148 



CHEMISTRY. (PHILOSOPHY.) 



needed. Besides all those mentioned above, 

 there were 875, or about 17 per cent., who 

 could not be helped because of their own vices ; 

 and of these 307 were frauds who were ex- 

 posed or suppressed by the district commit- 

 tees, while 1,153 begging cases were, during 

 the same year, dealt with by the special offi- 

 cer engaged in that work. Among these lat- 

 ter, 716, or 63 percent., were able-bodied, and 

 only 60, or 5 per cent., were apparently needy 

 and worthy, all of whom were altnshouse cases ; 

 and 157 were not destitute and had the means 

 of self-support, while 504 were persistently dis- 

 solute. 



Reports for 1885 show 572 cases made self- 

 supporting by employment, loans, removing 

 burdens, etc., 364 cases adequately helped by 

 developing their own resources, 156 cases emi- 

 grated where they could be self-supporting, or 

 relatives could care for them; in all, 1,092 fam- 

 ilies taken off the relief provision of the city. 



Street-Beggars. Experience with the problem 

 of street-begging convinces the society that 

 there is absolutely no need or justification for it. 

 For the 5 per cent, possibly worthy and needy, 

 there is abundant provision, which may be 

 reached by application to any relief agency, to 

 the police, or to any office of this society. 



During 1885 the Council undertook to fulfill 

 its pledge to the public to make every effort 

 to put an end to the evils of street-begging. A 

 special officer, commissioned as deputy-sheriff, 

 deals with this class, with many satisfactory 

 results. It is his duty to follow up all persons 

 found soliciting or receiving alms upon the 

 street, with a view to a proper and speedy 

 provision for them if needy and worthy, and 

 to their removal from the streets and their 

 proper discipline if found to be fraudulent or 

 professional beggars. The society has pub- 

 lished several tracts bearing upon the general 

 subject of organized charity, and also a classi- 

 fied directory of the charitable resources of the 

 city. A library for reference and information 

 of visitors and district workers has been begun. 

 There are at present forty-nine charity or- 

 ganization societies in 'the United States, and 

 there is one in every large town in Great Brit- 

 ain. The cost of maintaining the New York 

 society for a year is about $25,000. Its prin- 

 ciples will not permit it to receive money from 

 public funds ; it is supported entirely by pri- 

 vate contributions. 



CHEMISTRY. Chemical Philosophy. In his ad- 

 dress as Vice-President of the Chemical Section 

 of the British Association, Prof. H. B. Arm- 

 strong urges, as now very desirable, a more 

 earnest and more minute study of the subject 

 of chemical action. He defines chemical ac- 

 tion as ^being any action of which the conse- 

 quence is an alteration in molecular constitu- 

 tion or composition; it might concern mole- 

 cules which are only of one kind cases of mere 

 decomposition, of isomeric change, and of po- 

 lymerization ; or it might take place between 

 dissimilar molecules cases of combination and 



of interchange. Hitherto it appeared to have 

 been assumed that action took place directly 

 between A and B, producing A B, or between 

 A B and D, producing A C and B D, for exam- 

 ple. In studying the chemistry of carbon com- 

 pounds, they became acquainted with a large 

 number of instances in which a more or less 

 minute quantity of a substance was capable of 

 inducing change in the body or bodies with 

 which it was associated without apparently 

 itself being altered. But so little had been 

 done to ascertain the nature of the influence of 

 the contact-substance, or catalyst, as he would 

 term it, that its importance was not duly ap- 

 preciated. Recent discoveries, however, must 

 have given a rude shock, from which it could 

 never recover, to the belief in the assumed 

 simplicity of chemical change. The inference 

 that might be drawn from Mr. Baker's observa- 

 tions on the combustion of carbon and phos- 

 phorusthat those substances in purity were in- 

 combustible in pure oxygen was indeed start- 

 ling. But if it were a logical conclusion from 

 the cases now known to us that chemical ac- 

 tion was not possible between any two sub- 

 stances other than elementary atoms, what was 

 the function of the third body, the catalyst, 

 and what must be its character with reference 

 to one or both of the primary agents? The 

 speaker had once defined chemical action as 

 reversed electrolysis, stating that in any case 

 in which such action was to take place it was 

 essential that the system operated upon should 

 contain a material of the nature of an elec- 

 trolyte. Prof. Armstrong agreed, with Lothar 

 Meyer, that the negative elements tend to ex- 

 hibit a higher valency toward each other than 

 toward positive elements ; and that, in the ma- 

 jority of so-called molecular compounds, the 

 parent-molecules are preserved intact by be- 

 ing held together by the " surplus affinity " of 

 the negative elements. More attention ought 

 to be given to the study of the structure of bod- 

 ies ; and it is not improbable that, especially 

 in the case of compounds other than those of 

 carbon, chemical change involves change in 

 structure more frequently than we are apt to 

 believe. 



Complaints are not unfrequently made that 

 a large proportion of published work in chem- 

 istry is of little value, and that chemists are 

 devoting themselves too much to the study of 

 the carbon compounds, and especially of syn- 

 thetic chemistry ; that investigation is running 

 too much in a few grooves, and that chemists 

 are gross worshipers of formulae. But the at- 

 tention paid to the study of carbon compounds 

 may be more than justified, Prof. Armstrong 

 thinks, both by reference to the results obtained 

 and to the nature of the work before us. " The 

 inorganic kingdom refuses longer to yield up 

 her secrets new elements except after se- 

 vere compulsion. The organic kingdom, both 

 animal and vegetable, stands ever ready before 

 us. Little wonder, then, if problems directly 

 bearing upon life prove the more attractive to 



