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186 Htftt 3Le&ttet+ [Saturday,
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NOTES AND EXTRACTS. Sanitary Reform.—It ...
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Ancient Bronze and Brass.—An examination...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Books On Our Table. +. Marriage : Its Or...
Council , " and our readers who required it will have learned from his letter the leading features of his doctrine as to the formation of character , and his plans for the reconciliation of the social , political , and religious differences by which humanity is distracted . Those who have learned thus much will naturally wish to learn more ; and we refer them to these volumes for satisfaction , convinced that to whatever conclusion they may come with regard to the truth or falsehood of Mr . Owen ' s
views there can he hut one with regard to the consistency , the boldness , and the self-denying perseverance of their author . The supplement is particularly valuable from its containing " a copy of the original memoir in English , French , and German , which was presented to the Sovereigns assembled in congress at Aix la Chapelle in 1818 , by the late Lord Castlereaj » h from the author , showing the correctness of his anticipations as proved by subsequent events . " Marphail ' s Edinburgh Ecclesiastical Journal and Literary Review . No . LI I . May , 1850 . Edinburgh : M yles Macphatl ; London : Simpkin , Marshall , and Co . The most noticeable article in this month ' s number of this periodical is an attack on Archbishop Whately , for , what the writer is pleased to call , his "Apology for , and whitewashing of , Judas Iscariot . " The learned prelate , convinced , with many of the best minds of this and other countries , of the inadequacy of the motives generally assigned for the treason of the apostle , explains his conduct by the supposition that , being in his own
mind fully convinced of the title of Jesus to the Messiahship and throne of Judea , he wished to force him into an open avowal of his pretensions by placing him in the hands of his enemies with no other means of escape . This notion has been adopted by Mr . Home , the author of Orion , who has produced a beautiful poetical drama on the subject , to which the reviewer does just honour . We w ' sn ^ had done the same to the archbishop's sensible and quiet review of the conduct of the " Traitor , " but we find , on the contrary , an utter want of candour , argument , and logic , in this attack on the first and fairest logicians of the day .
War : Religiously , Morally , and Historically Considered . By P . 1 * . Aiken . London : Hamilton , Adam ? , and Co . To speak in the trade phrase this is a book which every soldier ought to possess , as a text book for arguments against Elihu Burritt , Mr . Cobden , and all those enthuthusiasts who seek to abolish the trade of war . The author , who had his attention first called to the subject by the late peace agitation , is at very great pains to show from the Old and New Testament—especially from the former—that war is sanctioned by religion , and certainly he makes out a very plausible case for any man who believes that the highest rule of action which a nation can take is to follow the example of the Jews . The arguments drawn from the New Testament , and from the writings of the Fathers are , however , not very much calculated to promote the object of the writer .
186 Htftt 3le&Ttet+ [Saturday,
186 Htftt 3 Le & ttet + [ Saturday ,
Notes And Extracts. Sanitary Reform.—It ...
NOTES AND EXTRACTS . Sanitary Reform . —It is evident that the health of towns requires to be watched by scientific men , and improvements constantly urged on by persons who take an especial interest in the subject . If I were a despot I would soon have a band of Arnotts , Chadwicks , Southwood Smiths , Smiths of Deanston , Joneses , and . the like ; and one should have gratified a wiser ambition than Augustus if one could say of any great town , Sordidam iuveni , purgatam reliqui . —TJie Claims of Labour . Oxford versus Geneva . —The Tractarians will not secede . They are every day gaining ground . Their success in getting nearly every parish into their power is all but certain . Whenever this is accomplished , the evangelical party within the church will be extinct . — British Quarterly Review .
