446 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



moved at will from the center of the great city where they have 

 been confined in the slums to the broad areas of the suburbs where, 

 under better conditions of life, the same work may be conducted 

 even in their households. Is it to be pretended that by the power 

 of legislation the State constable may enter the household of a 

 free citizen of this country and may prescribe to him, his wife, and 

 his children how they shall work and what number of hours they 

 shall operate the loom, the knitting-machine, the sewing-machine, 

 or any other of the appliances which may be set in motion by elec- 

 trical power, lighted by electric light, and directed by electrical 

 speech at the touch of a button in the wall ? If the State constable 

 may not enter the household, may not invade the home, he may 

 not enter the factory or invade " the close," to use the old-time 

 term cited by Lord Camden, where men and women may choose 

 to work according to their own will and to control their own time 

 according to their own judgment. 



One may not defend this abuse of legislation under the pre- 

 tense that it comes within the police power of the State. True, 

 the Supreme Court of the United States has left these matters up 

 to this time to State legislation, but its justices have more than 

 once laid down the rule under which the Legislatures must act 

 or else the supreme power of the land may forbid any restriction 

 upon personal liberty.* 



In view of the certainty with which these principles have been 

 laid down and will be maintained by all the courts of this country, 

 may it not be judicious to put an end to the continual attempts 

 of sentimentalists, of pseudo-reformers, and of unenlightened 

 workmen, to impair the personal liberty of adult men and women 

 and to take from them their right of free contract by an appeal to 

 the courts of highest jurisdiction ? 



Among the facts which Mr. Hugh Nevill cited at the International Congress 

 of Orientalists to illustrate the theory of a philological connection between Egypt 

 and India, was the use of rice-boats by the Goyi caste of Ceylon, which curiously 

 recalls the oracle-boats of Egypt. Rice was still pounded for ceremonial festivals 

 in these boats of stone or wood, while at the ruins of Amrajapura large stone 

 boats were found of dates between b. o, 200 and a. d. 400, which were used to 

 hold rice for the royal alms. The use of an image of Kamadhenu, the celestial 

 cow, among the Tamils of southern India and Ceylon, must be regarded as a sur- 

 vival of Isis-worship. The image was used as a car at Mulaition, to support an 

 image of Tantondiswara, or Siva, the self-created. The myth and custom were 

 of obscure antiquity, the celestial cow typifying, in southern Indian mythology, 

 the fertility of Nature. The author did not assert that the affinity observed be- 

 tween Egypt and India came from the former place to the latter ; for it might or 

 might not date from a time and place before Isis-worship reached its great seat 

 in Egypt. 



*Calderi;5. Bull, 3 Dal., 386 (p. 388). 



