SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 1887. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 

 The danger of long-range weather-prediction, 

 even of the cautious kind lately indulged in by Dr. 

 Hinrichs, is forcibly illustrated in the statements 

 given in the advance proof of the Iowa bulletin 

 for December. The month is described as very 

 cold, fair, and dry, the mean temperature of the 

 air being more than seven degrees below the nor- 

 mal. Only once in the past sixteen years has 

 Iowa had a colder December (1876). This is not 

 a satisfactory verification of the statement made 

 a month ago : " The probability is very high that 

 the w-inter now begun will be a mild one in Iowa 

 and the north-west." Apparently as a comment 

 on this discordance, Dr. Hinrichs says, " January 

 will, it seems, also run decidedly below normal. 

 February may be markedly above normal, and 

 contribute greatly to reduce the severity of the 

 winter [a possibility very much to be desired]. 

 During the forty years preceding 1883, there 

 never have been more than tw^o consecutive cold 

 winters in Iowa ; namely, those of 1856 and 1857. 

 Beginning with 1883, we have now had four 

 severe winters in unbroken succession, and these 

 winters have not been followed by a month of 

 severe weather this winter. This is entirely with- 

 out precedent, and of very serious import to the 

 people of Iowa." That seems to be the difficulty : 

 the weather cares too little for precedent. 



The hoijday edition of the Age of steel de- 

 serves attention because of the number and inter- 

 est of the economic articles it contains. In fact, 

 it seems more like an economic than a technical 

 journal. It is somewhat of a novelty, too, to find 

 that the economics are thoroughly practical, the 

 theoretical and speculative element occupying a 

 very subordinate place. M. Godin, the founder 

 of the Familistere, tells again briefly the well- 

 known story of that institution. At the end of his 

 article, the philanthropist grows confidential, and 

 points out the principal obstacle with which his 

 foundation has to contend. That obstacle is, as 

 might have been suspected, nothing less than 

 human nature itself. And it has happened in this 

 No. 206. — 1887. 



way. The association has made large profits, 

 which have been published every year. A knowl- 

 edge of the detailed, operations of the concern is 

 accessible to the public. Just here the difficulty 

 presented itself. 



In the language of M. Godin. " instead of study- 

 ing them [the annual balance-sheet, and so forth] 

 for the purpose of imitating us by organizing 

 labor, this is the way the filibusters in industry 

 have argued : they have said to themselves, ' The 

 Association of the Familistere pays actually about 

 1,800,000 francs ($360,000) in wages. If we estab- 

 lish a similar industry, copy its products, and pay 

 50 per cent less to our operatives than the Society 

 of the Familistere pays theirs, we shall realize 

 profits amounting to nearly a million more than 

 it ; so that it cannot compete with us, except it 

 lowers wages, — a thing it cannot do, since its 

 operatives are associates in its industry : thus we 

 can beat them in the market.' These arguments 

 have been carried out in practice, so that the 

 Association of the Familistere has to-day to com- 

 pete with establishments that let down wages 

 to their lowest point, and, by these means, prac- 

 tise a deplorable competition, which push the 

 wage-workers to strike and misery." These 

 ' wrongs of egoism,' as M. Godin calls them, are 

 the very things that idealists and reformers of all 

 ages have had to contend against : and the fact 

 that they are certain to recur is the neglected fac- 

 tor in the calculations of so many of the social re- 

 formers of our own generation. 



Profit-sharing is also the subject of several 

 articles in the same journal. Prof. J. B. Clark of 

 Smith college, and Frank A. Flower, commis- 

 sioner of labor for the state of Wisconsin, write 

 favoring profit-sharing ; but the testimony of two 

 large concerns — the Crane Brothers manufac- 

 turing company of Chicago, and the H. O. Nelson 

 manufacturing company of St. Louis — is of more 

 importance and value than any hypothetical argu- 

 ments can possibly be. Mr. Crane says that his 

 company has tried with much success the plan of 

 permitting the employees to buy stock in propor- 

 tion to their yearly salary, but, as in many cases 

 the workmen are not prepared to buy the amount 



