Notes that 'When men of science are preparing microscopical specimens for exhibition they frequently stain the exhibit with some coloured dye, which leaves its form intact, and brings out its outline in clear relief. A similar result has been attained on a wider arena than the slide of the microscope, by introducing a strain of German blood into the distinctly English stock of the KaiserWilhelm II, Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia
(1859–1941)
CBD CloseView the register entry >>', for 'like the aniline stain in the microscopic preparation, his German dye makes the characteristic features of his English nature much more conspicuous than they would have been had he not been German Emperor', and his jingoistic conduct 'reveals the essential weakness and defects of our own [imperial] policy' (4). Warns that although it is 'a very glorious thing no doubt to have an Indian Empire', if its maintenance requires that 'the soldiers of the QueenVictoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, and Empress of India
(1819–1901)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> must be provided by the Empress with enslaved women for their amusement, the matter assumes another aspect altogether' (6). Also reflects that, in light of the 'prolonged strike in the engineering trade, which is playing such havoc with British industry', 'If we are not to go under in the ceaseless warfare which is waged in the markets of the world, our industrial system must be under the control of the competent. The time has come when we have to recognise that in the interests of democracy the great revolutionary formula, "The tools to those who Can use them", must be supplemented by another formula no less imperative, and that is, "The Direction to those who have the Brains"' (6–7).
Reports a spirited response to the accusation made by the scientist Hugo H HildebrandssonHildebrandsson, Hugo Hildebrand
(1838–1925)
RLIN CloseView the register entry >> that 'the brushman is a colourist first—and a violettist at that!—and a student of Nature afterwards'. Krouthén is an artist, but he nevertheless 'meets the Professor on his own ground of natural science' and 'proves, amongst other things, that the violettism of the pictures held up by the Professor to contempt and ridicule is scientifically correct, and that the critic, so far from taking Nature's part, has not even given her her due', as 'the zenith blue, while itself having no place in the picture, will throw blue tints on the snow, though as much of the sky as the canvas shows may be greenish in hue'.
Review of Reviews, 17 (1898), 39.
A Barometer of Civilisation. The Statistics of Homicide
The Topic of the Month. "Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread"
Anon
Genre:
Regular Feature, Editorial, News-Commentary
Subjects:
National Efficiency, Government, Declinism, Industry, Technology, Education, Schools, Gender, Periodicals
Observes that 'Success in the industrial struggle, which is every year increasing in intensity, is commanded, not by pauper labour, but by superior intelligence. We are being beaten because we are not so smart, so brainy, so scientific, so capable, in short, as our rivals'. In order to alleviate this parlous situation 'we must Educate, Educate, Educate. Not merely in our public elementary schools, although that is supremely important, but in our secondary schools, in our technical schools, in our universities, and, above all, in that great university of life, in which newspaper editors and statesmen are tutors and professors'. (63) Also details an educational experiment being conducted at Bakewell Grammar SchoolBakewell Grammar School
CloseView the register entry >> in Derbyshire, where 'Within the school there is a School of Science, affiliated with South KensingtonDepartment of Science and Art
CloseView the register entry >>, about one half of the scholars being so classed. Girls are taught exactly the same science, for instance, as boys, and at the same time, in the same room. So far the science taught embraces Practical and Theoretical Chemistry, with Practical and Theoretical Physics' (67).
Engineers, Machinery, Industry, Declinism, National Efficiency, Sex, Obstetrics, Human Development, Nutrition, Gender, Analogy, Entomology
Records the end of the bitter seven month strike originally called by the Amalgamated Society of EngineersAmalgamated Society of Engineers
CloseView the register entry >>, which has now agreed to accept 'the employer's right to manage their machinery and their workshops in their own way'. Despite the victory of the employers, 'for seven months all their plant was at a standstill, while their business drifted to Germany and the United States, from which some of it will never come back'. (113) Also reports the 'claim of a German scientist, Dr. SchenckSchenck, Dr (German scientist)
(fl. 1898)
RR1/17/2/1 CloseView the register entry >>, to have discovered the secret of fixing the sex of unborn children. By dieting the mother in a peculiar fashion this Dr. Schenck asserts he can decide whether the expected stranger shall be boy or girl. The bees we know can develop the grubs of neuters into queens by altering their diet, but hitherto science has failed to penetrate the secret of how it is done'. Furthermore, 'If the analogy of the bees may be taken as a guide, the control of sex would rapidly be followed by its elimination. Signor FerreroFerrero, Guglielmo
(1871–1942)
WBI CloseView the register entry >> has just proclaimed that the comparative sexlessness of northern nations is the secret of their industrial supremacy. From this there is but a step to the evolution of a race of entirely sexless workers which, like neuter bees, would be consecrated from birth to sterility and labour'. (114)
The article claims that 'there is an annual rhythm or seasonal variation in the number of normal pulse-beats', and comes to the 'striking conclusion that the annual rhythms of the pulse in men and women are exactly converse, that of the former displaying a winter maximum and a summer minimum, and that of the latter a winter minimum and summer maximum'.
