124 Editors Table. [ February, 
camp, I twitted ‘“‘ Horseback” about the fear of the robe, calling 
his attention to the fact that no harm befell any of the white men 
who handled the robe, but he answered that such might be the 
case, but what was ‘bad medicine” for a Comanche might be 
“good medicine” for a white man, and vice versa. He proposed 
to take no risks in the matter. 
A white buffalo (stuffed) was on exhibition at the Centennial 
Exposition, the property of R. M. Wright, of Kansas, and it is a 
pity that it was not secured by the Smithsonian or some other 
institution for preservation. 
:0: 
EDITORS’ TABLE, 
EDITORS: A. S. PACKARD, JR., AND E. D. COPE. 
The tariff laws of the United States are in some respects 
a direct tax on intellectual progress, and although it is not un- 
likely that this result is entirely due to oversight on the part of 
the framers of those laws, the consequences are none the less in- © 
jurious. Some of our contemporaries doubtless remember the 
difficulties experienced by Alvan Clark & Sons, of Cambridge, in 
procuring unwrought optical glass, for use in building the tele- 
scopes for which their house is so highly esteemed. The high 
tariff on these rough discs operated as a prohibition to the man- 
ufacture of the optical instruments to which they are necessary. 
This result was probably not anticipated by our legislators. After 
prolonged negotiations, special dispensations from the Treasury 
Department have permitted the discs to pass free if for schools, 
colleges or academies, otherwise a duty of 10 p. c. is exacted. 
The law with regard to “specimens of Natural History,” 
that is, those relating to botany, zodlogy, paleontology, geology 
and mineralogy, imposes a heavy duty on them when they are 
intended for sale, or are not designed for exhibition in a pablit 
institution, As the greater number of specimens of this kind are 
obtained by persons who depend on their sale for reimbursement, 
it is evident that students in this country must pay the tax, or go 
without them. The actual result is, that students and institutions 
being mostly poor, do not purchase, and sellers must pocket the 
loss. So well known has this: become, that such objects nearly 
all now go to Europe, to the impoverishment of science here, and 
