1882 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



519 



other than those identical relics, and yet that seems 

 to be about the shape and the size of it. Friend 

 Root, I have great reluctance in confessing that I 

 was an inveterate smoker, when I see how much you 

 disapprove of the habit. But as my example may 

 have led or encouraged others in an evil way, I am 

 anxious, if possible, to help in turning some into a 

 good way. My plan and my experience differ from 

 that of many of your correspondents. It was not at 

 alldiflicult to leave off smoking. I had left off in the 

 course of twelve years probably more than fifteen 

 thousand times, and alter each leaving-off I would, 

 in a few hours, begin again. Well, on Tuesday 

 morning, Sept. 5, 1 left off as usual, and have ni>t be- 

 gun again. It is far away, and seems ever so long 

 ago, and I have nothing to do with it — no hanker- 

 ing, not much thought about it any way, though the 

 pungent odor is under my nose, and the fixings be- 

 fore my eyes nearly every hour in the daj'. Now, 

 friends who arc wedded to the weed and would fain 

 be free, try my plan: get far away, and stay long- 

 enough, and a divorce is accomplished. If not con- 

 venient to change your residence, next time you 

 leave off the smoke or the chew, instead of begin- 

 ning again, box up the apparatus and send off to 

 some distant place or person, real or imaginary, to 

 remain until called for; if the package ever comes 

 back to you from the Dead-letter OfHce, you may 

 look upon it with wonder, but with no desire to re- 

 sume the habit. I don't know how this plan will 

 work with those who chew, as they leave off so 

 often; but for smokers it is an infallible cure. 

 Medina, O., Sept. 17, 1883. B. Z. B. 



The above comes from one of our new 

 hands, who came from away down in Massa- 

 chusetts. Last Sabbath evening he gave us 

 a little talk in our young people's prayer- 

 meeting, and I liked what he said so well 

 that I took him over to the jail with me, 

 where the subject of tobacco came up. Aft- 

 erward, in speaking of it, I said, " Of course, 



you do not use tobacco, Mr. B V " His 



reply seemed a little indefinite, and he said 

 something about '' a great while ago.^'' This 

 morning I found the above on my type- 

 writer. May God give you grace, brother, 

 to keep that last cigar seven hundred miles 

 away, even though you do meet them daily 

 in the hotel where you stop. 



One of the signs of progress in Philadelphia, is the 

 forbidding of cigar-smoking on the cars of one of 

 the prominent lint s of street railway. Some of the 

 smoke-inclined passengers moan over this as an in- 

 fringement of their personal liberty. Ttiey even go 

 so far as to say their wives and mothers won't let 

 them smoke at home, and their employers and cus- 

 tomers won't allow it in their places of business; 

 and now they are shut off from being a nuisance on 

 the street cars.— Swukuj-School Timei<. 



I believe the Times has got it about right. 

 The time is fast coming when tobacco- 

 users are going to be crowded — crowded out 

 of intelligent and respectable society. I 

 know every one has a right to his ow^n opin- 

 ions, and he has a right to his own tobacco 

 smoke ; but I feel sure that tobacco-users 

 themselves will not claim a right to crowd it 

 on people whom it sickens. Which side are 

 you going to be on, my friend? There may 

 be some still left who think more of a young 

 man, after having seen him with a cigar in 

 his mouth; but I am sure the number is 

 daily growing smaller. 



FRIEND DADANT ON RAILROADS, AND 

 SOITIE OTHER MATTERS. 



D.\NGER OF DELAYS. 



EN the Sept. No., page 453, in answer to Mr. M. 

 Hills, who complains of delay of sections, which 

 were 18 days on the way, for a distance of about 

 3.'.0 miles, ycu take it coolly; for you say that we 

 have to take the chances of the railroad companies 

 being slow. 



About 50 years ago, while I was a clerk in a l)U8i- 

 ness firm, in France, the railroads were not invent- 

 ed; all the goods were transferred by common car- 

 riers. These carriers had to travel at the rate of so 

 many miles a day, under the penalty of losing a third 

 of the cost of transportation, when they were be- 

 hind the allotted time. They were also liable to 

 damages, if the delay was long, and if damage could 

 be proved. The same legislation exists yet in Eu- 

 rope toward the railroads, coupled with rates of 

 charges instituted by the government, and posted 

 up in every station. The railroad companies are 

 bound to transport the freight in France at the rate 

 of 125 miles a day, and they accept, without com- 

 plaining, the reduction of a third of the cost of 

 transportation every time they are slow. But, 

 somebody will say, the railroad companies here 

 would refuse to comply with such laws; and to com- 

 pel them by a lawsuit, would be the fight of the earth- 

 en against the iron pot. 



The French legislation has provided for such an 

 emergency, in ordering that all the decisions of the 

 justices of peace would be icithout aijpcal for all 

 sums of $20 or under. Let us suppose that we have 

 then these laws in this country; don't you think 

 that, instead of being the humble servants of the 

 corporations, they would be compelled to act more 

 fairly toward us? Unhappily, nearly all the editors 

 of the journals, as well as our legislators, are bribed 

 by free passes, and bow in abject submission before 

 these kings of a new pattern, and we, the people, are 

 compelled to accept, without possible complaint or 

 redress, all the delays, the high price, the frauds and 

 tricks of these rich swindlers. Will Mr. A. I. Root 

 be manly enough to publish this article? 



CHANGING THE SEX OF EGGS. 



I have no faith in miracles; and as this changing 

 of sex would be a true miracle, I don't believe it. 

 During 10 years of queen-raising business I have giv- 

 en eggs to queenless colonies a great many times 

 every year, without noticing worker eggs turned to 

 drone eggs. Now, if the first proves true, it can not 

 be ascribed to the volition of the bees, for such an 

 act would show a faculty of knowledge and of reas- 

 oning equal— nay, superior— to that of man. Let us 

 substantiate a few facts: 1. Queens don't know the 

 scxof the eggs they lay; 2. Their laying of worker 

 eggs in worker-cells, and of drone eggs in drone- 

 cells, is made unintentionally; 3. The eggs, as long 

 as they remain in the ovaries of the queens, are 

 male. Their sex is changed when they are impreg- 

 nated with some of the contents of the spermatic 

 vesicle of the queen; 4. Queens find pleasure in 

 impregnating their eggs, to change the sex, as every 

 animal finds pleasure in accomplishing every act in- 

 tended, by nature, to prolong his life, or to perpet- 

 uate his species; 5. But this pleasure can be ob- 

 tained only when the queen is placed on a worker- 

 cell, with her limbs nearer her abdomen; 6. When a 

 queen is young and small, sho can not easily obtain 



