Current Topies

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 434, 5 August 1881, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

That an emigration scheme which would merely AN provide for the easy means of getting rid of what INSTBTJCTIVE is considered tho surplus population of Ireland, and warning. which, in conseqjence, would take into consideration only the provision of free passages for whomttver chose to emigrate, or could be persuaded to do so, would be ything rather than a benefit to the people availing themselves of it, we learn most certainly from the late report of the Secretary of the Irish Catholic Colonisation Association of the United States. In describing the classes of people anxious to come out of the American cities and settle upon the lands of the Association, the report speaks as follows :— " The eagerness of the people, especially in the eastern States and cities, to obtain information regarding the colonies, and as to desirable locations for the settler, is shown in the constant j stream of letters of inquiry that have poured in during the year. ; These letters and inquiries come from people whose condition and circumstances are expressed, or may be inferred, and they seem to be naturally divisible into three classes : I. Persons possessing a certain limited amount of means, of fair, and in many cases of much more than average intelligence, and who are moved to turn their thoughts to the West, and to a home on the land in a Catholic colony, by the motive, and prompting to save their children— to be enabled to bring them up in an atmosphere and under conditions more favourable to the preservation of faith and good morals than is generally possible in the great cities. ' Not for our own sakes do we wish to ?nake the change^ hut for the sake of our chilbren? is the plea nrged by this class. 11. Another and larger class of persons, possessing generally a smaller amount of means in ready money, who have toiled for years in public employments, or in shops and factories, and who see ahead no hope or prospect of bettering their condition where they are. These people are eager to get on a farm, but are uncertain and hesitating as to the locality to select ; and in most cases their means would bwely suffice to tide them over the first and possibly second year in the colony. Id. The last, and by far the most numerous class, are the poor labouring men, who, though perhaps in steady employment, scarcely ever have anything put by. How, indeed, could they 1 They work from year's end to year's end for a bare pittance, usually have a large and helpless family to support, and no resources to depend on except only the labor of their hands, and that labour is certain only in one respect that its rewards are uniformly meagre. These men have no provision for themselves or their families in the event of sickness — no life insurance policy in case of death. This class ask, in pitiful repetition, ' Can't you put us on the land ? Can't you give us a chance to save body and soul 1 We «our children going to the bad before our eyes, but what can we ? Enable us to get a home on the land ; give us a chance to ploy our energies in cultivating the soil ; get us away from the blare and misery of the big cities, from crowded and filthy tenement houses, from the miasma and death — moral as well as physical — in which we now struggle — we cannot be said to live — do this ; give us a hope and a future to labour for, and you will benefit not only those whom you lift out of wretchedness and sorrow, but also even those who remain and do not move ; since it is competition, especially in the lowest avenues of labor, which serves to cheapen the reward of toil.' This is a fair interpretation of the appealing cry which is expressed in homely phrase and words in many a letter that has come to me during the past two years in connection with this work of colonisation. I lay so much stress upon it here, not because I believe it possible that this Board or the Association with existing machinery and resources, can meet or provide for any of this class of cases, but because I am persuaded tbat an effort should be made in Koae quarter, to some extent, to colonise the deserving and suitable poor who would be fitted to Bucceed on the land, the necessary conditions being provided." Here, then, we have very plainly set before us what, in a great degree, the immigration of the Irish people into the United States has resulted in. There are three classes of

people described here ; the first consisting of those who have prospered in material affairs, and who are intellectually superior. They are contented with the position they have attained to, and, bo far as they are personally concerned, have no desire for change, but the danger to the faith and morals of their children which they see around them impels them to make any sacrifice tbat may be necessary to be removed from the sphere of its influence. The second class consists of people able to gain a fair livelihood, but without hope of ever attaining to independence. They lead a toilsome life and do not expect any change in it for the better. The third class are labouring men, out of the reach of absolute starvation, indeed, because in constant employment, but with the misery they suffered at home replaced by a worse one — the necessity of seeing their children go to destruction before their eyes. Immigration, then, has been so far a doubtful benefit. Those who have thriven best under it have still such drawbacks to endure that they are anxious to risk further adventure in order to escape from them, and by far the larger number have but exchanged starvation with safety to faith and morals and meritorious suffering for poverty and hard work in crowded towns, where they breathe an atmosphere filled with the germs of disease, and although, perhaps, themselves able to resist the temptations that they are subjected to, are forced to bear the most terrible of all sufferings — the sight of their children's moral degradation. It would be, nevertheless, to such a lot as this that the Irish people now leaving home, without due provision made for their settlement abroad, mast be subjected. It is evident, then, that Ireland, under any circumstances, would be a better and a safer home for her children than these great overcrowded American towns, and it is to the credit of Ireland to find that the attachment of her children to good morals has endured so that they still fear and abhor the evil condition of things they find around them here, and are anxious to escape from it. But it will be the imperative duty of the Land League, and all the friends of the Irish race, to resist to the uttermost any echeme of emigration that would send them to swell the crowds amidst the infection described in the report we have quoted from, or to take up the places from which the Colonisation Association had removed some who had preceded them. If there is to be a Government scheme of emigration to Ireland, let it include special settlements in the United States, or still better, the British colonies, and, if this be refused, let the Irish people reject the whole proposal. Even should their misery at home continue unrelieved, it would be better for them to bear it than to exchange it for another condition of poverty, hardly less wretched materially, and, morally, unspeakably woise.

