Vol. XXII. No. 6.] 



POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 



83 



and down, as shown in the engraving. Bal- 

 ance it carefully on tlie point of a needle, which 

 may be supporte<l by a cork, and we have a 

 little windmill, which, when the liandis brought 

 near it, will revolve with more or less rapidity. 

 The motion, of course, is due to the currents 

 of air arising from the warm hand ; and the 

 varying rapidity of rotation with different per- 

 sons is not due to an}' occult '• magnetic" 



influence, but simply to the different degrees 

 of warmth in their hands. The movement is 

 more rapid if both hands are placed around the 

 apparatus instead of one. 



The illustrations given above arc from La 

 Nahire ; a correspondent of the Science News 

 send us llic two following : — 



Wrap up a round bullet in a thin paper as 

 smoothly as possible, and hold it over a flame : 

 the bullet will melt before the paper will burn. 

 This is due to the fact that the lead is a good 

 conductor of beat, and conducts it away from 

 the paper so rapidl}', that it cannot be heated 

 to the igniting point. This experiment is 

 rather a difllcult one, but can be accomplished 

 with a little care. The paper must be smooth- 

 ly and closely wrapi)ed around the bullet, and 

 the flame must not be allowed to touch anj' 

 part of the paper not in contact with it. 



Soak a thread in salt water, and dr^'. Tie a 

 cent at one end, and suspend it by the other. 

 Burn the thread, and the cent will remain hang- 

 ing, as the salt in the thread gives the ash 

 sulHcient coherency to support the coin with- 

 out breaking. 



4 



[Original in Popular Science News,^ 



AN EIGHT-HOUR DAY. 



BY PROFESSOR W. G. SUMNER. 



There are two assertions which are constantly 

 made about an eight-hour law which may at once 

 be ruled out. There are those who say that if 

 wage-receivers should have two hours a day more 

 leisure, they would spend it in reading-rooms and 

 libraries, or otherwise in profitable occupation. 

 There are others who say that the same persons, if 

 they had two hours a day more leisure, would spend 

 it iu dram-shops and in folly. These two assertions, 

 I say, are at once to be ruled out as unwarranted. 

 If the class of persons mentioned should have more 

 leisure, they would undoubtedly do just what other 

 classes do: some of them would spend it well, and 

 some ill. A sweeping and dogmatic assertion either 

 way is unwarranted. 



Xext, it is asserted that a man can do, and would 

 do, more work in eight hours thau in ten. This is 



an assertion as to fact, and it can be tested only by 

 experiment. It is certain that a man who should 

 work twenty hours a day would work few days, and 

 that his lifetime would not be economically spent. 

 On the other hand, a man who should work no hours 

 would produce nothing, and his lifetime would not 

 be economically spent. 'J'here is a maximum point 

 between, at which a man can produce his maximum 

 product for a lifetime, without unduly wasting his 

 energy. It is not, however, superfluous, in view of 

 some of our current discussion, to note that a man 

 who works in any calling whatsoever wears himself 

 out, that he comes to an age when the recuperative 

 forces fail to keep up with the waste, and that no 

 hours of labor can be set for any of us which will 

 keep us from growing old. Hence the maxinmm is 

 as above stated. 



To find this maximum is a task for practical so- 

 lution. The only ground for an opinion about it 

 which we yet possess is this: that if more could be 

 produced iu eight hours than in ten, there would 

 be an economic advantage in the reduction; the 

 employers and employees ought long since to have 

 found it out, for it would have put in their power 

 a great industrial gain. If, however, they have 

 not yet tried it, and if experiment should show that 

 there is a greater product for eight hours' work 

 than for ten, there would be no question for by- 

 standers to discuss. The parties could simply 

 arrange their labor contracts accordingly. 



Assuming, then, that the maximum time of effi- 

 cient and not unduly exhausting labor has been 

 ascertained by experiment, and that it is, for manual 

 occupations, ten hours a day, we may go on to some 

 other points. If the maximum was ten hours per 

 day, and the working-time should be arbitrarily 

 reduced to eight hours, the product must be reduced 

 approximately twenty per cent. This observation 

 would not be conclusive against the proposed step, 

 for it might be a rational and sensible choice for 

 men to make, to say that they would rather have 

 more leisure than more product. The effect of 

 machinery is to give us this choice. It enables us 

 to get a given product in less time and with less 

 toil. As a consequence, we gain time, which we 

 can employ in producing things which we formerly 

 had to do without. AVe increase our product, and 

 satisfy more wants. If, however, we chase to keep 

 our wants on the old footing, we might get more 

 leisure. This would be a gain of another order, and 

 it is one of the gains which we always and properly 

 aim at. 



