172 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [June, 



The writer finds correcting by coma very puzzling; small difTer- 

 ences in the coma are not easy to perceive. Correction by color 

 is much the easier method, and is the one habitually employed. 

 These hints may be of service : In using histological mounts, 

 select a cell with nucleoli within the nucleus. When best correc- 

 tion is obtained these nucleoli will appear as sharp and well-sep- 

 arated grains. The fainter elements will then appear. In blood 

 mounts, select the narrow line of space between several contigu- 

 ous corpuscles, correct until this line is perfectly sharp. With 

 bacilli, correct the same as on the blood. 



EDITORIAL. 



Second-class Matter. — The U. S. Government, with a liber- 

 ality exceeding that of all other governments, permits us to send 

 out our issues upon payment of one cent per pound postage. But 

 circulars and advertising matter cost from i6 cents per pound 

 upward, according to the size of each package. Hence, people 

 whose primary motive is to advertise often put in a little reading 

 matter and try to smuggle the compound through at second-class 

 rates. They thus would cheat the Government and at times dis- 

 credit honest journalism. There is a periodical in New York 

 known as Printer s Ink., which inserts as much or more " reading 

 matter" than advertisements, but the P. O. Department has refused 

 it admission at second-class rates. Last year it paid $32,000 

 more for postage at third-class rates than it would have had to 

 pay on the same issues had they been admitted at second-class. 

 Its *■' reading matter" is as interesting to us as that in the average 

 of exchanges that come to us at second-class rates. And yet we 

 believe that almost every article of " reading matter " in every 

 issue is paid for by some concern wishing to advertise its goods. 

 We will risk this declaiation : If the publisher prints such matter, 

 which is unquestionably very valuable to certain trade people, 

 without exacting pay for so doing, he is not very sharp and is 

 not improving his opportunity. If he pays $33,000 postage at 

 third-class rates each year for the privilege of sending out such 

 articles free of charge he would seem to be losing money largely. 

 But we do not think this to be the case. 



Now, as to matters microscopical. There is a periodical, the 

 bi-monthly issues of which consist of S pages of text — 4S pages 

 per year, and from 6 to S pages of advertisements in every issue. 

 But the advertisements are nearly or quite all advertisements of 

 the goods of the publisher. The reading matter is very rarely 

 original and is clipped from Times & Register ., Jour. R. M. S., 

 Annals of Hygiene^ Observer., " Ex."" Therapeutic Review., 

 etc. At one time it clipped from our columns altogether too 