Bad Cooking the Cause of Domestic Discord . — Young ladies of the leisure classes are educated to become uncommonly acute critics of all that pertains to personal blandishment . They keep an uncompromisingly tight hand over their milliners and ladies' maids . They can tell to a thread when a flounce is too narrow or a tuck too deep . They are taught to a shade what colours suit their respective complexions , and to a hair how their coiffure ought to be arranged . Woe unto the seamstress or handmaiden who sins in these matters ! But her
" g"od plain cook "—when a damsel is promoted to wedlock , and owns one—passes unreproached for the most heinous offences . Badly seasoned and ill assimilated soup ; fish , without any fault of the fishmonger , soft and flabby ; meat rapidly roasted before fierce fires—burnt outside and raw within ; poultry rendered by the same process tempting to the eye , till dissection reveals red and uncooked joints ! These crimes , from their frequency and the ignorance of the " lady of the house , " remain
unpublished ; whereupon husbands , tired of their Barmpcide feasts—which disappoint the taste more because they have often a promising look to the eye—prefer better fare at their club *; and escape the Scylla of bad djuestion to be wrecked on \ hv Charybdis of domestic discord . All this is owing to the wife's culinary ignorance , and to your " good plain cooks . "—Dickens ' * Household Words
Want ok Rhkixkmknt among run llicu . —Few mi'ii arc fur-thinking enough to invest much of their capital In a thing which makes so little show as pure air . What do you find amongst the rich ? Go through the great Rquares , where , in one night , a man will lavish on some t-nterlaininent what would almost purify his neighbourhood , and you will often find the same evils there , though in a different decree , tljnt you have met with in the most jrowded parts of the town . If the rich and great have io little care about what comes
" Betwixt the wind and their nobility " 'ou can hardly expect persons , whose perception in such natters is much less nice , to have any euro at all . —The Jlaims of Labour .
The Oxford Schooi . and the People . —The ecclesiastical phenomena of our time are very anomalous . While the clergy are , beyond comparison , more active and faithful than at any time since the revolution , this is in great measure owing to an intellectual ferment among them , which places them at a greater distance than before from the sympathy of the nation which they serve . The fresh tide of ideas and sentiments which has re-baptized them with earnestness , and delivered them from routine , has poured in upon them from the universities . It is of academic source , and of academic character . It is the accumulation of thought and theory , the product of books : the result even of a vast and deliberate design , conceived and partly realized by one commanding and systematizing intellect . Of that deep and vivifying mind the change in the clerg y is , in great
measure , but the propagated influence . Meanwhile , during this reanimation of the church on the collegiate side , the tide of life without has run in the opposite direction ; and the very feeling prevalent , that Oxford has been the scene of a sort of Popish plot for plunging England back into Romanism , and , by a species of logical black art , spiriting away across the German Ocean the reformation and all its works , has broken down popular faith in the simplicity and veracity of the clergy , and shaken the whole fabric . The new doctrines are hated ; and the old ones—as would appear from the eagerness to be rid of them—were not satisfactory to the divines themselves The people who believe on authority are pulled two ways ; those who believe on conviction are pulled neither ; and thus , while the momentum of inert perseverance is lost , the vis viva of a new impulse is not gained . —
Westminster Review . The Danish Theatre . — " Not for pleasure only ! " is the inscription over the Temple of Thalia in Copenhagen . And he who has seen the tragedies of Oehlenschlseprer and Hertz ; the comedies of Holberg , Hertz , and Heiberg , of Overskou and Hauch ; who has seen them performed here by Nielsen and his wife ; by Rosenkilde and his daughter ; by Phister and the young Wiche , and the fascinating Mrs . Heiberg , the pearl of the Danish drama ; the rarest talent of the whole country ; he who has seen the ballets of Bournonville , the most perfect works of art of their kind , will acknowledge that the moral spirit of the North has given an ennobling
influence to the magic power of the drama ; that the theatre here is not merely for pleasure . We do not merely amuse ourselves ; we become better whilst we are amused . The mind is elevated to a noble longing after a higher and more beautiful spectacle than that of every-day life ; it receives a presentiment of the grandeur of the human being , whether in his deepest suffering or his highest pleasure . That which , at the present time , beyond everything else distinguishes the dramatic art of Denmark is its nationality , its popular character , in the highest sense of the term . They are the people ' s own heroes and heroines ; their own great old times , which cause the
popular heart to beat for Palnatoke , Hakon , Jarl , Queen Margerita , Axel , and Valborg ; it is their own follies and their own original characters which make them laugh so heartily at the comedies of Holberg , at " The April Fools , " and many other of Heiberg ' s pieces ; it is the practical , mystical , simple life of the people which charms so much in " The Elves , " in " The Disguised Swan , " and " The Fairies' Hill ; " it is the present every-day life over which the people laugh or cry in " A Sunday at Amage , " " The Savings' Box , " "Opposite Neighbours , " and such like . And in this way the drama contributes , in no small degree , to elevate the popular mind . —Frederika Bremer ' s Easter Offering .
