1883.] 
Patent-Law Amendment . 
7 
demand he at length decides to speak. He pronounces at 
first feebly and indistinctly, but on telling him to speak more 
distinctly he gradually finds his voice, and finally pronounces 
the words demanded very distinctly.” This performance, 
we learn, has been repeated before a great number of persons 
at Clermont. The same dog, further, if his master has shot 
and brought home any game, runs of his own accord to the 
kitchen to seek a knife, carries it to his mistress, and ad- 
dresses her as ma maman . 
MM. Gallois and Gory, friends of M. Roujon, state that 
they have met with several dogs who pronounce distinctly 
some words, — amongst others the word non . It is indisput- 
able, as M. Roujon remarks, that by applying to such ani- 
mals a methodic selection prodigious results may be obtained. 
Prof. Max Muller’s “ Rubicon ” may be dried up in a manner 
plain even to the most prejudiced. 
II. PATENT-LAW AMENDMENT. 
By An Old Technologist. 
£ OR some dozen years or more we have, as a nation, 
come to the very wise conclusion that the Patent Law 
of the United Kingdom is not all that might reason- 
ably be demanded, and that, in well-known phraseology, 
“ something ought to be done.” What that something is 
and who is to do it are further points upon which we are by 
no means agreed. It is, in the first place, to be regretted 
that neither of the great political parties seem willing to 
take the matter heartily up. Precisely because it is every- 
body’s business it is nobody’s. Hence while questions which 
are in comparison light as air — or rather as hydrogen gas — 
can secure the attention of the Administration and of Par- 
liament, Patent-Law reform is shelved, — put off to some 
indefinite epoch. That this should be so is discreditable to 
our national prudence and common sense. Without a good 
Patent Law we shall have no inventions and improvements, 
and without inventions and improvements we cannot hope 
to hold our own in the intensified struggle for business which 
