246 



♦ KNOVV^LEDGE ♦ 



[March 20, 1885. 



leather is contracted by heat ; the head is hot. Here, then, is an 

 evident origin of the contraction suggested. Besides, the hair 

 may hare been thicker in itself, or trebled in bulk, by pomptum, 

 dust, &c. In the Tiehborno trial, all the experts (hatters) swore 

 that a man's head ncrer increases after he is full-grown ; and one 

 of the strongest points in favour of the Claimant was that the 

 helmet of the genuine Koger iitted him beautifully ! I have a 

 (ilengarry bonnet made for me to measure thirty years ago which 

 fits me now as well as then, though cloth waistcoats made twenty 

 years ago are now too tight round the chest. Hallvariis. 



SEVERED HEADS. 



[1643] — Having noticed several articles in Knowledge on the 

 subject of severed heads, I thought the following, taken from the 

 Mirror of 1836, would be interesting to your readers. It runs 

 thus: — " Majou, Professor of Physiology at Genoa, having pro- 

 duced at Paris an investigation of the results of the guillotine, 

 states that, having exposed the heads, a quarter of an hour after 

 decollation, to a strong light, the eyelids closed suddenly; the 

 tongue, which protruded from the lips, being pricked with a needle, 

 was drawn back into the moutli, and the countenance expressed 

 sudden pain. The head of a criminal named Tillier, being sub- 

 mitted to examination after the guillotine, turned in every direc- 

 tion from whence it was called by name. A report hitherto treated 

 as fabulous, may, therefore, be believed — that when the execu- 

 tioner gave a blow on the face of Charlotte Corday's head, the 

 countenance expressed violent indignation. Fontenelle asserts 

 that he has frequently seen the heads of guillotined persons move 

 their lips, and his memoirs contain many other apparently incredible, 

 but equally authenticated facts. Siveling declares that by touch- 

 ing the spinal cord the most horrible demonstrations of agony 

 succeed." 



They don't mention hoif Tillicr's head was enabled to turn 

 round ; and in the first case I should fancy the worthy Professor's 

 oii-ii eyes must have been affected by the strong light. 



Persifal Yearsley. 



HYDROPHOBIA IN WINTER. 



[1644] — I can quite confirm, from my own painful experience, 

 the truth of your remark, on p. 177, respecting hydrophobia not 

 being confined to the " dog-days." In the very bitter weather we 

 had in the mid-winter 1879-8U, my little dog was snapped at, w'hilst 

 walking with me, by a strange dog. Only a very tiny scratch on 

 his nose was made, and scarcely a drop of blood followed ; but the 

 manner of the strange dog was so peculiar that I called a police- 

 man's attention to it, and the dog, having also snapped at people 

 in the village, whose thick clothes fortunately protected them, was 

 killed at once. I requested our veterinary surgeon to make a post- 

 mortem examination, and the appearances were such as to leave no 

 doubt on his mind that the dog was suffering from "rabies." The 

 hardly-perceptible scratch on my little dog's nose was cauterised 

 immediately ; he was kept carefully secluded, under my own 

 eye, and the veterinary saw him occasionally. For five weeks 

 he continued in perfect health and spirits, and we began to 

 hope he might escape, but on the thirty-seventh day very peculiar 

 symptoms appeared, not of "hydrophobia," strictly speaking, as 

 the poor little fellow lapped water to the last, but the tone of his 

 bark altered strangely, his jaw drooped, and the remarkable change 

 in his manner showed that he was " going out of his mind," if I 

 may use the phrase ; there could bo no doubt that, slight as the 

 wound was, he had been fatally inoculated with the virus. It 

 would have been cruel, as well as very hazardous, to allow " de- 

 mentia" to develop into "rabies," and my little pet's life was 

 ended as mercifully as possible. Dogs may be more liable to go 

 mad in very hot weather, especially if they have not free access to 

 water, but that they may be attacked at nny time cf the year there 

 can be no doubt. M. B. 



THE TONE OF CONTROVERSY. 



[1645] — Isaac Newton stated that the first mention of use of a 

 celestial globe orcurrs in the " Odyssey," vi. 100, sqq. ; and that 

 Nansicaa probably had it from the Argonauts, calling at Corcyra 

 en route for Colchis ; whence he pretended to fix the date of that 

 expedition. 



Had the illustrious man told this to me in private life, 1 should 

 have complimented him in a tone of veneration ; then added 

 " There is just one circumstance which would make me hesitate. 

 In line ll.") the Princess throws the ball (uphcrc) in question of one 

 of her maids. This seems improbable, had it been a celestial globe. 

 I, therefore, do not feel clear that it was not a common game at 

 ball which they enjoyed, after dining, while the washed clothes 

 were drying." 



