OUR AMERICAN LETTER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2913, 12 January 1910, Page 15

OUR AMERICAN LETTER.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) NEW YORK, October 31

The last echoes have not yet died away of the rumours that followed the official request from the Department of State to Charles R. Qrane, the newly-appointed Minister to China, to resign his commission. The request reached Mr Crane just as he was embarking from San Fraiukco to Hongkong. He was angry at his sudden recall, but after consulting with "the powers that be " at Washington he softened, and accepted his chastening with a better grace. For a public reason it was stated at Washington that Mr Crane talked too freely to the newspaper reporters about what he hoped and expected to accomplish within the Celestial Kingdom. It was added that he showed none of the diplomatic characteristics from the beginning. Japanese aggression and the possibility of friction between that nation and this are now known to have been the real causes. It was felt with another critical situation possibly arising with " our little yellow friends/' Mr Crane was not cast in the right role. Despatches recently received at Washington show Japan's insistence upon the right to be consulted upon railroad building not only in Manchuria, but in other Chinese territory. The charge is already made that China is being coerced by Japan into violation of the " open door" provision of the treaty with this country, and that unless Japanese aggression is checked the " open-door " policy will soon have become a thing of the past. Possibility of trouble between the United States and Japan is predicted upon the assumption that the Untied States must soon protest against the course Japan is pursuing, and the growing belief that Japan will give little heed to euch Drotes't.

The suggestion is freely advanced that the Secretary of State (Mr Knox) —who resembled Napoleon in more ways than mere facial resemblance—is showing a disposition to back down in the face of Japanese aggression. Tim probable truth is that Mr Knox wishes, to avoid a situation which would be clearly rtntenable were it to be pushed to an issue between the nations. For Mr Knox has probably seen that the chief contests in China have been the contests between the money-baga of the various nations who would do business there. There is not much altruism being scattered about the Celestial Kingdom. In such a warfare the little Japs have outwitted us. It may not be a pleasant confession, but truth is not always pleasant. If the Japs have outwitted us in dollar-chasing acroes the Chinese plains, it is clear that Knox could not let the issue come —that Mr Crane's or the first other convenient head must be sacrificed. But national diplomacy does not affect national feeling. The sympathies that went from the United States to Japan because of the assassination of Prince Ito were purely perfunctory.

William James Sidis, 11 years of age, has just been admitted as a student at Harvard University. All the age records of the old University at Cambridge are shattered by this boy in knickerbockers, and still the fact remains that this is the third autumn that he has knocked for admission to the University. The faculty until now has refused to admit him because of his age. No other drawback can well work against him, it would seem, upon inquiry into the details of his life. He is a prodigy—nothing less—whose precocity is the fruit of a parental theory of mind growth put into practice from the beginning ,of his life. Young Sidis is the son of Dr Boris Sidis, a Boston psychologist, who years before the boy's birth held advanced ideas upon child-training. On the basis that as soon as a child begins to grow its brain begins to grow also, and that "the brain is less and less sensitive to training as Kge increase's. Dr Sidis had planned and developed an elaborate system of training. This system he applied to his son. First taught by means of lettered blocks the child could talk, read, and spell at the same time before he was two years of age. He then started to count, and hie father handed him some calendars so that he might amuse himself. He was only three years old when he startled his parents by announcing that he was able ''bo tell on what day of the week any given date would fall. He was tested on this, and did not fail. Upon investigation it was found out that the child had worked out by himself a method of counting, enabling to mentally calculate any dat-? demanded of him. This soumds Jibe Julep, "Verne, but it is proven fact that tins boy at four was an expert typewriter operator. At five hf had begun to study Fiendi and Latin, acd had written a textbook on anatomy and another on English grammar—presumably for his own rise. Entering a cranxnwr school when e'x years of age, he ri. vei uv> - vera! grades in six months, i\\\(, entered the high school at the age "! eight years. In six weeks there he ha/ ccwt-letid the mathematical course, j-.nd had fcsff'ifl writing a book on PAtronomy. Then he plunged into the study of German, French, Latin, and Russian.' On leaving school he began the steely of mathematics in real earnest. Integral and infinitesimal calculus became his hobbies, and in addition lie in-vented a system of logarithms based on the number 12 instead of 10. This bus been inspected by several well-known mathematicians and pronounced perfect in every detail.

Of course, young Sidis is a prodigy. A II he is declared to be the most leamr-t

undergraduate who has ever entered Ji vard, and the- wonderfully success lV suit of a scientific forcing eyneriment,

is one of the most interesting moot phenomena in history. But most intere : < ing of all is Iho facfc that he may I the type of the- coining generations c «&au. In an age which d*»w>tes itself i

making the most of opportunities of every sort greater and more scientific attention to the training of children may yet bring mental capacity of which we humans of to-day cannot have more thar the slightest conception. We hear interesting theories of the mental development of the Martians, who, according to a British despatch this- week have apparently all been killed by a mighty convulsion of Nature, and the conjectures of their development show us, in comparison, as the savages of an earlier day on earth.

