TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8195, 27 July 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

A history of the American civil war, to be written jointly by the two most eminent survivors on eaoh side —Major-General 0. 0. Howard, of the Union army, and LieutenantG°neral Stephen JD. Lee, of the Confederate forces, has been projected. General Howard has witten to General Lee inviting the latter to co-operate with him in the preparation of the work. It is expected *hat General Lee will accept. He and General Howard were classmates at the United States Military Academy,,and have always been warm personal friends. A history of the internecine struggle from the pens of these two veterans would be the climax to the long series of events which have reunited the North and the South.

A side-light; on President Roosevelt's view of American politios is furnished in a letter he has written to a Mrs James Newoomb, of Deweese, Nebraska, who had sent a letter to Mrs Roosevelt requesting her to contribute a handkerohief in aid of a church bazaar. Mrs Roosevelt was touched by the letter appealing for assistance on behalf of a little church, and showed the missive to the President, who, with characteristic ene'gy, decided that he would help the puriah himself. Be wrote: "i'our letter to Mrs Roosevelt interested both her and me so much that I write you just a line myself. I am sending you a photograph and I wish you all success in building the little ehurob. What an interesting life you have had, and how fortunate we Americans are to have the chance to lead such lives, and, my dear Mrs Newoomb, it is of mighty small importance whether we Bre Republicans or Democrats, but it is of very real importance tnat we should be good Americans, and do our duty in straight and decent fashion."

What oan be doue by a pennyworth of electricity is exhaustively demonstrated at an exhibition of electrical apparatus just opened by the Westminster (London) Electric Supply Corporation. For forcible illustration the managers of the exhibition have attached.to each article exhibited a tag, stating precisely what service that article will perform for a penny. Some manufacturers have already introduced the slot system in oouuectiou with certain of their inventions, so that eleotrioity can actually bo bought in pennyworths. hive horses, for instance, cnu be clipped from h«ad to hoof: for one (jenny, allowing oalf-nn-hour for eaab horse, so there ia still a b'-dauce of current unexpended, sufficient to clip two-thirds of a sixth horse. By an apparatus described as Ozonair, a household can be supplied with all the benefit of a seaside holiday at a cost of one penny per day, while for the housekeeper there are cooking appliances, which, as they are independent of motors or electric installations, and contain their own batteries, oan be used in any part of the house. One penny worth of eleotrioity in various machines will clean 5,000 knives, drive a sewing-machine for 21 hours, boil a man's shaving water, or heat a woman's curling-tongs for a year, or keep a delayed dinner hot for five hours.

f Dr. Alexis Oarrel and Dr. O. O. Guthrie, of the Hull Physiologinal Laboratory, at the University of Ohiuago, have been conducting experiments that, it is predicted, may revolutionise surgery. While all the experiments have been performed on "dogs, the object was to ascertain methods that could be used on human beings to transform veins into arteries, transplant organs, and even to substitute the arteries and veins of animals for the diseased arteries and veins of human beings.

Drs. Oarrel and Guthrie are watching half a-dozen dogs that are apparently thriving with their veina and arteries transposed in various ways. The following are said.to be among the facts discovered by the surgeons:—The transplanting of vein? on arteries produoes, from a functional point of view, the transformation of veins into arteries. Transplanted veins adapt themselves to the new functions imposed. The new arteries transmit the blood indefinitely. After ten months the circulation through the new arteries is apparently bh aotive as pn the day of the operation. The experimenters, in discussing what they hope to accomplish by applying their methods to human beings, say, they hope .by the transplanting of a vein on another vein to produce a deviation of the blood from one part of the venous system to another. The significance of such deviation is that healthy blood could te introduced into areas where the blood has become stagnant, or diseased, and that thus diseases of the liver, kidneys, and even the brain couid be cured. It is announced that Drs. Oarrel and Guthrie have actually succeeded in reversing the circulation of the blood, which, it 1b believed, will oure gangrene.

Professor Brander Matthewe, Professor of Dramatic Literature at Columbia University, who prepared the last circular of the Simplified Spelling Board, makes a special plea for a change in the spelling of several words which at present he says, are wasteful and cruel to foreigners and children. The board, he remarks, his issued a list of words now spelled in two ways, and it will urge the public and publishers and printers to accept finally the simpler of the two. It will lend the weight of its authority to the various minor simplifications now struggling to establish themselves—"tho" and "altho," for example; "catalog" and "program" "esthetio" and "maneuver." He severely oritioises Dr. Samuel Johnson and his dictionary. "If the English language has to-day the worst spelling of any of the modern languages," he sass, "this is due largely to the influence of Dr. Johnson. If he had only known just a little more about the history of his owu language, and if he had exerted his dominating influence against the more oh/ious absurdities and inconsistencies "foisted into our spell ing by tbe narrow pedantry of arrogant proof-readers secure in a perilous half-knowledge—in short, if Dr. Johnson had not only known more ahout English but had also oared more—our orthography would be less unsatisfactory to day, and it could be more easily set right."