Review of Reviews, 17 (1898), 156.
The Purification of the Thames. Sea-trout at Westminster
Reports the discovery made in Somaliland by the adventurer Heywood W Seton-KarrKarr, Heywood Walter Seton-
(1859–1938)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> of 'Palaeolithic implements, said by experts to be the most ancient yet unearthed. These flints are taken to indicate the site in question as the cradle of the human race'.
Observes that the 'almost simultaneous' deaths of James StansfeldStansfeld, Sir James
(1820–1898)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> and the American Frances E C WillardWillard, Frances Elizabeth Caroline
(1839–98)
CBD CloseView the register entry >> 'deprives the cause of moral reform in both sections of the English-speaking world of its most conspicuous champion', although it will at least be 'a source of genuine satisfaction to Lady Henry [Somerset]Somerset (née Somers), Lady
Isabella Caroline , Lady Henry Somerset
(1851–1921)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> that her last admirable letter on the subject of the regulation of vice in India had appeared before Miss Willard passed away' (219).
Remarks that although Robert A T G Cecil (3rd Marquess of Salisbury)Cecil, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-, 3rd
Marquess of Salisbury
(1830–1903)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> may 'be a Conservative in the House of LordsHouse of Lords
CloseView the register entry >>. He is indisputably a Revolutionist in his laboratory at Hatfield'. While William E GladstoneGladstone, William Ewart
(1809–98)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> was a revolutionary in his taste for 'Political Reform promoted by parliamentary and platform agitation', Lord Salisbury 'prefers Electricity, and who can deny that his revolutionist is the most subtle, the most far-reaching of all?'. (223) After all, 'Dynamite is a fool of a thing compared with electricity as a revolutionary agent. Hence its intense, its weird, its overwhelming fascination for Lord Salisbury'. This aspect of his character, however, is often obscured by his public image as 'a pillar of Conservatism, the dogged opponent of political change', although it is arguable that he 'may be remembered gratefully for the object-lessons which he has afforded his countrymen in the utilisation of electricity long after all the "blazing indiscretions" about "black men" and "Hottentots" have become unintelligible to posterity'. In any case, this 'resolute opponent of rash innovations in Church and State was one of the first to introduce electrical innovations into the lighting of his house, the workings of his farm', and though in London he is 'death on the Progressives in the County CouncilLondon County Council
CloseView the register entry >>', at 'his own homestead he was the progressive pioneer in all things electrical before even the Council had come into being'. (224) Protests that Britain 'led the world in the utilisation of steam', but is now 'lagging behind even third-rate nations in utilising electricity'. Complains that 'When you return to London from New York or Chicago, you feel as if you had come back to a country village lit with the rushlights of the Middle Ages', and opines, 'If only Lord Salisbury's party would consent to be as progressive in London as their chief is in Hatfield! But that alas! seems to be past praying for' (224–25).
Section: Leading Articles in the Reviews
Review of Reviews, 17 (1898), 239.
How to Make Gold Out of Silver. Something Better than Klondyke
Analytical Chemistry, Matter Theory, Metallurgy, Alchemy, Force, Political Economy
Reports that Stephen H EmmensEmmens, Stephen Henry
(fl. 1890–99)
RLIN CloseView the register entry >>, 'an eminent chemist in New York, claims to manufacture gold out of silver' by the use of the 'Emmens Force Engine', which 'places at the investigator's disposal physical means greater than any scientists have before possessed' (pressures in excess of 500 tons/in2). The 'doctor claims that by simply hammering silver tremendously hard at a very low temperature, it turns into gold', and 'should Dr. Emmen's statements be verified, it is evident that the bimetallist question [concerning the fixed ratio of gold to silver as coined money] would be settled in a very revolutionary fashion' and 'we shall have to say, indeed, "Behold, a greater than EdisonEdison, Thomas Alva
(1847–1931)
DSB CloseView the register entry >> is here"'.
