430 



♦ KNOWLEDGE • 



[Mat 22, 1885. 



new danger. Life is said to hang npon a. thread, and now the life 

 of a Londoner may be said to hang upon a mre, which is but a 

 metallic thread, and with much greater reason to depend npon a 

 heavy telegraph cable. Should any great diminution in the tensile 

 strength of these wires, from physical or other causes, take place 

 in the course of time, it is difficult lo conceive how mischief in con- 

 sequence should be prevented, inasmuch as it would, to say the 

 least, be exceedingly difficult to make a proper inspection of them ; 

 and, moreover, even if such inspection were easily practicable, it 

 would probably be neglected until a political dignitary like the 

 Home Secretary or the Postmaster-General should happen to be 

 strangled, or, it may be, decapitated, by a broken wire, or crushed 

 by a broken cable. In the event of such an unhappy accident, this 

 unsightly and dangerous nuisance might possibly be suppressed. 



It is urged by some that hard-drawn copper, a recent 

 innovation, is a tolerably good safeguard, inasmuch as it 

 combines with good electric conductivity and oxygen- 

 resisting powers of a high order, a tensile strength 

 approaching that of steel. It is noteworthy, however, that, 

 because of its high conductivity and its relatively high 

 price, the gauge of such wire is very small. A deal of this 

 wire has been erected recently, and stands well in a gale of 

 •wind. The snowstorm of last March, however, was un- 

 accompanied by wind. The snow froze on to the thin wire 

 to a diameter of 2 in. or thereabouts. Then there sprang 

 up a wind, and down came the wires wholesale. It is 

 notorious that they suffered much more than the old- 

 fashioned iron wire. We see then that there is absolutely 

 no guarantee that we shall not sooner or later experience a 

 calamitous assault by truant wires flying in all directions. 

 There is one little saving-clause that might have been, and 

 which ought to have been, introduced, and that is that, 

 where overhead wires are necessary, they should only be 

 permitted to cross the street at right angles, and be at such 

 a height that the distance from the ground should be at 

 least as great as the distance between the two supports 

 sustaining the wires over the street. There would then be 

 little danger of any further accident than a shaken roof or 

 a few broken windows. 



It is also argued that the benefit confeiTed by the telephone 

 is too great to be sacrificed for the sake of saving a few 

 lives, more or less, and the finger is pointed to the many 

 deaths which result from overrunning Vjy horses and vehicles. 

 There is, however, this difference to be noticed, viz., that 

 such deaths are really preventible, and almost invariably 

 result from want of care somewhere or other, while such 

 disasters as are likely to be caused by broken w-ires cannot 

 be guarded against. Further, it is practically impossible to 

 send our horses and carriages underground, while there 

 should be no reason why telephone wires should not be 

 placed there. To say that the telephone will not work on 

 an underground system is to beg the truth, .seeing that it ?^< 

 so worked. We should, I am convinced, hear a ditferent 

 tale were the wires once imdergi-ound. We should then 

 hear of their superiority over aerial circuits, subjected, as 

 the latter are, to the elements, to the swaying of the wind, 

 and so forth. If electricians cannot now overcome induction 

 between wires, they would soon find a means for doing so. 



But of all the outrages ever perpetrated, is there one 

 that equals the opinion of the committee, " that, under 

 proper regulations, permission should be given to pass 

 wires over property without the owners or occupiers having 

 the right of prohibition " ? The Telephone Company was not 

 so far out, then, when it strove to introduce clauses into its 

 Bill before Parliament empowering it as it pleases to erect 

 poles on and attach wires to houses, or to erect jioles within 

 three feet of a house — one planted in fi-ont of the door- 

 way, for instance. Of course, with the right to erect poles 

 must be given the right to enter houses at pleasure. 

 Nothing, in fact, must be withheld. 



But supposing these concessions granted, would permis- 



sion be withheld from householders to cut such wires as 

 happen to be in their way ? or, more important still, 

 could permission be any longer withheld from the electric 

 light companies to run overhead wires at pleasure 1 If that 

 right were granted, how would the telephone get on then I 

 It would have passed from confusion into confusion ten 

 thousand times confounded. 



It is, then, to be hoped that such legislation as is fore- 

 shadowed by the report may never see the light of day, for 

 far better would it be to let things go on as they are with 

 the certain knowledge that a catastrophe must happen 

 sooner or later, and that it would look undignified to have to 

 withdraw a concession once made in good faith. 



THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE. 



By Ada S. Ballis. 

 IX. 



MAN at the present time uses gesture-language, gene- 

 rally in conjunction with articulate speech ; but it 

 also forms a bond of union between peoples of difierant 

 tongues, and between speakers and those who, owing to 

 disease or organic defect, have no power of speech — a 

 means of communication common to all mankind. 



Besides those gestures of which I have already spoken, 

 there is another class of gestures which may be styled 

 " pantomimic ; " they come tinder the head of gestures ex- 

 pressive of thought, and are purely imitative. They are 

 understood by every one, because they are as far as possible 

 pictorial representations of things and actions, and repro- 

 ductions of the manifestations which accompany feelings. 



If anything to which reference has to be made is present, 

 it is either touched, or if out of reach is pointed at, as if 

 it were touched from afar ; it it is out of sight, the most 

 striking characteristic is imitated, and it is recognised by 

 the rough sketch thus given. 



For example, in grief, the contraction of certain facial 

 muscles gives the countenance an appearance of being 

 drawn down. We talk about a person " pulling a long 

 face," when in trouble ; and a party of natives in Tierra 

 del Fuego explained to Darwin that their friend, the 

 captain of a sealing vessel, was out of spirits, by pulling 

 down their cheeks with both hands to make their faces look 

 as long as possible. 



The pictorial or imitative origin of gestures, such as the 

 following, is apparent on very superficial investigation, and 

 it can easily be seen why they are so universally under- 

 stood. 



It is a well authenticated fact that North American 

 Indians, similarly with English deaf-mutes, if they desire 

 to represent the act of iralkiny adopt the same pantomimic 

 action, by moving the first two fingers alternately, tips 

 downwards. Again, each of the above, to indicate riding 

 straddles the first and second fingers of one hand across 

 the index of the other, which represents the mount. 

 Holding the two forefingers side by side means husband 

 and vife or companions, and is said to be understood 

 everywhere. Jleat is indicated by pinching up a bit of 

 flesh on the back of the hand, while the imitation with the 

 forefinger of steam curling upwards shows that hot, cooked 

 meat is intended. 



To touch the ear with the forefinger is " to hear " and 

 the tongue "to taste," while "to see" is expressed by 

 darting out the first and second fingers from the eyes, like 

 rays. The sign for child is to hold the right arm with its 

 elbow resting on the left hand, representing the way in 



