NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12545, 12 April 1904, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

TOT POLTERGEIST.

I.v the story told by a correspondent of the London Daily Mail about tlxo gliosis which has been lately -upsetting things—in the literal sensa — in a country village, crowning its exploits by hitting ilia local policeman in the eye with a pound of butter,, we recognise (says the Pilot) our old friend the poltergeist at his tricks again. It is the poltergeist who is responsible for the " mysterious knocks and rappings, accompanied, by throwing of stones, ringing of bells, breaking of crockery, and other more violent, disturbances " which have been known in all civilised countries for the last three or four centuries. Mr. Podmore regards him as the link between (he witchcraft of the Middle Ages and the "physical manifestations " of the modern spiritualists. In all theso cases we find numerous stories often authenticated by the evidence of men who have earned a reputation for trustworthiness and sanity in other departments of investigation, of mysterious occurrences which seem to have 110 assignable physical cause, and which usually take the form of noises or movements for which no natural agency known to us seems able to account. The poltergeistknown as "old Jeffrey"—which for a time haunted the Parsonage of Lpworth, the home of the Wesdeys, is one of the best known of these singular manifestations, which certainly cannot be set aside as mere delusions. How are we to explain them ? There are three leading hypotheses in the field. The firs!, and simplest is that to which Mr. Podmore leans in his excellent history of "Modern Spiritualism," and which regards all these cases as the work of practical jokers like the Cock Lane girls. Ib is simple and rational, but the difficulty is that it presupposes an amount of skill on the part of the actors, and of dulness on that of the observers, which is hard to believe. The second is that of the spiritualists, who regard these incidents as the work of disembodied but intelligent spiritsperhaps suffering, as Mr. Andrew Lang has wittily suggested, from a kind of aphasia, which obliges them tc throwcrockery and ring unmeaning bells when they desire to call attention to the existence of another world. The third hypothesis is that these manifestations point to the existence of some still unknown force, "odic" or other, which certain human organisms give out or concentrate. Recent discoveries of the vast store of energy that lies concealed within the atoms of matter may possibly give support to this hypothesis, though in tho absence of further investigation most sensible men will still lean to Mr. Podmore's view.

RADIUM and photography. It ia very interesting to notice how the advance of scienco often verifies a speculation which, at the time when it was first published, was received with derision and incredulity. The valuable researches on the photographic action of radium rays which Mr. S. Skinner has lately been conducting at the Cavendish Laboratory, and which he described in a paper communicated to tho Physical Society at a recent meeting in London, recall such a case. Mr. Skinner has shown that the action of radium rays on a photographic plate is precisely similar to that of light, though ever so much slower exposures of 30 or 40 hours being necessary in some instances, as if an infinitely distant star-group was being photographed. But the curious point is that these photographs are not produced by vibrations in the ether, like those of lignt, but by actual particles of matter impinging on the sensitive plate. Mr. Skinner's experiments have not, indeed, made this quite certain, but they have gone far enough to allow him to conclude that it is most probable that the photographic effect of radium Fait is mainly, if not wholly, duo to the B rays, which are Believed to consist of " electrons," or the constituents of tJiB atoms, flung out at tremendous speeds by tho radio-activo elements. 1 his recalls the theories of Saguin, the French chemist, who was the first to offer any explanation of the phenomena which we now recognise as radio-activity. Forty or 50 years ago it was observed'that coin's and similar objects, enclosed in dark drawers between sheets of white paper, sometimes impressed faint images of themselves on the paper. Seguin, in a moment of inspiration, suggested (hat this might be due to tho fact that all bodies were constantly giving off infinitely small particles, which flew about in all directions, and in certain conditions might produce these "spirit-photographs," as they wero also called. Seguin was laughed to scorntill tho mora because he rashly tried to explain gravitation by the help of this same hypothesis. Now, however, we are beginning to soo that he had stumbled upon a great natural truth, which may be the most fruitful of any since Joule and Lord Kelvin, following Newton's lead, established the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy. But it is no use being too far ahead of the age in these matters,

DUKE OF CONN-AUGHT OX COXSCRTTTIOX. Field-Marshal the Duke of Connaught presided recently at v lecture, under the auspices of the Irish Military Society, in Dublin, given by Major Seely, M.P., on "The Private Soldier in Modern War." The Duke of Connaught said the question of it voluntary versus a conscript army was a vexed one, and few,officers would be found to agree as to the nature of the panacea which would give them an efficient and a cheap arm v. They should have a voluntary army for foreign service, but the question was what the home army was to be. They wanted a home amy principally for defensive purposes; and was it not a fact that Englishmen should render certain services 011 account of the benefits obtained from being Englishmen wit a navy nud army to defend them? They should main some return service to the Stale. It remained for the Douse of Commons, which after all had the deciding of the question, to s;ty what system they considered best, lie thought some sort of a defensive army without very long service, but sufficiently trained and complete in all arms, was bust for home stations, and from it 'they could call for volunteers for foreign service men who might expect a pension at- the end of their service. They required two distinct services—a foreign, composed of long service men of good physique and fit to take the field at a moment's notice; and an army of younger men well trained, especially in musketry, foi the home defence. He thought it would come to something of that sort. If they could train all the youth of the country to military service it would bo a great advantage.