Having, then, command of this choice, it would be 

 every way as rea.sonable to choose leisure as to choose 

 products, if it was done intelligently ; but to shut 

 our eyes to the facts, and to suppose that we can 

 have the leisure and the products too, is unintelli- 

 gent and absurd. So far, men have alway.iexpanded 

 their wants as fast as they have expanded their 

 power to produce, and have eagerly welcomed the 

 former luxuries and new necessaries. If they want 

 more leisure, they must renounce the luxuries, which 

 the men of our generation show less willingness to 

 do than those of any preceding generation. 



If the production of goods should be reduced 

 twenty per cent throughout the entire range of in- 

 dustry, there would be minute changes in the value 

 of goods, on account of the fact that a twenty per 

 cent reduction in the supply of some would affect 

 their value more than the same reduction in the 

 supply of others. Leaving this difference out of 

 account, however, there would be no change in the 

 value of commodities. A bushel of wheat would 

 buy as many pounds of coal or iron, as many 

 yards of cloth, etc., as before The farmer would 

 have twenty per cent less bu.shels to exchange, the 

 miner twenty per cent less iron and coal, and so on 

 all through the community. Consequently, after all 



the exchanges were made, each producer would 

 have twenty per cent less food, clothes, furniture, 

 fuel, lights, house-rent, etc. 



AV^hether prices would rise or not, would depend 

 on the movements of the precious metals and on 

 what was going on in other countries at the same 

 time. It would make no difference at all with the 

 lesult as already stated, for the effect would not 

 consist in any fact whatever about gold and silver, 

 but in facts about what we do and what we get; 

 facts about human labor and human enjoyment. 



If, now, we go to the first man whom we find 

 working ten hours a day, or it may be twelve, and 

 ask him why he does it, we sliall easily learn why 

 men do not choose leisure rather than products. If 

 we find a man of forty at work, and if he is a re- 

 spectable and worthy man, he will tell us that he 

 knows all about the benefits of reading, family and 

 social enjoyment, and all that, and that he does not 

 work ten hours a day because lie would rather do 

 it than stop at four o'clock and enjoy himself. He 

 does it because he has a wife and children to sup- 

 port. He has assumed obligations to these persons, 

 and he is trying to discharge them. He finds that 

 it takes all the product that he can make in ten 

 hours, with occasional overtime, to give them what 

 he desires to give them, in order that they may have 

 the grade of comfort which he wants them to have; 

 that the children may have a good outfit in life; and 

 that he may lay up something, to say nothing of 

 paying taxes for all the " reforms," " movements," 

 " questions," and jobs. 



In this respect the man at the bench is no worse 

 off than all the rest of us in these days. If any 

 thing, he feels the strain of modern life less than 

 professional men, bankers, railroad men, and the 

 managers of great industries. AVe are all trying to 

 discharge our obligations; and the conditions of 

 modern life make those obligations so heavy, that 

 very few men can discharge them by working only 

 eight hours a day, at least during the period of life 

 iu which one is winning power and position. It is 

 to be remembered that those who try to discharge 

 their obligations also have to assume those of the 

 people who do not discharge their own. If these 

 latter burdens could be escaped, they would probably 

 allow of a more than twenty per cent reduction in 

 the working-time of the workers; but at present 

 tlie drift in that respect is all the other way. 



[Original in Popular Science News.] 

 MAGNETIC SUGGESTION. 



BY R. R. BUNTING, M.D. 



The Popular Science News for February, in the 

 " Paris Letter," contains some remarks on hypno- 

 tism which are of very great interest. The writer 

 says, " If the subject is told, when in a hypnotic 

 condition, to do such and such a thing at such 

 and such a time of a given day, he does it at the 

 ordered time, impulsively, without knowing why, 

 after feeling an uncontrollable impulse to do it." 

 In a recent novel by Jules Claretie, entitled Jean 

 Mornas, this ingenious author has opened up this 

 very interesting subject. He remarks in his preface, 

 " In the experiments at the Salpetrifcre Hospital 

 and elsewhere, and in the writings of learned spe- 

 cialists, I have sought the proof of this suggestion, 

 which some day will present itself in our courts as 

 the most terrible of judicial problems. This book 

 is the result of my reflections and observations up- 

 on this subject. Magnetic suggestion has already 

 been used therapeutically to advantage, but it is in 

 a medico-legal sense that we will now consider it." 

 A brief resume of this novel may not be uninterest- 

 ing to your readers. Jean Mornas, a graduate in 

 medicine, but not practising, gains his livelihood 

 by performing, at odd times, some clerical work, — 