Had I been, however, writing, or speaking in piMic on this, I 

 should have said, as Erncsti does, " This is a ridiculous hallucina- 

 tion ; " dissenting entirely from a scholar who " blushes to print 

 Erncsti's words, because Newton should be admired even in his 

 hallucinations." 



Men have ruled that in senate, forum, and jiress, the amenities 

 of social life may be suspended, if desirable. Mr. Gladstone once 

 compared Lord R. Churchill to a flea. I think this was " bad 

 form," even for the House ; but no one called him to order, nor did 

 Lord R. protest. 



The sole drawback that I see to the presence of ladies as members 

 of deliberative bodies is that this rule cannot be observed in their 

 case, and that men must not in future say that nonsense is nonsense. 



Now, Sir Isaac Newton's puerile notion about Nansicaa is mnch 

 more foolish (in my opinion) than anything in Miss Ballin's articles 

 on " Thought and Language." I therefore in no way undervalued 

 them, or her intelligence, as a ivhole, in protesting vehemently 

 against an '"' nun caiisd, pro cunsd — a scientific crime. And I 

 expressly avoided naming her or her sex. But I erred, no doubt. 



Mr. W. M. Williams thinks men could not live naked in temperate 

 climates. It occurred to him that Ca'sar, says our ancestors, actually 

 did so. "Then," he says, "so much the worse for him. He is not 

 credible." I stigmatise this as a literary offence. Instead of 

 " Aut Caesar, aut uuUns," we have now "£t Cajsar, et nuUus." 

 I adduced many positive proofs that men can still live naked even 

 in climates colder than Britain ; and on p. 187 he pushes me aside 

 with the following assertion : — " They merely show that the human 

 body has great powers of temporary endurance of evil." Temporary ! 

 A girl who lived naked, day and night, for seventeen years, with 

 ne%'er a full meal for the last twelve of them ! and that is a fact of 

 the same kind as " Chantry's oven or the vapour-baths of Nero I " 



From his fallacious premiss he inferred (like Sir I. N.) that there 

 could be no "missing links" in Europe. Why, Europe was not 

 always temperate ; surely the " missing link," had he been more 

 delicate than the born Britons mentioned in letter 1627, could have 

 lived where lions, tigers, hja>nas, &c., did. 



Weak health has always prevented me from being a student. 

 I therefore take in Knowledge in order to take in knowledge, 

 and am grieved if I find therein what my own experience rejects. 

 Mr. W. M. Williams is an authority, and it is a pleasure to sit at 

 his feet ; nevertheless, I am glad (personally) that his will is not 

 law, because he would extinguish me in at least three different 

 ways: (1) By abolishing chimneys, witliout which I cannot sleep; 

 (2) flesh-diet, without which I cannot live ; (3) tea, without which 

 I should have ajioplexy (or chronic headache, as my mother had for 

 forty year.si). 



I, however, am " ror etprmicrea nihil." Bat, CaDsar ! Of all the 

 twenty-three wounds which finished him, none would surpass the 

 pang caused by this last " unkindcst cut of all" — that after twenty 

 centuries a descendant of the Helvetians and Britons whom he 

 crushed should rise up and say be was either mendax or stulius as 

 to what he saw in Britain ! Hallvards. 



LETTERS RECEIVED AND SHORT ANSWERS. 



E. D. G. Assuredly, I do not regard as an "intrusion" a com- 

 munication which affords me an opportunity of reiterating the 

 sentence at the head of the Correspondence Columns, " The Editor 

 is not re.^ponsihle for the opinions of correspondents." The letters 

 of which you (from one point of view not unjustifiably) complain 

 were inserted simply on the principle andi alteram partem. That 

 they are "the last" arises from the fact that they are so in 

 sequence; and, in fairness, I decline to give disputants on either 

 side one chance more than their opponents. It may well have 

 occurred to the overwhelming majority of those who reason at all, 

 " It these are the best arguments that those who advance them 

 can adduce, their cause must be ' in a par'lous state'" — but I 

 cannot conceive that it was my duty to say so, totidun verbis, in 

 a footnote. — W. G. W. asserts that Williamson and Tarleton's 

 "Dynamics" has been so carelessly read for the press that (inter 

 alia) on p. 58, where W and W are used for the weights of the 

 two masses in Atwood's machine, the equation for acceleration of 



W — T 



one mass is printed / = g. which should be (according to 



our correspondent) / = i^-^^ — I :/ ; that, again, on the same page, 



acceleration is given / = 0, asking what are Wy Vi y f 



W + W 

 He goes on to say, " The following occurs on p. 100. The length 

 of the seconds pendulum is found to be so many inches, hence the 

 corresponding value of gravity is 32-1908 feet!" [Why not? Ed.] 

 Further, that on " p. 47, 50 feet is given as the velocity of a body 

 in Ex. 11." [But, as 1 am wholly ignorant of what this example 



