188 



KNOWLEDGE 



[Maech 30, 1883. 



of law would punish him. Wo do prosecute the lialt- 

 lultur.d mail of the people, and he is sent to prison for a 

 year. Tiiat is, we practieally punish him, not for blas- 

 phemy, but for lack of relinemcnt. Such a reading of 

 the law, judged by the standard of common fairness, not 

 to mention Christian charity, is nothing short oi a grave 

 injustice." — Tiincs. 



TilKKK is to be held in Paris this year, from July 1 to 

 the 2L'nd, an Insect Exhibition organised by the Central 

 Society of Agriculture and Insectology. It will include (1) 

 useful insects : (2) their products, raw, and in the first 

 transformations ; (3) apparatus and instruments used in 

 preparation of these products ; (4) injurious insects and the 

 various processes for destroying them ; (5) everything 

 relating to insectology. 



Professor Abel, in a lecture delivered at Glasgow the 

 other day, said there was perhaps nothing more remarkable 

 in the history of industrial progress than the wonderfully 

 rapid strides which had been made in the manufacture of 

 dynamite. In 1867 it was not manufactured in this country 

 to any appreciable extent, and in all only 1 1 tons were made 

 elsewhere. In 1868 the production had risen to 78 tons; 

 in 1872 to 1,350 tons; while in 1874 the last-mentioned 

 quantity was trebled. Four years later the manufacture 

 had reached 6,140 tons, and last year the production 

 had amounted to 11,000 tons. Those figures did not 

 include the material produced on the Continent. The 

 manufacture of blasting gelatine was developing, and Pro- 

 fessor Abel had no doubt that ere long it would be found 

 to usurp the place of its elder brother dynamite, as it 

 seemed in every respect to be the most perfect explosive 

 with which chemists were acquainted. — [This may seem 

 very delightful to Prof. Abel ; but with the use to which 

 some persons seem inclined to put these explosives, it is not 

 an altogether cheerful prospect. — E. P.] 



An immense number of letters have been sent us to be 

 forwarded to the lady who wrote the article in Know- 

 ledge for March 16 on the new skirt. We have not been 

 able to forward all these, nor is it possible for her — she 

 writes — to answer those she has received individually ; but 

 she will early (probably in our next) reply in these 

 columns to the points specially inquired about. 



TuE Chicago Journal of Commerce (February 21) states 

 that the Chicago and Milwaukee Railroad proposes to 

 test paper pulp rails as a substitute for steel. It is said 

 that the cost per mile is one-third less than that of steel, 

 £ind that the material is almost indestructible. There is 

 no expansion or contraction from heat or cold, and there 

 are no loose or *pen joints. Being much lighter than iron or 

 steel, the rails can be made longer, and the connections firmer ; 

 and one of the railway officials states that much heavier 

 trains could be hauled over such rails, the adhesion of the 

 driving-wheels of the engine being greater than to steel. 

 An engine can consequently do more work without a corre- 

 sponding increase in the cost of fuel, while the smooth- 

 ness of the rail is expected to diminish the wear and tear 

 of rolling-stock. The material used is entirely jiressed 

 paper pulp, so solid that the sharpest axe will make no 

 impression on the rails, nor will the action of the atmo- 

 sphere produce any ertect on them. 



chise which required the Company to put its wires under- 

 ground by March 1 had not been complied with. The 

 Hoard of Trade Telegraph Company's wires are said to have 

 been similarly treated. 



The Electrician says that the wires of the Mutual Union 

 Telegraph Company in Chicago were cut by order of the 

 Mayor on the 2nd inst, because the provision of the fran- 



Tiic Cost of TEi.E(;itAMS. — Dr. Cameron is evidently 

 not disheartened by the failure of his previous efforts to- 

 obtain a sixpenny tarifi', and has given notioe that on an 

 early day he will, on the House of Commons going into 

 Committee of Supply, call attention to the charges for 

 postal telegrams, and move a resolution. We cannot 

 wonder at the hesitation on the part of the authorities to 

 yield, until they are quite prepared, to the pressure thus 

 brought upon them. The existing accommodation fre- 

 quently proves inadequate, and the increase in the traffic 

 due to such a reduced tariff would doubtless be very con- 

 siderable. 



It is generally allowed that the purchasing power of the 

 shilling was in King Alfred's time about three times as 

 great as now ; but then, too, we must remember that, 

 excepting actual rarities, the prices of most commodities 

 were full thirty times under their present rate ; hence the 

 shilling has been depreciated during the lapse of a thousand 

 years about 90 per cent. In spite of the terrible social 

 dislocation of the Norman Conquest, however, prices do 

 not appear to have materially risen for some generations, a& 

 in 1130 sheep are known to have been sold in this country 

 for 4d. In the last year of the thirteenth century, fowls 

 fetched but 2d., and even as late as the middle of the 

 sixteenth century the prices of beef and pork were settled 

 by Act of Parliament at one halfpenny the pound. Ob- 

 viously, then, the rise of the price of butcher's meat was 

 extraordinarily rapid. Reference to documents now extant 

 shows that those old worthies, Cranmer, Latimer, and 

 Ridley, when dining at Oxford, were provided with salmon 

 three days running for the very moderate charge of lOd. 

 Their wine — they were probably of the temperance type — 

 makes but the poor figure of 2d. — P. R. 



Mk. Proctor's first lecture at St James's Hall was 

 delivered on Wednesday, March 21, to a magnificent 

 audience — the largest, we are told by those who keep the 

 records, of any which has ever assembled to hear a lecture 

 there. Of the lecture itself we cannot speak here, except 

 to note that Mr. Field, of Chancery-lane, did the work of 

 illustration imcommouly well ; but we must express here 

 our sense of the kindness and attention with which the 

 lecture was received by the vast audience. (As Knowledge 

 goes to press on Wednesday afternoon, it was, of course, 

 impossible to give any account of the success of the first 

 lecture of the series in our last number, or of the fortunes, 

 of the second lecture in the present number. ) 



As Mr. Hampden is indignant with us for omitting to 

 insert the denunciatory ]iassages of his articles (he calls 

 them "articles" 1), and writes in terms which probably hr 

 does not consider offensive to the publishers, denying that 

 they are denunciatory, and accusing us of not keeping 

 faith with him, we propose next week to print those 

 omitted passages, but in small type, space being limited, 

 that our readers may see what sort of man the earth- 

 flattener is. After that we promise them that not a line of 

 our space shall be wasted on him. 



To make room for some matter, which in reality should 

 have appeared long since in these columns, we omit this 

 week both Whist and Mathematics. 



