Feu. -20, 1SS3.1 



KNOWLEDGE 



159 



thesis whioii i cm ^.:i,i. If " IIiilly:>ri.ls " c:iu disoovor :i hotter one, 

 by all means lot bim do 60. But his letter really seems to indicate 

 that he is in the posicion of that legal gentleman who received tlio 

 message, " Xo case! Abuse the defendant's attorney." In very 

 fact, besides abuse, his letter coutaius nothing which 1 think could 

 bo accejited as argument, lie apparently does not consider that 

 surrounding conditions have anything to do with the development 

 of the human race, for he quotes the assertion that tie Tasmanians 

 were killed oH" by clothes as a reason that all other peoples, in 

 whatever clitncs, should likewise be enfeebled by wearing clothes. 



According to him, primitive man must have been more powerful 

 than man at the present day, because the latter has been weakened 

 by wearing clothes and living in houses. 



As for the rather irrelevant and very surprising statement that 

 "severely wcuuded men almost always die in hospital, but recover 

 if chance leaves them on the field for several days," it is to bo 

 hoped, for the sake of his relations and friends, that your corre- 

 spondent will not have to prove tha truth of his theory in his own 

 person. That '' Primitive man may have been muscled like a 

 lion," because '' David says he tackled lions and bears when a 

 shepherd, unarmed," is surely a itou ,^ciiuitiir: for David was by no 

 means a primitive man, but a very highly-civilised one, who both 

 wore clothes and lived under a roof, and described his exploits in 

 remarkably fine language, although, owing to the peculiarities of 

 Semitic style, a great part of them may be put down for what 

 " Hallyards" asserts they conld not be — bounce. 



Aii.\ S. Bai.li.n'. 



DICKENS'S STORT LEFT HALF TOLD. 

 [1605] — Being much interested in Jlr. Foster's articles on "The 

 Mystery of Edwin Drood," I adopted the suggestion of Mr. Proctor 

 in Knowledge of Jan. 2, 1S85, and read the story carefully, having 

 ilr. Foster's interpretation in view. Altl.ough 1 am familiar with 

 Dickens's other stories, I had never read his last unlinished one, 

 nor had I read " H. L.'s" article in the Cornl:ill Maijinine, so that 

 I approached the subject quite unprejudiced — or rather, having 

 previously read Mr. Foster's interesting articles, I conld not help 

 haring some bias in favour of his views. I was, therefore, some- 

 what surprised to find tliat I could not agree with his conclusions, 

 and I say this at the risk of being classed amongst the prosaic or 

 unintelligent readers of Dieken?. Mr. Foster's thtorj' that 

 Edwin Drood is still alive, having escaped the nuudercus 

 hand of Jasper, is very attractive, and the way in which 

 he tries to harmonise with it the various difficulties in the 

 way is very ingenious. His explanations are in most cases 

 quite admissible, although I think a simpler and more natural 

 one is at hand in almost every case. But there is one fatal 

 difficulty which ho hardly touches upon, and it is this — Row conld 

 Mr. Grewgious and Edwin Drood, wl;ose characters are essentially 

 kindly, have suffered Xeviile to remain for at least six months 

 under the dark suspicion of being a murdcrtr, the crushing eil<^ct 

 of which upon Neville is described in chapter 17, and this merely 

 for the sake of inflicting upon Jasper a more terrible punishment, 

 one more in proportion to the malignancy of his crime ? Surely, 

 sach a course of action would be quite opposed to the characters 

 of Edwin and Mr. Grewgious as set forth iu the story. I do not 

 think this objection can be fairly met. Although disagreeing with 

 Mr. Foster's theory, I cannot offer a thoroughly satisfactory one in 

 place of it ; nor do I think the data are sufficient to warr.ant any 

 one being positive en the subject. I am afraid the unfinished part 

 of the story will always remain a mystery. H. G. T. 



THE OEIGIX OF MYTH. 



[16C6] — X has universal power ; Y has no power except that 

 of single choice. X thinks of it to exerci.^e his power within 

 certain limits according to the choice of Y. Where is the incon- 

 sistency ? 



Y, not knowing that a state of things — "m" — has been brought 

 abont by X, wi.shcs that a similar state of things — m' — to exist. 

 Accordingly X brings m' to pass. Is there anything unreasonable 

 in calling the similarity of m and m' accidental ? 



F. W. H. surely protests too much. Can a truism be ohrions 

 when it is not apparent to the vast body of non-atheists who 

 believe in free will ? An Earnest Tfiinkeb. 



COOKERY FOR SCHOOLS. 

 [1C07] — " A Chairman of School Board" asks me to recommend 

 a simple catechism of cookery for s.-hcol-girls. I wish I could. 