Review of Reviews, 17 (1898), 250.
How We May Beat Our Rivals: By "Sharpening the Wits of Our People"
Exclaims that the 'hastening' of the planet's natural gradual warming 'ought not to be beyond the resources of an ever-expanding science. We have, it seems, only to doff the ice-cap worn at both ends of our planet to make mild winters universal. Our high explosives may yet come in handy for this purpose [...]. Here is a prospect of adventure to a world getting almost afraid of finding no more chance of it. Polar exploration, submarine exploration, applied seismology, and the abolition of winter rigours—what a vista of romance!'.
Government, Politics, Futurism, Telegraphy, Railways, Technology, Climatology, Progress, Time
Looks forward to a 'better future when Europe will be something more than a geographical expression'. After all, the 'telegraph and the express train render it as easy to govern Britain from Cimiez as from Balmoral. Some day we may see Russia ruled from the Isle of Wight and Germany from the Bay of Naples. Our old ideas of time and space are being revolutionised. The most convenient centre of Government will be governed chiefly by telephonic and climatic considerations. As the telectroscope which is to astonish the world at the Paris ExhibitionExposition Universelle Internationale (1900), Paris CloseView the register entry >> does for the eye what the telephone does for the ear, the rulers will naturally gravitate to latitudes where the climatic conditions make it easier to do the ruling'. (313)
Reflects that 'I sometimes amuse myself by imagining the mental processes of an intelligent scientist of 1870 if he could suddenly be transported to the present day, and confronted with the spectacle—the familiar, ordinary spectacle—of a telephone'. In an imaginary dialogue set in 1898, the scientist from 1870, a Mr Jones, exclaims, 'Why on earth are you talking into that hole in the wall? Have you gone mad?', and leaves 'in a huff, thoroughly convinced that by the immutable laws of sound every man of science and commonsense must know perfectly well that it is all fudge, this talk of a Central and a telephone'. If, however, he were to overcome his initial scepticism and test out the telephone, it is certain that Mr Jones would soon 'become a subscriber to the Telephone Exchange, and constantly use the agency the very existence of which he had declared to be beyond the bounds of possibility'. (325) This 'little introductory apologue' is necessary to a consideration of the work of the late philanthropist George MüllerMüller, George
(1805–98)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>, because it shows the open-minded attitude required in approaching 'his discovery—or rediscovery, if so it may be called—of the practical utility of that well-nigh forgotten and universally neglected Telephone which in theological dialect is called the Prayer of Faith, with its stupendous corollary of a God that heareth and answereth prayer'. For without postulating something 'called God, and which in one department, at least, corresponds strictly to the Central Telephone Exchange, it is as absolutely impossible to explain the phenomenon of the Orphanages at Bristol, as it was for Mr. Jones, the scientist of 1870, to account for the phenomenon of telephonic communication between London and Dover'. (326) Müller set himself to prove the thesis that 'God listens to prayer' by raising money for a series of orphanages and childrens homes, and 'That he was enabled to write Q.E.D. after it, with the confident certainty of EuclidEuclid
(fl. 295 BC)
DSB CloseView the register entry >> himself, few will deny who follow his story' from the 1830s. He was 'an experimental philosopher', and set out to 'feed the orphans as the best means of making a scientific investigation by the experimental method into the nature and existence of God'. Indeed, 'Professor TyndallTyndall, John
(1820–93)
DSB CloseView the register entry >> long after suggested a prayer gauge in a hospital ward, but the Bristol philanthropist had anticipated the President of the British AssociationBritish Association for the Advancement of Science
CloseView the register entry >> by nearly half a century'. (334) Also recounts how when Müller once 'wanted £100 very badly, he prayed that it might be laid upon the heart of one particular person to give him £100. And lo, it came to pass, even as he had prayed! The £100 came along next day. Telepathy, no doubt! Yes' (335).
