinking-fountains of the town. It is specially fortunate that the
Hall can be employed at once, since the number of persons despatched
by Euthanasia has been so great during the past week all over the
country that the other Cremation establishments have proved inadequate
to dispose of the corpses with sufficient rapidity.
* * * * *
An important addition has been made to that instructive place of
public amusement, the Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park. The ground
formerly occupied by a great Dissenting College (long in ruins) has
been devoted to a department destined to contain those species of
animals which are rapidly dying out in Europe, and which, if not thus
carefully preserved, must soon be lost altogether to Zoological
science. Among these are the Ass, the Fox, the Dog, the Hare, the
Pheasant, and Partridge. In this age of Science it is, of course,
impossible to go on employing a creature like the Donkey, proverbial
for its intellectual deficiency, and we have no regret that only two
pair of animals of the species (both in the Regent’s Park collection)
now survive in England, though a few are said to linger in Egypt.
Connected with the dog (_Canis Familiaris_) there are so many
traditional records of sagacity, having a certain scientific interest
in connection with the form and size of its brain, that we should have
been glad if a more complete collection of the varieties could have
been preserved. The Foxhound, however, the Greyhound, Setter, and
Pointer, seem all to have become extinct within about thirty years of
the repeal of the Game Laws and the consequent cessation of held
sports; and several of the more favoured kinds of dogs—Italian
Greyhounds, Toy Terriers, Pomeranians, and Poodles—were, it is said,
privately destroyed by hundreds by their owners, who disgracefully
sought to withdraw them from the researches of physiologists. The
remaining kinds have been perhaps rather recklessly used by
vivisectors, whose ardour in the noble cause of science has caused
them to experiment, on an average, on about 14,000 dogs apiece (an
example originally set by the sainted Maurizio Schiff), and the result
has been that we only find at present twelve animals surviving, of
whom nine belong to the class Mongrel. One noble old Newfoundland, who
would have greatly graced the collection, was, it is said, drowned by
his owner last year under interesting circumstances. The dog was much
devoted to his master (a celebrated physiologist), and especially to
his boy, a child of six years old. One day the little fellow fell out
of a boat, and sank for the last time, when the dog arrived, and with
immense difficulty (the water being very deep and stormy) dived for
him and brought him safe to shore. The animal itself was so nearly
exhausted that its stertorous breathing and other symptoms suggested
to the physiologist the scientific interest which would attach to
watching it slowly drowning in a suitable vessel, where all the
conditions of that death could be accurately investigated on so large
a scale as that of a full sized dog. The learned gentleman
accordingly, in obedience to these fine and fleeting suggestions of
the intellect, drowned the animal in a tub in his physiological
laboratory as soon as his son was sufficiently recovered to witness
the instructive and entertaining spectacle. The dog, when withdrawn
half dead for a moment from the water, having attempted to lick the
boy’s face, the child was weak enough to implore his father to spare
it; but the learned gentleman of course pointed out to the boy the
folly of such a request, and the experiment was completed. We trust to
see this young gentleman hereafter as sound and eminent a physiologist
as his distinguished father.
After some five columns more of similar _Intelligence_, the _Age of
Science_ proceeds to give its readers a few Reviews of Books. The
brevity of the remarks vouchsafed to these productions seems to indicate
that no great importance is attached to Literature properly so called,
but only to treatises on Physical Science.