Aug. 2i, 1883. 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



119 



a ruddy colour are usually," &c. ; and the " constant 

 custom " makes him say, " the stars, which are of a ruddy 

 colour, are usually," il-c, which is absurd. So with the 

 constant custom of putting a comma before "because." I 

 came only a few days iigo on a sentence in one of Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer's works in which his meaning had been 

 entirely altered by such an addition (probably the comma 

 escaped his notice in correcting proof, or, quite possibly, it 

 had been added by that fearful being who, unless strictly 

 warned off, goes over the last proofs, scattering commas 

 over every page apparently with a pepper-castor. The 

 sentence ran somewhat like this as written : " Whales are 

 not classed with tish because they resemble fish ; but " — so 

 and so ; the constant custom of compositors setting a 

 comma before " because," made INIr. Herbert Spencer state, 

 absurdly, that the reason why whales are not classed with 

 fish is that they are like fish. 



With regard to the particular use of the "comma " re- 

 ferred to in the above quotation, I object to that constant 

 custom only when applied to unsuitable cases. Nearly 

 always the words " and therefore " and " and because " 

 may be regarded as forming a single conjunction, almost as 

 though " and " were an enclitic. The sentence given by 

 my critic is a case in point — "He called for help, and 

 therefore I went to him." Here if the " and " were omitted 

 no one would think of adding a comma after "therefore." 

 Adding the " and " as it does not alter the sense gives no 

 reason for introducing a comma which would not be wanted 

 if the " and " were left out. [The compositor is entreated 

 not to put in a " comma " before the " which " in the last 

 sentence.] A fair test of the propriety of the two 

 commas on which the critic insists is obtained by 

 uttering the sentence aloud, as it would be spoken. For it 

 must be remembered that though speech is often slovenly, 

 written language represents speech, — only it should repre- 

 sent carefully-spoken words. Now, no one would think of 

 saying, " He called for help, and " — a pause — " therefore " 

 — a pause — "I went to him" Not only so, but there is 

 liardly a single case in whicli there ought to be a comma 

 on both sides of the word " therefore " preceded by " and." 

 A comma should often follow the " therefore," as for 

 instance in the following sentences : — " He asked for help 

 in his contest with Watson, so I gave it ; and therefore, 

 Watson has never forgiven me " — at least if one wished to 

 dwell somewhat on the fact that it was because of this 

 interference that Watson had remained irreconcilable. 

 Adding the comma emphasizes this particular point. So 

 in the other sentence, if one wished to emphasize the 

 reason, one would add a comma after " therefore." Thus, 

 " Why on earth did you go to him 1 — Why 1 Why, because 

 he asked for help ; because he and I were old friends ; 

 because I thought it my duty : therefore, I went to liim." 

 This would be reasonable enough ; though note tliat here 

 the " and " has necessarily dropped out. 



But " And, therefore," is simply monstrous — no good 

 writer ever allows such an absurdity to remain, if he can 

 possibly help it. Putting " however " between commas is 

 not quite so bad ; though [ remember hearing a writer who 

 has perhaps a greater mastery of the art of stating a case 

 than any man living (he has written a good deal in these 

 columns, though anonymously) complain strongly of this 

 constant custom. Here, however, there is some reason for 

 the practice, because (as in this sentence) the word "how- 

 ever " comes in by itself, and might be omitted, like words 

 within parentheses, without making the sense incomplete. 

 In (juite a number of cases however the commas are Ijotter 

 omitti'd, especially in long sentences where commas are 

 wanted for more important purposes. Just as the mathe- 

 matician who lias to deal with complicated expressions does 



not begin to use brackets before he wants them, so is it 

 with the writer who has a long or complicated sentence to 

 deal with. Indeed, as De Morgan long since pointed out, 

 the use of commas, parentheses, dashes, &c., is akin to the 

 use of brackets by mathematicians. I think he even went 

 so far as to say that only mathematicians are likely to 

 punctuate properly ; but that is going a little too far. 



With regard to the comma before " because," the sense 

 is usually a safe guide. Putting a comma between " and " 

 and " because " is seldom right, though it is a constant 

 custom. The great disadvantage of doing it constantly is 

 that if we do, then, when it is really wanted for a purpose, it 

 does not answer. Thus in the following sentence it is not 

 wanted : " I went to Ventnor, and because I wished to see 

 the lovely neighbourhood I went early." Here the " con- 

 stant custom " would insert two commas, one before 

 "because," the other after " neighbourhood ; " but neither 

 is wanted. (Of course, a comma after " neighbourhood," 

 alone, alters the sense. ) But in the following sentence the 

 comma is desirable : — " I hold that men should do their 

 best to advance knowledge ; and, because this seems to me 

 an almost sacred obligation, I mean to fulfil the duty to 

 the best of my power." Here, indeed, the comma would 

 only be added for the sake of emphasis : it is not necessary 

 to the sense. 



I am aware that many superficial students of style con- 

 sider that Macaulay solved the whole problem by his use of 

 short sentences ; scarce a semicolon to a chapter. With 

 such sentences we need not be careful about commas ; we 

 have " points given," so to speak. But IMacaulay shirked 

 the real difficulties. Short sentences, like simple Saxon 

 words, are often the best. But just as there is often occasion 

 for the use of long words as the most suitable and weighty 

 (Mr. Herbert Spencer has shown this well in his excel- 

 lent essay on style), so it is often desirable — much oftener, 

 in fact — to use long sentences. Nothing, indeed, is much 

 more wearisome than the constant iteration of short sen- 

 tences. When long sentences are in question we have to 

 he careful with our commas, because when they run short 

 we are driven to the use of parentheses, dashes, and so 

 forth, I'ust as the mathematician, when he has utUised ( ) 

 and [ ], has to fall back on { }, and the like, for his 

 bracketing. 



CHEMISTRY OF THE CEEEALS. 



By William Jagg, F.C.S. 

 No. lY. BKEAD-MAKTNG. 



I FEEL that here I must be careful not to trench on the 

 suliject-matter of the admirable series of papers on the 

 Chemistry of Cookery, by my able colleague, Mr. M. 

 Williams. The difierence in the stand-point taken by him 

 and myself will, I think, prevent the two sets of articles 

 seriously over-lapping each other. 



The first step in the making of bread is to grind the 

 wheat or other grain into fiour ; this operation is usually 

 performed V)y introducing the grain between two flat stones, 

 the upper one of which revolves rapidly on tlie lower. 

 These stones are made of a very hard grit, and have thei 

 rubbing-faces cut in a peculiar manner. There are first a 

 series of deep radial grooves, whose object is to permit the 

 flour to find its way from the centre outwards ; the grain 

 being fed from a hopper to the centre of the mill, and the 

 flour collected from the circumference. In addition to 

 these grooves there are a number of very fine lines cut on 

 the stone's face, in order to produce a cutting surface. After 



