98 
THE YOUNG SCIENTIST. 
Satan, attack and destroy the steamboat, 
and are only prevented by the timely 
arrival of some Hanoverian soldiery from 
murdering Papin, his daughter and a 
German student to whom she is be- 
trothed. The unfortunate man returns 
to London where his wife has died during 
his absence. He is now plunged in the 
most abject poverty, without food. The 
daughter dies, after seeing for a few mo- 
ments her lover, who comes from Ger- 
many with brilliant proposals to Papin 
from the University of Marburg. These 
he declines, but on hearing that a black- 
smith named Newcomen is making steam 
engines at a place called * Darmouth,' 
he goes thither, accompanied by the 
student Hermann and another German 
friend. The blacksmith turns out to be 
the son of Papin, who thought that the 
youth had perished in a fire at his grand- 
father's brewery some yea's previously. 
Papin does not make known his relation- 
ship to Newcomen, but assists him to 
construct a huge steam pumj) ordered by 
the Lord Mayor of London to provide 
the city with Thames water. 
The final tableau shoAvs this enormous 
machine, a beam engine, majestically 
pumping up Thames water, while the 
Lord Mayor, surrounded by red-coated 
guards, assists at the inauguration cere- 
mony, which is enlivened by the strains 
of 'God Save the King.' Newcomen, 
who reaps all the honor of the invention, 
generously ascribes a share to Papin ; but 
their mutual satisfaction is short lived. 
Por some incomprehensible reason Pa- 
pin's old enemies, the Weser boatmen, 
a-ppear on the scene ; they cut a rope con- 
necting the cylinder of the engine with 
the beam. The machine stops working 
and the boiler threatens to burst. Papin 
gallantly breaks oi^en the safety valve 
and is mortally wounded; but the ma- 
chine blows up nevertheless, and amid a 
shower of sparks and red fire the hero 
sinks down dead, after disclosing his 
identity to his son. 
It is said that the play is not a success 
and that it does not promise to be pop- 
ular. The reason of this may be found 
in the attempt of the author to disguise 
scientific instruction too much in the 
garb of a novel; or it may be that the 
public has yet to be educated up to the 
point where they will as willingly go to a 
place where they can receive instruction, 
as to a place where they are merely at- 
tracted by the amusements offered. Let 
science be made attractive to those who 
are not yet elevated to the level of finding 
science attractive in and of itself." 
Save the Flowers. 
BY A. W. ROBERTS. 
IHAYE often wondered, as the winter 
evenings draw nigh, why some of our 
young folks have not thought what a 
good thing it would be if we could take 
up and preserve the thousands of beau- 
tiful flowering and foliage plants that 
have adorned our yards all summer long, 
and are doomed to perish by the frost if 
not cared for. How many cheerless and 
scantily furnished homes might be made 
Fig. 1. 
to bloom if these same flowers (which I 
have noticed in the large cities are in the 
great majority of cases left to perish) 
were taken up and placed in home-made 
or cheap earthenware pots. Then there 
are our numerous charitable institutions 