Begins an overview of the nascent career of Herbert G WellsWells, Herbert George
(1866–1946)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>, a 'young and rising novelist, who has given more proof of original genius than any of his contemporaries', by reflecting that the 'probability that the human race will be frozen out of its present abode is a theme sufficiently appalling to stimulate the most sluggish imagination', although, as yet, the 'very horror of it has [...] served to warn off most speculators as to the future' (389). Suggests that 'Mr. Wells is a seer of gruesome visions. He spends his life imagining what would happen if one of the laws of Nature were altered just a little—with terrifying results'. Indeed, 'Stories work out in his brain as a kind of mathematical problem. If human nature under such conditions evolved such results, what results would be evolved if this, that, or the other condition were revolutionised?'. Praises Well's prolific output since 1895, but nevertheless insists that 'I leave out of account his book "The Island of Dr. Moreau", which ought never to have been written, and which Mr. Wells would consult his own reputation by withdrawing from circulation' (see Anon, 'Our Monthly Parcel of Books', Review of Reviews, 13 (1896), 374–76). (393) Observes that 'Mr. Wells must have had considerable experience of psychic phenomena. He is not a believer, I gather, in the spiritistic hypothesis. But many of his tales could not have been written had he not himself, asleep or awake, been conscious of the phenomena of the Borderland' (395), and comments 'Whether it is by the use of chloroform [...] or whether he is naturally so much of a psychic as to be able to visit those regions of which he gives us such weird suggestions I do not know' (395–96).
War, Military Technology, Ethics, Biblical Authority, Religion, Internationalism, Technology
Remarks that in the wake of the bloody battle at Atbara in North Africa and the outbreak of war between the United States and Spain it is 'possible that scientific manslaughter on the largest scale may be but a grim object-lesson as to the reality of the truth which was stated long ago in the old Book. We are all members of one another, and if one member suffers, all the other members suffer with it'. Urges that 'We are now entering, in the twentieth century, upon an epoch of universal world-wide inter-communication which, when seen by the eye of faith, appears to prefigure the universal triumph of the principle of human fraternity and the solidarity of the race'. (420) Also suggests that the 'inaugural dinner of the Foreign Press AssociationForeign Press Association in London
CloseView the register entry >>' presents another 'portent in the internationalisation of the world' (429).
Remarks upon the 'several letters' received from readers in response to the Anon, 'Character Sketch. George Müller of Bristol', Review of Reviews, 17 (1898), 325–37 last month of the late philanthropist George MüllerMüller, George
(1805–98)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>. Urges that 'our good sceptical friends' among these correspondents should 'undertake to achieve George Müller's results by doing George Müller's work without George Müller's prayers' in order to 'be in a better position to appreciate the worthlessness of their argument' that the apparent success of Müller's 'prayer telephone' can in fact be accounted for by purely secular factors.
Remarks upon the 'extraordinary popularity of the great South African' Cecil J RhodesRhodes, Cecil John
(1853–1902)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>, whose recent visit to London has successfully expunged the bad memory of the parliamentary inquiry into his responsibility for the JamesonJameson, Sir Leander Starr, 1st Baronet
(1853–1917)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> raid. Rather, 'What people remember is that just before leaving he told the City meeting, which doubled the capital of his Cape to Cairo telegraph line, that in fifteen months his trans-continental wire would be within 600 miles of Uganda, after which there only remains a trifle of 1,400 miles in order to unite Uganda with Khartoum. The twentieth century will therefore probably see telegraphic communication between the Cape and Cairo by the overland route'. (535)
Recounts the suggestion of a 'correspondent' that 'the interest of the children in natural objects would be immensely stimulated if it were possible to have a good but inexpensive microscope in every school', for 'It is a veritable new world which the microscope reveals to the eye—a world the very existence of which was previously almost incredible'.
Review of Reviews, 17 (1898), 577.
Love as a Law of Nature. A Reply to Professor Huxley
Telegraphy, Electricity, Time, Progress, History of Science
Notes that 'Last month we had two illustrations which strikingly indicated the transformation which the electric cable has brought about in our everyday life. The scene of the Spanish-American war is several thousand miles distant from our shores, but day by day we have followed its course with almost as full a knowledge of the events of the previous twenty-four hours as if we had been on the spot. The world-wide sorrow which found expression on the death of Mr. GladstoneGladstone, William Ewart
(1809–98)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> was one of the most impressive events of modern times. But it was a tribute to the power of electricity no less than to the personality of the dead statesman' (626).