56 



THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



Frankfort and at Berlin I wandered in 

 the beautiful Palm gardens and parks, 

 listened to the music and watched the 

 people in their perfect quiet enjoyment. 

 There was the pater familias, who dur- 

 ing the week is tied to his work, with his 

 wife and children, happy in the content- 

 ment of his family. There was the 

 mother busily knitting or looking after 

 the children, and was there excessive beer 

 drinking ? None whatever. In the 

 evening the open air concert places are 

 lit up by small fairy lamps amongst 

 which the throngs wander in perfect de- 

 portment and respectability. I ask you, 

 could such places thrive here? How 

 quickly would they sink to the disreput- 

 able and cast an odium about the locality. 



My time is rapidly drawing to a close, 

 but I will not stop till we make a jump 

 from Germany to Rome, so that I can tell 

 you what befell me there. It was on Aug- 

 ust 6, 1892, and I was told a grand festi- 

 val was to be held in the Church of Sante 

 Marie Maggiore. I hastened thither and 

 having run the gauntlet of beggars and 

 cripples who blocked the doorway seek- 

 ing alms, I stood within the grand edifice 

 whose marbled pillars were clothed in the 

 finest drapery, with altar decorated and 

 crowded with choir-boys, and as they 

 chanted the hymns, I observed small 

 flakes like snow fall from the ceiling, 

 then coming taster and thicker till the 

 floor, choristers and priests were covered 

 with this apparent snow. The scene was 

 so unique and strange that I could not 

 help but to investigate it, and learned that 

 in some past century a priest and some 

 pope had each dreamed that snow to the 

 depth of three inches had fallen during 

 the night. And each, unknown to the 

 other, had wandered to this spot to as- 

 certain the truthfulness of the dream. 

 And as the story goes, there they met 

 and marvelled, and to commemorate the 



event a church was built upon the spot 

 (and a costly edifice at that), where each 

 year on August 6th the festival of the 

 falling snow is celebrated. 



My friends, I pity the poor Chinese in 

 their idolatry and ignorance, but pray, 

 what do you call this ? Where is the 

 Christianity ? Where is that benevolence 

 when money is spent in decorating the 

 house of God, while God's poor, beggar- 

 ed creatures stand at the doorway penni- 

 less ! I leave you to think about it. 



My contract was not to make you suf- 

 fer longer than one hour, hence although 

 I have covered very little ground, I will 

 stop. One of the last things I did in 

 Europe was to kiss the Blarney Stone, so 

 as to become a fluent talker, but had I 

 ever dreamed that I would ever address 

 you, I would have kissed it several times 

 more, so as to make my talk more inter- 

 esting. 



THE VARIOUS SYNTHETIC PROCESSES 

 FOR VANILLIN. 



By Prof. VIRGIL COBIvENTZ. 



The following presents a very interest- 

 ing study on the subject of Vanillin, by 

 Dr. Altschul, (^Pharvi. Centrh.), which 

 serves to illustrate the possibilities of or- 

 ganic synthesis. The search for syn- 

 thetic methods of production for the 

 natural perfumes and essences, has like 

 that of the newer synthetic remedies of 

 late years, developed a special field of 

 organic research. Thus we have for 

 many years prepared artificial fruit flavors 

 by the action of fatty acids on the various 

 alcohols, these have been followed speci- 

 ally by such products as the artificial oil 

 of wintergreen (methyl-ester of salicylic 

 acid), eugenol, bitter almond oil (artifi- 

 cial), thymol, artificial musk (nitrated 

 butyl toluenes) and others. During the 