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Ancient Bronze And Brass.—An Examination...
Ancient Bronze and Brass . —An examination of some specimens of ancient bronzes has been made by Mr . Donovan . The articles were found at Dowris , in the King ' s County . The object was to find if zinc were employed in the manufacture of bronze , and the result has been that there is none whatever . Tin and copper seem to have been the two metals used for making brass ; but the ancients , Greek and Roman , frequently mention zinc , or at least the ore . There is no doubt that the ore was used for some purpose , although there is great difficulty about the metal itself ; as the quantity found in specimens of bronze has been so small as to lead us to suppose that it was accidental . It is just possible that have
the zinc , being a less durable metal , may escaped from its combinations , leaving very little behind ; and it is just , possible that the ancients in their mode of smelting lost a great deal of the metal , and imagi ed that they were putting it in the brass when they were sending it up the chimney . They do mention the large quantities of fine oxide of zinc which was deposited in this manner . In ancient times , or even in comparative ly modern times , there was no method of proving what was lead , what tin , and what zinc , if such was used ; and there is no doubt that tin was often mistaken for silver , as we know that baser metals were often pur forward as Hold . The celts examined have also contained tin , and Mr . Donovan considers that zinc has not been used , the difficulty of smelting that metal not being overcome in an island where tin could be so easily procured .
Antiscohth'tic Plants . —We saw lately that silver could be got in the ? water * f the sea , now we find that iodine is found in many fresh-water plants , proving still further that ovary clement may be existing everywhere . It had once been fount ! in waterciess . M . Chatiu finds it common to many plants , nnd attributes the antiscorbutic nature of the cress to its amount of iodine . The quantity is so small in the surrounding water that we cannot discover it ; but day by day these plants take out a liule and consolidate it in their structure , until it accumulates so far that by very great care it becomes possible to establish its existence . When we consider how Uttle is
sufficient for the latter purpose it becomes difficult for us to imagine how small the amount must be where the art and science of man cannot approach towards a detection . A two-millionth part of iodine can be found , but by concentrating a thousand times it is not found in the water ; the quantity is , therefore , small beyond conception . The Dublin Storm . —Science comes to us in various forms , and we have it in the description of a storm which occurred lately at Dublin . Dr . Lloyd says : — " The first indications of the storm were observed soon after three o ' clock . Massive cumzcli were seen forming in the south-west position of the sky . These became denser as they approached , until they formed a mass of an
ashgrey colour , projected on a sky . of paler tint . About half-past three it burst forth . The flashes of lightning succeeded one another with rapidity , and at length the roar of thunder seemed continuous . Some persons who observed the phenomenon from a distance were able to distinguish the two strata of oppositely electrical clouds , and to see the electrical discharges passing between them . " " At four the terrific tornado , which was the grand and peculiar feature of the storm , reached us . " The storm passed away in less than ten minutes , and the wind returned to a gentle breeze . He considers that it was a true whirlwind , and that the motion was in an opposite direction to the hands of a watch , or retrograde . The wind at College Park changed as much as half a circle , or veered completely round , and Dr . Lloyd considers that the centre of the tornado passed over that
spot . Nineteen trees fell in College Park , ten had fallen from the south east , or under the action of the first half , and nine had fallen from the north-west , or under the action of the second half of the storm , proving that in this locality the direction of the wind had been exactly reversed . The hailstones that fell during the storm were as large as a pigeon ' s egg , and consisted of alternate layers of snow and ice , with a centre of snow . Dr . Lloyd shows the difference between thisland the revolving storm or cyclone , where the diameter is often 500 miles , supposed to be caused by two currents of air crossing , and so generating a rotatory movement . The tornado is of much , smaller dimensions , produced by rapidlyascending currents of air , caused by the heating of a limited portion of the earth ' s surface under the action of the sun ' s rays .
