EFFECTS, OF VAGRANT ELECTRICITY. 365 



and sweep the trolleys off the face of the earth. The instinct of 

 self-preservation, if nothing else, demands that the electric-railway 

 companies should put forth every endeavor to solve the electrolysis 

 problem. 



And yet, conservative judgment requires that the railway com- 

 panies should not take the initiative. It is one of boyhood's max- 

 ims not to shoot arrows at a hornet's nest unless one has mud 

 handy to apply to the subsequently afflicted part. Thus it hap- 

 pens that the railway company remains apparently inactive, bear- 

 ing the burden of public condemnation, while we, whose lethargy 

 is responsible for failing pipes, read electrolysis articles in the daily 

 press and wonder how soon the impending catastrophe is likely to 

 occur. 



This condition of affairs is deplorable; for, while we may not 

 care how extensively or how frequently the city authorities or the 

 private corporations are obliged to renew their underground metals, 

 we are at least vitally concerned as to whether the stray electricity 

 is endangering our steel office buildings, our bridges, our water 

 supply, our immunity from conflagrations, and the safety of the 

 hundred and one appliances that go to make up our modern civili- 

 zation. 



Are the Brooklyn Bridge anchor plates going to pieces, or are 

 they not? Are the elevated railroad structures about to fall apart, 

 or are they not? The consulting electrical engineer says "Yes," 

 the railway man says " No." The municipal authorities say noth- 

 ing. " When doctors disagree " 



I deem it doubly unfortunate that so much valuable brain 

 energy has been inefficiently expended in the discussion of elec- 

 trolysis. Each writer has viewed it from his own standpoint. 

 Electrical literature has acquired in this way a series of views, in- 

 teresting and instructive, but also bewildering. There is no com- 

 posite view, such as might be obtained from the report of a com- 

 mission composed of a technical representative of each of the in- 

 terests affected. So far as I am able to learn, such a commission 

 has never existed. 



A CURIOUS coincidence of superstitions, illustrating anew how all men 

 are kin, is exemplified in the native belief, mentioned in Mrs. R. Langloh 

 Perkins's book of More Australian Legendary Tales, that any child who 

 touches one of the brilliant fungi growing on dead trees — which are called 

 " devil's bread " — will be spirited away by ghosts. An English reviewer 

 of the book remembers having been dragged away from a fungus of this 

 kind for the same reason. In the north of England children used to be 

 told that, if they touched the dangerous growths, a fungus of the same 

 kind would grow from the tip of every finger. 



