326 
NATURE 
[ Aug. 24, 1871 

THE severe storm, which one of our correspondents de- 
scribed in our last number, will make August 12 remembered 
in many parts of the South of England and South Wales. 
In one place in Dorsetshire, 100 trees in one orchard were 
completely blown down, and forty trees in another. In 
other places we read of cottages being unroofed, and large 
trees carried awav; and at Cardiff, a police station is stated 
to have been struck by a ‘‘meteoric stone,” and some dam- 
age done, whilst during the storm ‘‘a shower of small green 
frogs” fell. 
Pror. NEWTON has sent us an account of the shock of earth- 
quake experienced at Boston, U.S., on the 13th of last month, 
It occurred early in the morning, and though comparatively 
slight, was still so plainly perceptible that those who felt it had 
no hesitation in attributing their sensations to the proper causes. 
Some persons who were abroad were affected with giddiness and 
momentary nausea, clocks were stopped in houses, beds and | 
windows shaken,and vessels upset. 


THE GOVERNMENT AND PROF. SYLVESTER 
ROF. SYLVESTER is one of our best mathema- 
ticians, and enjoys a European celebrity. He was, 
we believe, the first of the Jewish race to compete for the 
highest honours in the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos, 
setting an example which has since been followed by 
several distinguished men. Although he was Second 
Wrangler, his religious opinions disqualified him from 
obtaining at Cambridge the Fellowship for which he was 
well fitted, and which was morally his due. He had to 
leave the University, and after an interval, and in an evil 
moment for himself, accepted at the age of forty the post 
of Professor of Mathematics to the Royal Military Aca- 
demy at Woolwich. Woolwich Academy, as our readers 
know, is the training school of officers for the Artillery 
and Engineers. 
It is one of those hybrid establishments, | 
half regiment and half college, which are managed by | 
well-paid officers in the Army who do not teach, and taught 
by ill-paid civilians who have nothing to do with the 
management. But, inasmuch as mathematics formed the 
t 

year—we may mark the precision of the calculation—is 
thus, according to the opinion of somebody at the 
Treasury, the proper compensation to be given on the 
abolition of his office to one of the first living mathema- 
ticians, who had spent the best fifteen years of his life— 
or, as they say at Whitehall, with pitiless accuracy, only 
fourteen years, ten months, and fifteen days—in the 
service of the nation. He was not told, when he entered 
the public service in the prime of life, that the tenure 
of his office would be thus terminable. On the con- 
trary, the idea is entirely novel, and had never pre- 
vailed before in our military or naval schools. We 
believe that Professor Sylvester is the last man in 
the world to set his own private claims against the 
public exigencies of the Royal Military Academy. But 
he might fairly enough object to be the victim of an 
| experiment in organisation without being properly com- 
pensated for the consequent change in his mode of life. 
The Royal Commission thought that too great prominence 
was given at Woolwich to abstract Mathematics, and re- 
commended the union of the two Professorships of Mathe- 
matics and Mechanics, witha view to some modifications in 
the system of study. But if the reformation of the Academy 
required the abolition of the office, surely the holder of the 
office deserved to be duly compensated. It is not right 
for the State to treat a man of approved science and 
elaborate education, whom it invites into its service at 
the mature age of forty, on exactly the same principles of 
superannuation as are applied to an ordinary member of 
the Civil Service, who becomes a clerk, from whatever un- 
ambitious reason, at the age of seventeen. There is no 
parity of position between the two. If Professor Sylves- 
ter had completed his fifteenth year of service, his szznz- 
mum rate of pension, according to the rules of the Civil 
Service, would have been 60/. a year more than he was at 
first awarded; but the War Office and the Treasury 
would not even grant him this. They offered him one 
shillg over and above his 2782, a year, and; bade him 
God speed. 
Fortunately for the Professor and for the public credit, 
| Sir Francis Goldsmid took the matter up in the House of 
principal of the studies, the Professor of Mathematics | 
was an important personage, and corresponded more 
nearly than any one else to the character of Head Master. 
He had a house anda salary of six or seven hundred a 
year. In 1869 a Royal Commission was appointed to 
inquire into the condition of Military Education in this 
country, and much evidence was given by the Professor as 
to the working of the Academy. He advocated exten- 
sive changes in the system, many of which were recom- 
mended by the Commissioners, and have since been 
adopted. But there was one among their many_recom- 
mendations which was not suggested by the Professor, 
and which assuredly could not have been intended by the 
Commission to work retrospectively, and without due con- 
sideration, upon the teachers then in office. In altering 
the government and organisation of the Academy, 
and proposing a change in the educational staff, it 
was suggested that “the Professors, Instructors, and 
other officials, if military men, should be appointed for 
seven years, at least, with the power of re-appointment. 
If civilians, their tenure of office should in no case con- 
tinue after the age of 55, unless an extension be specially 
recommended by the Governor and approved by the 
Secretary of State.” Acting upon the Report of the Royal | 
Commission, the War Office informed Professor Sylvester 
on or soon after his 55th birthday that his services would 
be no longer required. They did not even let him stay a 
few wecks to complete his fifteenth year of servitude, but 
bundled him off with a profusion of compliments, and the 
Treasury at their instance awarded him a retiring pension 
of 278/. 1s. a year. 
Two hundrcd and seventy-eight pounds one shilling a 
Commons, and gave notice that he would move an Ad- 
dress to the Crown that the Professor might receive as 
his pension, “two-thirds of the salary and emoluments en- 
joyed by him at the time of his removal, and humbly to 
assure Her Majesty that this House will make good the 
same.” More, perhaps, he could not ask ; lessit would be 
shabby to offer. When the establishment at Greenwich 
Hospital was abolished, the members were pensioned off 
with lavish generosity. Men who had been there barely 
a couple of years received their full pay and an equivalent 
for their house and allowances. When Haileybury Col- 
lege was abolished by the East Indian Government, its 
Professors and teachers carried with them into private 
life two-thirds of their official salaries, It seemed to be 
a necessary conclusion that the men who manage these 
matters in the Government can be liberal, and even 
generous, at the expense of charity funds or of distant 
dependencies, but bave a different measure to mete with 
in the case of a man of science who has given his ripe 
intellect to the service of this wealthy nation. We 
rejoice at last to hear that the First Lord of the 
Treasury has given the case his full, though somewhat 
tardy, consideration, and has removed the stigma which 
seemed to attach to the public conscience. A country 
whose wealth has increased of late so enormously, as the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer explained to us this Session, 
cannot afford to be niggardly in the treatment of its dis- 
tinguished men. Any mistaken attempt in that direction 
would be sure to recoil upon its authors, as well as to dis- 
credit the very name of economy ; and Mr. Gladstone has 
acted wisely as well as justly in thus rectifying at the close 
of the Session a lamentable departmental error.—From 
the Times. 