 Snch a 'oook is needed, provided the catechism form should not 

 lead to verbal cramming for examinations. The nearest approach 

 to such a work that 1 have seen is a little book by a lady who 

 lectures on cookery. " Popular Lessons on Cookery," and published 



at a low price by Griffiths & Farran, of St. Paul's Churchyard. It 

 is simple and practical, free from the extravagances of IIiq. " high- 

 class" cookery books, but rather shaky in the scieutilic nuitter, 

 though not more so than cookerybooU.s of nuicli higher pretensions. 

 This is not at all surprising, seeing how tho science ol" tlio subject 

 has been neglected by tho professors of science. 



\V. Maiiiki: \Vn,i,tA.Ms. 



THE NEED OF CLOTHES. 



[1C08] — "We cannot live in tho 'temperate' zones of tho earth 

 without clothing." (Mr. M. Williams, p. 100.) 

 Is this so certain ? 



1. Aristophanes bewails (in tho clouds) that tho youth of .\tlicn3 

 had recently given up (he habit of marching (for drill) naked, with 

 the snow oii tho ground. But, even then, boys spout hours naked 

 in the gymnasia; and all athletic contests were gone through by 

 men perfectly naked ; though Thucydidos tolls us that this custom 

 was copied from the barbarians. Surely all this must liavo been 

 perfectly safe, or it would havo been changed. 



2. Some ancient friezes, Ac, represent all warriors perfectly naked, 

 save sword, buckler, helm, and greavi s. They would hardly havo 

 left their kit in camp if thoy had had one. 



3. A'irgil s.ays, " Nudus ara, sere nudus." If this farm-work was 

 done naked in Loinbordy (exposing to chills from over-heat, like 

 war), could it be said clothes wore necessary ? 



4. St. Peter (and, "/orfion', all his contemporaries) lishcd per- 

 fectly naked (John xxi., 7). 



5. At the Saturnalia in Rome, in niid-Dccenibcr, young men 

 used to run about tho strceLs naked. They would hardly have 

 found fun in this if it hail entailed bronchitis. 



6. St. Gregory the Great uses naked wrestlers as an illustration. 



7. Fronde cites, as an example of the barbarism of Ireland in 

 the Tudor period, a chief named O'Karc, who comes into his own 

 hall, iwrfectly naked, and sits down by the lire, having been hunting 

 all day in that state. 



8. In 18.5G, two women wore condemned in Bedfordshiro for 

 having kept a girl, their daughter and sister, entirely without 

 clothes, until her death at tho age of seventeen. Her stomach 

 had never been distended with a full meal, and was of tho size 

 proper for the age of five. Sho was kept continually at laco- 

 making. Now, if a naked per.son can resist cold without liatural 

 food for seventeen years, I do not see why, with duo nourishment, 

 clothes might not be dispensed with entirely. 



9. Mr. D. Urquhart kept a son of his own entirely naked for 

 the first years of his life, night and day, in tho bitter winter wind 

 even. 



10. Many person.', from sheer necessity, wear a mere apology for 

 clothing in the severest weather. 



11. Many men, from choice, wear nothing on the chest but a 

 thin fold of linen. The chest is tho weakest part. What it can 

 bear, all tho rest can, and linen is hardly to be called clothes. 



12. I have often gone out in .frost, iu kilt, without drawers, never 

 regretting absence of trousers. 



13. Mr. Williams tries to show that the Britons could not have 

 gone naked in winter— when " the Roman armies rarely marched." 

 True, but how could they live iu winter quarters without seeing a 

 f'reat deal of the natives, from whom alone they could obtain pro- 

 visions ? Where have I read of a Canadian chief who explained 

 his indifference to nudity in that climate (far more severe than that 

 of Britain as Ctesar knew it) by saying, " I am all fare ! " No doubt, 

 if we wore cloth masks, with holes, from infancy, wo should bo half 

 destroyed if wo ever left them off. 



1-1. He urges, himself, that wild beasts disputed caves with man 

 for the sake of warmth. Indeed, lions, foxes, and rabbits have not 

 yet discarded dens, earths, and warrens. " Sauce for the goose, 

 sauce for the gander." If man lived icith the beast, why not us 

 they ? 



But if clothes are not an absolute necessity for our climate, then 

 Mr. Williams is in error in holding that we are "foreigners" here, 

 and that no " missing links " can ever he found in European exca- 

 vations. As to man having come from the tropics, it is most 

 imjirobable that the jiolar regions should not have produced every- 

 thing loEg before the tropics were cool enough for even a beginning 

 of life. Y'on, sir, noted recently that tho most ancient astror-omy 

 seems to hail from the latitude rather of Greenwich than of 

 Babylon. Hallvards. 



FRICTION. 



[1C09] — In reply to your correspondent "J. Y.," the law of 

 friction, " that the resistance duo to friction is equal to the direct 

 pressure between tho surfaces multiplied by the co-efficiont of 

 friction," requires to make it true for tho rolling friction of ball- 