Secrets of the Atmosphere . —M . Schoenbem gives us again an account of ozone , that mysterious substance which he finds in the air , and to which he attributes many effects . His experiments prove at least that there is something very curious , and not known to us , existing in the atmosphere , produced during certain phenomena . Sir Humphrey Davy once imagined that there was some subtle life-giving body in the air , to which he attributed effects not easily explained by the action of oxygen only . Ozone , however , is not of the life-giving character , as it impedes respiration and produces catarrhal affections ; small animals also are quickly killed in it . What it is is yet unanswered ; we don't know if it be something new , or if it be merely something old in a new form . It is , however , to be considered as well worth study , being an important step towards our knowledge of the air , if it should ever show itself in a definite character .
Potash in the Sea . —M . Uziglio has examined the waters of the Mediterranean , and found potash . He believes that it will some day be an economical source of that alkali . At present potash is got from the ashes of vegetables , and many a fine tree has been burnt merely to supply ashes . To obtain it from the sea would be a great point in the arts . The mode of taking it out of solution is still , however , a problem . Purification of Gas . —A new plan of purifying gas has been used by Mr . Laming . It consists in simply passing it through oxide of iron and lime dissolved in muriatic acid . By this means the sulphuretted hydrogen of the gas is decomposed by the iron , the ammonia
unites with the acid of the lime , and even sulphurct of carbon , so difficult to remove from gas , is quite absent from that which has been subjec ted to this process . In using the materials they are mixed up with sawdust , in order to form them into a porous mass through which the gas should move . The importance of this is very great . On all gas shades we find a deposit of white matter , which , if we can get enough of it , will be found to be sour ; it consists of a little sulphuric acid from the
sulphur in the gas , and a little ammonia also from the same source . Of course there is still a much larger quantity removed by burning , and we find only a small portion on the glass . This is true chiefly of glasses which are suspended over the burners . After water and other important sanitary subjects are duly discussed , the question of gas will , no doubt , come strongl y before the country , as it becomes apparent that health and economy may be very much more attended to , in lighting our rooms and streets , whilst increase of light will also be the probable result . By the method here mentioned of puriftinu the gas a great increase of illuminating power
is said to be gained . Gutta Peiicha . —It is strange to what an extent a new substance found in nature will alter all the habits of man . We see it especially in the metals , how civilization seems even to depend on some of them , and how they mark more or less all the external life of a country with their unmistakcable handwriting . Leather bottles have long givrn way to glass , but Mr . Alexander M'Dougall , of Manchester , has somewhat returned to the old method by using barrels lined with gutta pc-rcha , for carrying muriatic acid , instead of the glass carboy . So far this new product acts liko a malleable glass , and it will be the means of taking many substances to great distances where the danger and expense of glass now
entirely prevents their use . We feel that in every new substance , and of course to some extent in putta percha , we have a new agent , how extensive we do n <» t know , but still new . It has already begun to affect our habit 3 in a humble way , and with them consequently our modes of thinking , to an equal extent .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 18, 1850, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18051850/page/18/
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