Review of Reviews, 1/11106. 



The Reviews Reviewed. 



THE NORTH A«ERICAN REVIEW. 



The August number of the North American Bevieu- 

 is one of the best that has been published. For 

 variety of interest it is unsurpasBed. 



THE RESULT OF THE GERMAN EDITORS' VISIT. 

 The Berlin correspondent of the Review thus re- 

 ports on the results of the German Editors' visit to 

 England as seen by an American observer in the Ger- 

 man capital : — 



Fifly Germaa journalists, many of them life-long de- 

 nuncia.tor8 of " perfidious Albion," have journeyed to Eng- 

 land, where they have been royally entertained by dis- 

 tinguished representatives of British culture; and they 

 have returned to the Fatherland cured, at least, of their 

 prejudices. They have assured themselves that the Bri- 

 tish nation ueeds peace and not war, and they will be 

 chary in future of lending credence and publicity to those 

 extravagant tales of impending British attacks on German 

 seaport towns which were mainly responsible for the eager 

 acceptance by the Reichstag of the latest Xavy Bill. A 

 more appreciative style is already perceptible in the com- 

 ments of the press on Anglo-German relations. The note 

 of denunciation has, for the moment, entirely disappeared, 

 and the friendships formed by Great Britain with France 

 and other countries, which until quite recently were con- 

 strued in an aggressive sense, are now discussed in a com- 

 mendable spirit of tolerance. There is, in fact, a manifest 

 desire to let bygones be bygones, and to assist into pro- 

 minence the pacificatory elements- 



THE LIMITS OF HEREDITY IN DISEASE. 



Dr. Louis Elkind, in an article on Heredity, thus 

 sums up the latest conclusion of scientific men as to 

 heredity and disease. He says: — 



(It Diseases, as such, whether inborn or acquired, are 

 never transmitted; that, however, in the case of inborn 

 aflections, the predispositioyt to the malady — but not the 

 malady itself — is transmitted from parent to oflspring. In 

 the case of tuberculosis, which until quite recently was 

 generally regarded as an inherited disease, the latest 

 scientific investigations have proved beyond doubt that it 

 is not the germ itself that is inherited, but the predisposi- 

 tion to the disease. 



12) Acquired external defects or mutilations of any kind 

 are, as a rule, not transmitted. 



<Z) As regards acquired pathological disarrangements of 

 internal organs, there is some probability — judging at least 

 from the results which have recently been obtained from 

 certain experiments and operations on the nervous system 

 — of their being transmitted from parent to offspring, but 

 under quite definite and special circumstances, that is to 

 say, if these internal lesions have caused the parent great 

 suffering and called for much endurance. 



THE COMPARATIVE SAFETY OF ENGLISH RAILWAYS. 



The London correspondent of the Beview gives 

 some startling figures illustrating the comparative 

 safety of English over American railways : — 



With a train mileage less than half that of the Ameri- 

 can roads, the English roads in 1903 hauled twice as many 

 passengers, conducting their business on one-tenth the 

 trackage, and in doing so killed but one-tenth as many 

 people and injured less than one-tenth as many. In 1903. 

 some 10.000 people were killed and 75.000 injured through 

 the workings of American railroads; while in England 

 1159 were killed and 6785 were injured. More than one- 

 half of the deaths on the English lines were caused by 

 the carelessness of individual passengers, and over 150 were 

 suicides. In the same year, there were 6167 collisions and 

 4476 derailments in the United States, and 111 collisions 

 and 80 derailments in the United Kingdom. Considering 

 that the density of English traffic is six to one greater 

 than that of .\merican traffic, and that the English roads 

 have to operate within an area little larger than the 

 State of New York, their comparative immunity from ac- 

 cidents is all the more wonderful. 



THE CREATION OF AN INLAND SEA. 

 Mr. Edmund Jlitchell describes one of the most 

 extraordinary occurrences of recent times — the crea- 

 tion of a vast inland sea on the borders of Mexico. 

 The Lower Colorado river, which had changed its 

 course owing to the silting up of its banks, was being 

 used for purposes of irrigation. A deluge came, and j 

 the river forced its way through the irrigation canal ] 

 into a vast natural hollow, which it is now converting 

 into what is known as the Salton Sea : — 



Should the waters of the river continue to flow into the 

 basin iu their present volume, after making the proper 

 allowance for evaporation, it will take from thirty to 

 forty years to fill the entire saucerlike depression up to 

 sea-level. Should this ever happen, there wou d be a lake 

 nearly 2000 square miles in area, the overflow waters of 

 which would eventually reach the Gulf by some new chan- 

 nel cut through the barriers of silt at their weakest point 

 of resistance. 



WALT WHITMAN. 



Mrs. Louise Collier Wilcox writes appreciatively of 

 Walt Whitman, but she recoils from according him 

 a place among the prophets of mankind. She says 

 that his life was not without stain in his youth : — 



However completely he may have turned from that part 

 of his life afterward, it would seem legitimately to divorce 

 him from the assumption of the highest holiness. His way 

 of feeling life and humanity was large, patient, far-seeing 

 and loving, but his method was definitely to descend into 

 the midst of natural life and spread cheer and goodwilL 

 There is another method, which is. living above the gene-, 

 ral level of righteousness, gradually to exalt that level. 

 This seems to have been the method of such masters of, 

 living as St. Francis and Buddh.a. and, above all, of the 

 Supreme Human Pattern. But not his unworldliness, his 

 bigness, his extraordinary prophetical power, his cosmic 

 consciousness, undeniable as these are. justify the claims 

 made for him by his enthusiastic friends, that he stands 

 on the pinnacle with the supreme Masters of Life. 



THE WISE WORDS OF THE INDIVIDUALIST. 

 Mrs. Elizabeth Bi,sland, in an article entitled 

 " The Harmless Xecessary Truth," reminds our 

 socialistic regenerators of mankind that it is all very 

 well piling up the agony and representing the chil- 

 dren of the aby-ss as victims of society. But they, 

 must not forget that — 



drunkenness, indolence, dishonesty, wash away the unfit 

 from the shores of agreeable opportunities. Perhaps quite 

 as potent as any of these three vices is the species of in- 

 toxication offered by the excitement of city life. Neither 

 domestic service nor country employment would be allowed 

 by the victims to be a tolerable exch.ange. as compared 

 w'ith their herded, sweated trades within the sound of Bow 

 Bells. 



OTHER ARTICLES. 

 Mr. Watson Griffin, on behalf of the Canadian 

 manufacturers, replies to Mr. Porritt's statements 

 in a recent number of the Beview. Mr. Griffin says 

 that in 1904 one Canadian bought in the United 

 States more than forty-one Americans bought in 

 Canada. Dr. Moxom, in an article on "Christianity; 

 on Trial," says : — 



"Why call ye Me Lord. Lord, and do not the things] 

 that I say?" We read these words in the New Testament. J 

 but. with curious fatuity, we never suspect that they ar« ] 

 addressed to us. It may be that the Church and the 

 Christendom which is identified with the Church are to ] 

 hear the doomful words which were spoken to the ancient] 

 "elect" people of God: "The kingdom of God shall be J 

 taken away from you and given to a people bringing forth J 

 the fruits thereof." 