It would almost seem, however, that instead of the AN Imperial Government's turning their attention to opportunity the formation of special settlements in the United lost. States or the British Colonies, before long they must establibh such settlements at Home. The Irish andlords would have done well to have seconded with all their power the proposal of Colonel Gordon that Government should largely pure hase their property for the benefit of the people ; the hour is plainly ooming when they will be anxious to get rid of their lands and will find no one either to buy them or rent them. The agricultural depression in England still continues, and thousands of acres are reported to be lying vacant and idle, rents have immensely fallen, and English landlords belonging to the very highest classes of society, have, in numerous instances, taken with a good grace, what Irish landlords, who in everything else are proud to imitate them, have called upon the Government to protect them against, and what they have for time out of mind protected themselves against by the most barbarous means — by eviction, which is frequently a euphemism for murder. English landlords have to a very large extent Known how to acommodate themselves to circumstances by accepting the reduction of their rental made necessary by the times, and so largely has this prevailed amongst their upper ranks, that it is said its effects are evident in the deserted condition of fashionable quarters in London, usually thronged during the season. This speaks well for the class in question, and might with advantage be copied by those good folk in Ireland whose roar of discontent is echoing through the world, and whose cause is so vigorously supported by the bayonet of the soldier and the policeman's baton. In any case it must have the effect of

diverting pympatby from these men. and showing that they complain only of the natural course of things and fight for privileges they have no right to enjoy. Their conduct in enforcing for generations, and upholding as fair payments, exactions, such as English landlords at once acknowledge to be exactions and refrain from claiming, is to their overwhelming discredit, and must sooner or later be generally recognised as such. But that they are fighting a vain battle in seeking to sustain their rackrents is very clear ; were the tenantry still submissive and anxious to pay all that is demanded of them, a condition of things now obtains, and is advancing, that would make their utmost efforts vain to accomplish this. Nor can the tenants who fail any longer be replaced by others willing to make the attempt that has ended in failure for those who have gone before them. Mr. Bright, speaking lately in London described the state of affairs as follows :— " I was talking the other day to a gentleman who is a large landed proprietor iv the midland counties, who has had an enthusiastic love of agriculture for 30 years, and wbo knows as much of the facts and figures as any man can know in connection with that subject, and he says that, judging from the losses which he has suffered during the last two years, he is quite certain that the land of this country has, during that period, suffered an actual loss of not less than 150,000,000 sterling. Now, if you recollect that for every acre ploughed, harrowed and manured, there must be seed, labour, and j harvesting, if there be any harvest — that all this expenditure was undertaken in 1879, and that there was scarcely any result — well, the loss is enormous." How, then, can Irish landlords complain that they are robbed when their tenants refuse, under suoh a state of things, any longer to pay rack-rents 1 Are they indeed a race, not only favoured above their tenantry, as we know of old they have been and are in an infinite degree, but superior also to those who own the land in England, and who recognise and submit to the inevitable situation that has arisen from the changed state of the world ? The Irish landlords have sadly miscalculated ; it has been their belief that if they could get rid of their Irish tenants it would be easy for them to replace these by farmers from Scotland or England, who would be possessed of more or less capital which they would lay out upon their farms and in every respect would be men more to their taste than the people born upon the soil ; but the vanity of such an expectation is apparent when the condition of farming matters in England ia considered. Is it likely that Scotch or English farmers are so adventurous as to prefer Ireland to England, and, in case of their being able to obtain land as cheap in England, to seek for it in Ireland ? The fact, moreover, is that the time is coming when neither Scotch nor English farmers will be able to pay rents in any part of the three kingdoms. The competition, with America and these colonies which has occasioned the fall of prices at home -will increase rather than diminish, and the day will certainly come when the Englishman and Scotchman as well as the Irishman, who is to live by the land at all, must own the land he lives by. Whether it will be practicable for the landlords to become the sole farmers of tlicir own estates remains to be seen ; our impression nevertheless, is that such will not prove to be the ca3e, and that the Irish landlords instead of opposing the movement for a change in their relationship towards their tenants, would have been far wiser in joining in it, and tiying so to shape its course as to obtain that their lands should be purchased from them by the Government, as Colonel Gordon proposed. But if the result be evil for them now, ifc is evident they will receive only what they deserve.