As we look into the future and wonder what possibilities it may hold, the lateet donation of John D. Rockefeller, the head of the Standard Oil Company, becomes of interest. Recent medical discoveries have brought to light a brandnew disease—hook-worm,—which is now declared to be the real reason for so much of the laziness in our Southern States. The hook-worm is a parasite which causes little or no pain. It works more toward a form of partial paralysis. These parasites., often so lower the vitality of those who are affected as to retard greatly their physical and mental development, render them more susceptible to' other diseases, make labour less efficient, and in the sections where the malady is most prevalent, greatly increase the deathrate from consumption, pneumonia, typhoid fever, and malaria. The disease ie by no means coniined to any one class. It takes its toll of suffering and death from the highly intelligent and well-to-do, as well as from the less fortunate. It is a conservative estimate that two million of our people are affected by this parasite.

Mr Rockefeller has just set aside 1.000.000d01, to be applied to a five years campaign against th*> parasite. The expenditure is to be directed by a commission of prominent scientists, physicians, and publicists of the nation. Much of the work will be done through the aid of the great medical laboratories which Mr Rockefeller has recently erected in this city. These laboratories are built for a long-time and eventually victorious battle against disease. It seems to be altruism of the highest sort that causes the world's richest man to give many millions of dollars in such a tight. There is a reason, of course, behind it all. Mr Rockefeller had a favourite grandchild who died of the mysterious and baffling infantile paralysis. All his millions and all of his love could not save that baby's Life. . But the mighty financier then and there declared that he was going +o battle to save the lives of thousands of other little babies. He built the great laboratories. The . finest scientists and physicians of the country are working within them to discover the clues to battle overysort of baffling disease. It is a known fact that Mr Rockefeller has consecrated a great part of his enormous fortune to this cause; that he believes that some time in the long distant future man will conquer disease, and that it is his duty to do all that lies in hie power to aid such a battle. It is one of the most interesting phases of one of our most interesting Americans—a man who has already given away 35,.G00,000d0l of the wealth Which has poured in upon him.

Eight in line with the forthcoming battle against the hook-worm is the announcement made by Dr Alexander Lambert, of this city, a prominent physician and close friend of Mr Roosevelt, that he has discovered a speedy cure for the drug habit and alcoholism. " The obliteration of the craving for narcotics is not a matter of months or weeks," he says, " but is accomplished in less than five days. The result is often so dramatic that one hesitates to believe it possible. The experiments which began with Chinese opium cases, used a specific ma'de up as follows : —Fifteen per cent, tincture of belladonna, the fluid extract of xanthoxylum (prickly ash), and the fluid extract of hyoscyamus, mixed in the certain proportions. The cure, according to Dr Lambert, can be effected with a minimum of suffering, and no matter how long the patient has been addicted to the habit, or in what quantities he has been accustomed to take drugs, he will be placed in the same attitude toward them as before he> fell into the habit. His health will be in no way impaired by the treatment or the deprivation of the drug; on the contrary, a physiological change comes about whereby all desire being eliminated, self-confidence is restored to the patient, and Lis system adjusted to do without it. The method of treatment begins in the usual way of getting the patient in the proper physical condition. Then, in cases of cocaine or morphine, the specific is administered in certain proportions and quantities, depending largely on the individual, every hour throughout the treatment. But after six hours the specific is increased until the quantity is doubled. . One way in which this treatment differs from all others is that while the specific is being administered the drug, of which the patient is a victim. is still taken. Dr Lambert says : " Give with the first doss- of the specific from one-half to-two thirds of the usual to.ti daily dose of the opium, morphine, or cocaine which the patient, is taking at the time of his treatment, Divide the amount of the narcotic in three doees. and give them at half-hour intervals by mouth or by hypodermic, as bl - patient is accustomed to take the \ltiig." He says, though, that he has no i krtio.i of calling the specific »n mijylfb'fi < ••■■■•e. He adds r "It is not a cum- >U- fo ■ 4:w?»«e —a rehabiliator of all the >.!i tu?b d •'unctions of the O'-'ds." The death of. State Sri to 3 j-'Ti-vick Hsnn IVi'Can-en, of r— nov-s a. typical iineriean 9m.itin.Jl < f u.ore ■than "ordinary p':rtm\«,)ue>u> ? lu.ew ilia r»l'ne«i " p<-1< " isi 3t«*o politics, if hi.' ronstii i( w?.>e taken eare of hi Kenei:il measure 1 he was willing to take tare 0; the constituents of all of .is j, lends—a g< n-.i nw " pork-barrel " and then moved heaven and earth to B- ; »s iha :i-.2uaa?-.-. his was close to jgoor

people. It was also said that he was close—in another way —to some of the big criminal corporations. He never lost breath trying to defend such a charge. " Prove it," was his invariable reply. He assumed that no charge was true unless proven, and that the burden of proof could never rest upon him He started to be a cooper until he saw the diamonds of a local politician. Then be changed his mind. He went into politics, and became one of the most astute of American leaders. His wife and children died when he was still a young man, and the reet of his busy life he devoted himself to his aged mother, who, at the age of 86 years, survived him.