258 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[September 1, 1887. 



tliat position would be inane, but "even" or "even though." 

 The Greek nai had a similar force, as in the well-known 

 line, "EKTOpa, kox /iC/iawra, /u.a;();s <j)(r'](Te(T6ai mm. What 

 would be thought if this line were rendered " I will keep 

 back Hector and one raging," instead of " Hector, even 

 though (he be) raging " 1 



* * * 



The lateness of my reply to my Pernambuco correspondent 

 reminds me to remark here that I receive many letters at 

 my distant home, on the banks of the Missouri, after they 

 have made a roundabout journey through London, to which 

 it seems idle to respond, so late as my answers would appear, 

 especially if sent from St. Joseph at such a time as to reach 

 Messrs. Spottiswoode just after a number was ready for the 

 press. I appreciate, however, very much the kindly letters 

 I constantly receive. 



* * * 



At St. Joseph, by the way, we have been having during 

 the last week some rather trying weather. What would 

 they think in England of a week during which the after- 

 noon thermometer has shown each day over 100 degrees in 

 the .shade, while even in the night the temperature has 

 scarcely once gone below 85 degrees 1 On one day the 

 number of deaths from sunstroke (probably encouraged by 

 whisky nips and unsuitable food) must have risen through- 

 out the States to over a thousand, judging from the number 

 officially recorded in the larger towns. 



As one correspondent sends me a cutting from the Pall 

 Mall Gazette describing a meteor seen at " St. Joseph, a vil- 

 lage in Iowa," marking this passage as probably referring 

 really to St. Joseph, Mo., I may as well point out that St. 

 .Joseph, Mo., is not a village but a large town, numbering 

 50,000 inhabitants, with a dozen banks, three dozen churches, 

 several hotels, one of which is about half as large again as 

 the Grand Hotel, Brighton, and railway communication by 

 ten lines with surrounding regions, to which even as I write 

 three new lines are being added. St. Joseph is placed as 

 the second richest city in the United States, in proportion to 

 its population, Portland, Oregon, being the first ; and as the 

 Clearing House records for the last half-year have indicated 

 a constant advance on the corresponding weeks of last year 

 by from 40 to 90 per cent., it may be inferred that St. 

 Joseph is a thriving city. It has been considered rather 

 old-fogeyish for some j'ears past, most of its wealthier 

 citizens having rather set their face against improvements. 

 Bat a change has recently come over St. Joseph in this 

 respect, and improvements are now in progi'ess everywhere 

 throughout its extent. 



* * * 



I SUPPOSE there must be a score of St. Josephs or more 

 in the United States. 



* * * 



I OFTEN wonder at the novel experiences I encounter in 

 lecturing, because after giving 2,()00 lectures one would 

 suppose there could hardly remain anything new to be met 

 with. But my last lecture in America, given on July i, 

 a broiling hot day, at Lexington, Kentucky, brought me a 

 stranger and more unpleasant experience than in nearly a 

 score of years' lecturing I have ever encountered. I was to 

 give two lectures for a semi-religious, quasi-scientific body, 

 called the Chantangua Society, whose object seems to be to 

 provide cheap lectures, Chinese lights, literary scrap-work, 

 and holidays, profitable to promoters, all over the States. I 

 might have suspected something of what was in store for 

 me by the beggarly nature of the terms offered me. But I 

 have had pleasant times in Old Kentuck, and notably in 



Lexington, so I elected to travel 1 ,400 miles and give a 

 week's work for about a fourth of the fair price — (the 

 labourer at 9.") in the shade is worthy of his hire). The 

 society, which cleared a large enough profit to buy the 

 ground on which the entertainment was held, could not 

 afford, it appeared, to hire my lanternist, nor to engage a 

 lantern and lanternist in Lexington : but borrowed a 

 lantern (I was, unfortunately, foolish enough to lend them 

 mine), and undertook to work it by some capable volunteer. 

 The lantern was sent on four days before I arrived, and at 

 my cost. I supposed, of course, that the volunteers would 

 try their hands at working it, according to printed instruc- 

 tions forwarded them. To make a long story short, I was 

 met on arrival at the grounds just before the first lecture, 

 with the appalling question, " What gases do you use for 

 this lantern t " We used none, I need hardly say, that 

 night, and I left Lexington till the next lecture, having 

 given the secretary — a Professor (stc) W. D. Clintock — 

 very clearly to understand that if his volunteers could not 

 work my lantern, he must hire a properly trained lanternist. 

 Will it be believed that on the night of the last lecture, 

 three days later, they had not learned even how to fix the 

 lenses 1 They broke the condenser by setting it too near 

 the glowing lime, failed to get any disc on the screen, and, 

 adding insult to injury, the Rev. Professor, otherwise the 

 hopeless incapable to whom the fiasco was due, deliberately 

 told the audience that as I had lent the lantern the fault 

 was mine. Their applause after I had replied showed 

 whom they believed, and I received immediately any 

 number of assurances of sympathy from the best members 

 of the community. But such experiences sicken even the 

 veteran lecturer. 



Industrial Ireland. By Egbert Dennis. (London : 

 John Murray. 1887.) — Amid the oceans of contradictory 

 talk and reams of printed discussion with which the British 

 nation has been so long afflicted, we can assert, quite un- 

 hesitatingly, that no contribution towards the solution of 

 the ve.cata qua;stio of Ireland equal in value to that of 

 Mr. Dennis has so far appealed. To anyone who may feel 

 disposed to regard such unqualified praise as partaking of 

 the nature of hyperbole, we would simply give the advice 

 to read the book for himself, and learn how, within the 

 compass of 202 pages, its author shows in what way Ireland 

 might I'eally be made pi-osperous, and, as an immediate con- 

 Sequence, happy and contented. His remed}' is no quack 

 political panacea. He has no sympathy with the venal and 

 unprincipled crew who, themselves living on the earnings of 

 the cookmaids and hodmen in New York, foment agitation, 

 lest its cessation should drive them themselves to the 

 necessity of earning an honest living. He does not profess 

 to believe (what honest man does ?) that a Parliament of 

 Healys, Harringtons, and Sextons on College Green would 

 be the salvation of the country. No ; his cure for the evils 

 which beset our unhappy neighboins across St. George's 

 Channel is of a very much more simple character. It is 

 WORK — nothing more. A quotation from John Bright 

 which appears on the title-page forms the keynote of the 

 entire volume. " The greatest cause," .said that great 

 orator and statesman, "of Ii'eland's calamities is that 

 Ireland is idle. Ireland is idle, therefore she starves. 

 Ireland starves, therefore she rebels. We must choose be- 

 tween industry and anarchy." No one who has ever 

 been in Ireland, and assuredly no one who has ever 

 lived there, will dispute the truth of these words. The 

 staple crop of the country, the potato, affords a peren- 



