170 



KNOWI^EDGE ♦ 



[Oct. 3, 1884. 



supported by more than a siiiiU minority, usmlly consisting 

 of the steadiest members ol the community — excepting only 

 the gambling set. It has always seemed to me as if they 

 started their show-piety just about the time when every 

 fellow-passenger had thoroughly recognised their position as 

 the gloomiest and wor.st-tempered members of the company. 

 They very seldom find a captain willing to listen to them. 

 The gambling set usually g<t what they want, by not 

 asking too much. Here and there in the saloon you see a 

 table round which three or four low-browed fellows — some 

 rapacious-looking, others looking more or less idiotic — sit 

 playing for " chips," which represent in reality tolerably 

 large sums of money. In the smoking-room you see more 

 of this crew. There, also, wagering on the ship's run, on 

 the number of the pilot, his complexion, tlie leg he first puts 

 on board, and other such absurdities, may be watched by 

 those who take interest in noting the lower instincts of 

 humanity. You generally hear towards the close of the 

 journey that a certain number of the more foolish have lost 

 " more money than is convenient," as Capt. Monroe plea- 

 santly puts it. But pity is wasted on these foolish folk. 

 "If wilful will to water wilful must wet," — that is all that 

 can be said. 



When, however, it comes to setting up a baccarat bank, 

 or any other systematic gambling trap, in smoking-room or 

 reading-room, the case assumes a difl'erent complexion. The 

 majority of the passengers ought not, however, to trouble 

 the captain or purser in such a case, unless either has given 

 special permission to the swindlers to start their nefarious 

 business. (I reject utterly Mr. Hughes's assertion or ad- 

 mission that the men were honest who started the baccarat 

 bank, or that their system was fair and square ; there is 

 no such thing as honest gambling.) They should have 

 claimed their own rights. A sufficient number of ladies 

 and gentlemen should have occupied the reading-room and 

 its neighbourhood ; a sufficient number of gentlemen should 

 have broken up the baccarat bank in the smoking-room ; 

 and both sets of well-meaning members of the community 

 temporarily brought together should have expressed before 

 the wrong-doers — as occasion arose — their sense not only of 

 their own rights, but of the blackguardism of the attempt 

 to introduce their evil v/ays into a company of respectable 

 persons. Writing memorials can be of little use in such 

 cases. But a large number of those who will gamble 

 among gamblers are ashamed to go on gambling in the 

 presence of ladies and gentlemen, and in face of their 

 openly expressed contempt for such practices. 



A minority even can effectively maintain their rights 

 when these are invaded. I remember hearing of a case on 

 board the Arawata, a New Zealand steamship, where 

 an inexperienced lecturer who — strange to say, actually 

 wanted to lecture during a sea journey ! — was beaten by a 

 small party of passengers who, finding that no one really 

 desired his discourse, continued talking and laughing in his 

 neighbourhood so that none could hear him. A lecture on 

 board ship is a nuisance any way — at any rate to an unfortu- 

 nate being who is asked to give one. This happened to me in 

 five out of my first six ocean journeys, despite entreaties 

 to be let off. It shows what straits a ship's company may 

 be reduced to for amusement, when nine-tenths of the 

 passengers ask, as a favour, for what certainly only one- 

 tenth of the general community on land would desire. It 

 puts a lecturer in rather an uncomfortable position. If he 

 accedes to the request, a few who object are sure to suppose 

 ho has put himself in the way of the work — preposterous 

 though such an idea is in the case of any lecturer having 

 an established position in his profession. If he declines, 

 many consider it must be from churlishness, preposterous 

 though that idea should be, also. On the whole, however, 



I have had no reason to complain ; and I believe the few 

 lectures I have given on board ship have been found unex- 

 pectedly free from the dry-as-dust quality supposed to be 

 proper to astronomy. Yet a very small minority would 

 always have sufficed to stop any lecture I had been 

 announced to deliver. If a fourth or a fifth, even, of the 

 company object to the use of any of the ship's public rooms 

 for such a purpose they have a right to maintain their 

 objection. I have never known, however, a case wljere a 

 minority has acted in such a case otherwise than by keeping 

 away. I have known a case where a majority acted very 

 decisively that way. Indeed, wheie any one on board 

 ship obtrudes himself either by undertaking to pray for 

 less devout passengers, or by offering gambling facilities, or 

 Viy proffering a discourse or a lecture, he can expect (and 

 deserves) no other treatment. 



But in all such cases, the passengers should act for them- 

 selves. Neither pui'ser nor captain should be unnecessarily 

 troubled. Each has enough to attend to without being 

 worried about matters which the right-minded members of 

 the community can settle by their own action. The case 

 illustrates aptly Mr. Thomas Foster's discussion of " The 

 Morality of Happiness." A due regard for the rights of 

 self should be corrected by a just appreciation of the rights 

 of others, and vice versd. The unduly complaisant are 

 almost as mischievous by neglecting to claim just rights, as 

 are the unduly egotistic by claiming what they are not 

 entitled to. The latter try to injure by wronging the rest; 

 but the former may do just as much harm by failing to 

 take their proper part in the work of resisting such wrong- 

 doing. 



PLEASANT HOURS WITH THE 

 MICROSCOPE. 



By Henry J. Slack, F.G.S., F.R.M.S. 



THERE are many cases in which it is not wise to trust 

 to the old adage that seeing is believing, and the micro- 

 scopist should make himself acquainted with the sources of 

 fallacy. The difficulties of interpretation are most trouble- 

 some where high powers, large angled glasses and con- 

 densers of the same nature, are employed. Every student 

 of minute forms is delighted, for example, with diatoms, 

 and not a few microscopists go mad over them, look at 

 nothing else, and deserve the nickname of diatom-maniacs. 

 But while we laugh at them, we should confess that they 

 have rendered an important service in continually demand- 

 ing more and more approach to perfection in the construction 

 of objectives and means of illumination. For thirty years 

 and more they have studied their pet objects, and again and 

 again some enthusiast has imagined he had quite settled tht ir 

 structure, but the battle still rages, and no one can see 

 when it is likely to end. There are many points to be 

 decided. First, are certain round markings elevations or 

 depressions ? Are they really round or hexagonal ? How 

 many distinct or distinguishable layers make up the sili- 

 ceous skeleton of the little plants or animals, or borderland 

 creatures, as the inquirer may prefer to call them 1 Again, 

 are certain aperture-looking dots real holes or sham ones ? 

 The student of natural histofy in other departments, and 

 of physiology and minute anatomy, may care little for 

 diatoms, or the disputes of the diatom-maniacs, but he meets 

 with the same sort of difficulties that bewilder them, and 

 often cannot, for the life of him, tell when seeing should be 

 believing. 



For a low-power experiment introducing one of the 

 difficulties, take a three-inch objective and a lady's silver 

 thimble. There is no doubt concerning the thimble's struc- 



