POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



57i 



pose of mutual understanding and mutual 

 forbearance ; yet some of them are in their 

 essence beautiful, because they are founded 

 on the principle of charity as well as truth. 

 They control jealousy and rivalry ; they re- 

 press vulgar competition ; they express dis- 

 interested sympathy. In fact, they trans- 

 form a selfish mob into an orderly society. 

 Still, though without these etiquettes and 

 courtesies of civilization social life could 

 hardly exist, yet it would be impossible to 

 speak of any of the conventions which render 

 it possible as if they were laws of intrinsic 

 and moral obligation to which there are no 

 exceptions. They are but principles which 

 govern the average or ordinary usages of 

 men, but none the less principles which give 

 way, and rightly give way, before any urgent 

 individual need, or even any moderate press- 

 ure of clear utility. 



Chinese Newspapers. — The Chinese Gov- 

 ernment instituted an official journal at a 

 very early date, the Pekin Gazette having 

 existed since b. c. *740. It was at first printed 

 upon engraved wooden blocks, but now mov- 

 able characters cut in wood are used. There 

 are three editions of the paper, of which 

 only the official edition is printed in this 

 manner. The second edition is printed with 

 waxen plates on which the characters are 

 cut, and, the work being done in haste, is 

 not very legible. The third edition is in 

 manuscript. The official edition is printed 

 on one side of ten or twelve very thin doubled 

 leaves, is eighteen centimetres high and ten 

 broad, and is divided by lines of violet ink 

 into seven columns, each containing fourteen 

 ordinary characters. It appears every morn- 

 ing. The manuscript edition is a little 

 smaller than the official edition, and appears 

 several days before it. Its price is many 

 times higher, and it is largely used by for- 

 eigners. The journal furnishes a real pano- 

 rama of the official and social life of the 

 Chinese. The reading of it is very enter- 

 taining ; for we may find in it, among other 

 documents, the day which the emperor has 

 decided upon for changing from the winter 

 hut to the summer hut ; that six of the can- 

 didates for the license were more than nine- 

 ty, and thirteen more than eighty years old, 

 illustrating the fact that one is never too 

 old to be examined in China. This Pekin 



Gazette was the only journal published in 

 China till about twenty years ago. Since 

 then some five journals have arisen at Shang- 

 hai, Tien-Tsin, at Canton, at the instance of 

 the English, with the co-operation of Chi- 

 nese literati. The Chen Pai, of Shanghai, 

 which was started in 1885, is an illustrated 

 weekly journal, with eight doubled leaves 

 and a red cover, the engravings in which are 

 done in Chinese style in outline. In one of 

 the numbers of this journal the last conflict 

 between the French and the Chinese is rep- 

 resented, with the French commander Four- 

 nier in the costume of an English admiral. 

 All the journals together publish not more 

 than fifteen thousand copies. The attempts 

 made in them to transcribe European words 

 phonetically are sometimes amusing, thus 

 ultimatum becomes " ou-ti-ma-toung " ; statu 

 quo, " sseu-ta-tou-ko " ; telephone, " to-li- 

 foung," etc. 



The Fire of Incandescent Lamps. — An 



active incandescent lamp may be broken in 

 the midst of cool combustibles, even of gun- 

 cotton, without setting them on fire, so rapid 

 is the destruction of the carbon filaments in 

 the open air. But a long continuance of the 

 lamp in immediate contact with a combus- 

 tible envelope may determine ignition, the 

 more readily the more slowly heat and air 

 pass through the envelope. Thus gummed 

 cotton or other goods will take fire more 

 rapidly than similar goods ungummed or 

 loose. Some interesting experiments in this 

 property have been made by an Austrian 

 engineer, Captain Exler. Having determined 

 the temperature produced by certain meas- 

 ured lamps in paraffin in which they were 

 plunged, he washed them with pulverin, 

 ecrasite, and powdered gun-cotton; no 

 change took place in their condition. In 

 thicker coatings ecrasite fused, and the 

 powder slowly lost its sulphur, but neither 

 took fire. The effects were more marked 

 when the substance was spread upon a sur- 

 face capable of wholly arresting calorific 

 radiation. It is therefore prudent to guard 

 against bringing naked lamps too close 

 to a combustible surface. When the lamp 

 was surrounded with an envelope, the tem- 

 perature between the two surfaces rose. In 

 fifty minutes it became sufficient to decom- 

 pose fulmicotton and carbonize wood. Black 



