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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



don be sujDplied with water ? There would be few engineering difli- 

 culties if it were allowable to separate the supply of pure water for 

 drinking and cooking purposes from the much larger quantity required 

 for other purj^oses. Will people drink the impure water? Who can 

 decide such a question satisfactorily, except by experiment on a moder- 

 ate scale ? What could be more absurd than to spend millions uj^on 

 procuring a separate supply of pure drinking-water for the population 

 of London, and then finding that the population would drink the im- 

 pure water ? Many other like matters must be referred to trial, but it 

 is not the purpose of this article to present a catalogue of experimental 

 reforms, or to follow the argument out into all the possible details. 



I am well aware that social experiments must often be subject to 

 various difficulties, such as the migration of inhabitants, or even the 

 intentional frustration of the experiment by interested parties, I have 

 heard it said that the prohibition of liquor-traffic could not be tried on 

 a small scale, because the publicans would be sure to combine to send 

 liquor into the area. If they did so, the fact could readily be put in 

 evidence, and, if they can defeat the teetotalers in detail, I am quite 

 sure that they will defeat them upon any very great and general mea- 

 sure like the Permissive Bill, As to migration of inhabitants, it must 

 be provided against either by suitably increasing the areas of experi- 

 mental legislation, or else by collecting information as to the amount 

 and probable effects of the migration. But the main point of my theme 

 is to prove that we can not really plan out social reforms upon theo- 

 retical grounds. General argument and information of all kinds may 

 properly be employed in designing and choosing the best experiments, 

 but specific experience on a limited scale and in closely proximate cir- 

 cumstances is the only sure guide in the complex questions of social sci- 

 ence. Our method must be that of the supremely wise text : " Prove 

 all things; hold fast that which is good." — Contemporary Meview. 



CUEIOUS WAYS OF GETTmG FOOD. 



By HEKMAN L. FAIRCHILD, 



TO eat and to be eaten would seem the necessity and the end of 

 every living thing. Doubtless every plant may serve as food for 

 some animal ; and there is no animal which may not be meat for some 

 other animal. Nature is a vast hunting-ground, where man and beast 

 and every animated being are legitimate prey. Not alone do the car- 

 nivorous animals eat the herbivorous. The blood-loving tiger is itself 

 the prey of parasites. Even proud man is living booty. Animals 

 within animals ; life within life. There is literal truth in the satirical 

 passage : 



