Oct. 17, 1884.] 



♦ KNO^VLEDGE ♦ 



319 



had previously convinced me of the perfect safety of inocu- 

 lation with attenuated cultures. 



Up to this date I have vaccinated 4.50 persons, for the 

 most part foreigners recently arrived. Freedom from yellow 

 fever has been pronounced among those thus vaccinated, for 

 they have passed through a quite severe epidemic, and only 

 six deaths have occurred among the 450 vaccinated persons 

 — that is to say, less than two in a hundred — while more 

 than a thousand deaths have occurred among the non- 

 vaccinated, the mortality of the non-vaccinated sick being 

 about thirty to forty per hundred. Thus, if we take one 

 hundred vaccinated persons, under the most favourable 

 conditions as regards receptivity, we have only two deaths 

 during the entire epidemic ; if we take one hundred non- 

 vaccinated sick, we have thirty to forty decedents, which 

 gives a mortality fifteen times greater among the non-vac- 

 cinated. Even if the mortality were only ten times or five 

 times less great among the vaccinated, the preventive mea- 

 sure would be worthy of adoption. The protective inocu- 

 lation for charbon gives an immunity to one-tenth, and 

 that of vaccination for smallpox guarantees an immunity 

 to one-fifth, according to the calculations of Bousquet. 



Dr. Domingos Freire, 



Professor in the Faculty of Medicine of liio Janeiro, 



President of the Central Junta of Public Uygiene. 



I 



"ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE" IN 

 AMERICA. 



By Richard A. Proctor. 



MANY Americans believe that English is only spoken 

 in its purity under the Stars and Stripes. Possessed 

 by the notion that every English-born person systematically 

 drops his h's where they are wanted, and inserts them 

 where they ought not to be, the American is apt to regard 

 the peculiarity as typical of the difierance between English 

 English and American English. If this view were sound, 

 it would be interesting for Englishmen to inquire how the 

 language which, after all, is theirs, is spoken beyond the 

 Atlantic. There is work for a new grammarian in this 

 direction. For, if Americans, as a whole, are more careful 

 than EnglLshmeu about their aspirates, they assuredly have 

 some very original notions about other matters not less 

 important Thus in the new grammar, if based on the 

 language of the immense majority of Americans, especially 

 out West, we should find the following new form of the 

 imperfect tense of " To be " : — 



I was, he was, we was, you was, they was. 



We should, furthermore, have rules justifying the expres- 

 sion, "There aynt no." The past tense of "do" and 

 "come" would be found to be "done" and "come" in 

 this new grammar — as, " I know he done it," " we knew 

 you'd do it when you come along." The new language 

 would have no verb " to lie," except as signifying " to tell 

 a lie " ; so that " let it lay there " would replace our bad 

 English " let it lie there " ; with many other changes of an 

 equally original nature. 



Whether, with the further progress of time, still stranger 

 changes would not have to be made may be reasonably 

 asked. For much of the atrocirus grammar used in 

 America has arisen from the habit of imitating negro talk. 

 And already you hear white folk say, not "he did it," as 

 we benighted Englishmen do, nor " he done it," as the 

 more grammatical Americans still try to say, but " he gone 

 done it," and so forth. 



To what grammatical lengths our kinsmen in America 

 may go, if they encourage their present taste for novelty, 

 is painfully suggested by a little story in the Century for 

 September. Consider the following speech (made by a 

 well-to-do farmer) : — " Young people, 'special females, owes 

 it to theirselves to be monst'ous, streemous keerful and 

 particklar who they take up with in that kind o' style " 

 (he is talking about marriage), and " special in the pints o' 

 prop'ty. For it's a lieap easier, and it's a heap convenanter, 

 and it's a heap comfortabler to start with some prop'ty 

 than it is to work an' prqjeck, and deny a body's self the 

 lugiieries, an' the comforts, an' sometimes the very need- 

 cessities of life, which, in course, a person'd like to have 

 'em, but which, when they start po' " (nigger English or 

 American for poor) " they has to wait for 'em, an' which, 

 ef they'd wait an' look around keerful, the chances is some 

 of 'em" might do better than what they been a expectin'." 



On the whole, I prefer English English to nigger English, 

 but this may be a weakness on my part. — Nevcasth Weekly 

 Chronicle. 



THE NEW YORK FIRE DEPARTMENT. 



ALTHOUGH the single swing of a pendulum only 

 measures a second of time, yet each one of these 

 periods may be so intimately and directly connected with 

 events of such vital interest as to become of the greatest 

 importance. It is doubtful if there be any moment, in any 

 calling, in which so many movements bearing immediately 

 upon the result are crowded as in the fire department when 

 an alarm is received. The ease with which an incipient 

 fire can be extinguished, and the fearful rapidity with 

 which it spreads and gets beyond control, compelled the 

 adoption of every device and method that would in any 

 way lessen the time intervening between the alarm and the 

 arrival at the fire. Consequently, each fraction of a second 

 is carefully guarded lest it escape before having seen the 

 performance of some step tending toward the accomplish- 

 ment of the main object The seeming confusion, the 

 apparent mixing up of men, horses, and machinery, is the 

 outcome of persistent study aided by a thorough ac- 

 quaintance with the wants, and with even the minutest 

 detail that could be made subvervient. 



All the fire-alarm boxes in this city are connected by 

 wires with the headquarters of the fire department, and 

 are all numbered. When the hook in a box is turned 

 down, the alarm is made only at the headquarters, where 

 the operator, by the aid of a switch-board, instantly sends 

 the number of that particular box to every fire company 

 in the city. In each company's house, near the door, are 

 placed the gongs, recording apparatus, telephone, &c. 

 (The position of the various instruments, the location of 

 the engine and stalls, and of the poles by which the 

 men descend from the upper floors, and the method of 

 hanging the harness so that it may be placed upon the 

 horses in less than a second, are all plainly shown in 

 in our view of the interior of the quarters of Engine 

 Company 33, on Great Jones-street) The first alarm is 

 sounded'upon a small gong, familiarly known as the joker, 

 and the first stroke sets iu motion a train of mechanical 

 movements which, though in operation but an instant, 

 produce most strange results, and change a scene of 

 quiet into one of startling activity and of absorbing interest 

 to the stranger who chances to be present The first im- 

 pulse of electricity passing over the wires attracts the 

 armature of a magnet, which releases a small weight sliding 

 on a rod placed beside the gong. This weight strikes the 

 arm of a lever that permits the fall of a heavy weight 