Now that it has been determined to destroy A convent Catholic education generally throughout the world, 6CHOOL. and that, more especially in France and Belgium, much has been accomplished towards such an end, although that end in its desired fulness is unattainable, it is of interest to find from the pen of a Protestant a sketch of a Belgian Convent School that is very attractive. We may also find in it something to warn us of what it is that the secret societies are now about to undertake in their openly avowed intention to do away altogether with the Religious Orders. And let not Catholics despise their intention as what is incapable of being fulfilled ; let us. on the contrary, recollect how it was in the lodges of these societies that secular education was planned for the destruction of Christianity, and how it has been spread abroad, the Protestant j eligious sects being cunningly won over to its cause, and giving it a suicidal support The societies are strong and indefatigable, and nothing taken in hand by them is to be despised, but to be watched for, guarded against, and stedfastly resisted, and that in every corner of the ■world ; no place is too remote to be included in their efforts. A Protestant correspondent of the Kern York Times, then, writes as follows : <( It may be objected by Protestant parents that what they call the Buperstition of the Roman Catholic religion is planted in the students' minds. This may be a drawback in regard to children who have not character enough to 'judge for themselves' later on, or whose home influence is not strong enough to correct false impressions ; but let us consider these convent schools of the Order of the Visitation apart

from the religious aspect of the question. As educational institl* tions, places of healthful study, as homes where girls are safe from the contamination of trumpery ideas of ' deportment' and selfish view s of their own importance } as establishments where a just estimate of character and capacity enters into the method of teaching — I know of no schools that can be compared with them. Good cooking, strict cleanliness, a careful regard to the suitability of clothing for all weathers, proper medical supervision, are features of convent management which are as far in advance of me English board-school as a first-class American hotel is ahead of an EngftsnV tavern. While the reverend Mother at the convent which I visited to-day in the heart of the Ardennes is sufficiently devout to satisfy all the canons of Borne ; while the sisters are never absent from the ordained services of the Church, it may be said without irreverence that, all being ostensibly left to the Supreme Being, nothing is left to Him ; everything is ordered on the motto that ' God helps those who help themselves.' The building was an old chateau. It has been thoroughly repaired, in parts rebuilt ; it is roofed with slates ; it is the cleanest place I have ever seen. Waxed and polished floors, whitewashed walls, blinds as white as sacramental robes, dormitories with snowy beds, a kitchen that eclipses the School of Cookery at South Kensington, in London, for appointments and appliances ; class-rooms ahead of any London board-school in the efficiency of desk accommodations ; recreation- rooms, dressing-rooms, wardrobes — all representing one general system in which health and corofjxfc are the first considerations. This community at Des Abys, numbering some ninety souls, has everything within itself, growing its own food, and supporting itself as if it were a little kingdom. The sisters are bright and cheerful, and they include several ladies of distinction, one of them a countess in her own right. Nothing could exceed the grace and the intelligence of the lady, an English sister, who conducted myself and friend over the institution. No face could promise more genuine benevolence than that of the reverend Mother. The girls here for education, are French, German, Belgian, English ; they are pictures of health, and they entertained myself and friends with a concert of vocal and instrumental music, which was delightfully unconstrained, and excellent as it was unpretentious. There were two pianos in the room, and we had double and single instrumental duets from famous operas as well as vocal duets, glees, and choruses. It is worth while for Americans educating their children in Europe to inquire for themselves into the working of convent schools. Koman Catholics need not hesitate for a moment. Protestants run a risk, of course, of increasing the Catholic power, but, I fear, in many of the English and iTench boaiding-schools, they run risks that may be even more serious. A language to be properly learned must be learned in the country where it is spoken. The education of a child here costs on an average about 250 dollars a year ; the average of a London boarding-stool is over 500 dollars. The expenses of travelling to and fro, have, of course, to he added, and if you are a 'fond' parent these become heavy. You may, in first-class boarding-schools, have your bill run up on ' extras," &c, to 1000 and 1500 dollars a year. I believe at Des Abys convent the daughter of the nobleman from whom the property was purchased is at the present moment the door-keeper, so completely are state and position effaced in these religious houses. No advertisements of these convent schools are issued ; children are only admitted on good recommendation, and possibly I may be committing a breach of regulations in this mention of the institution. I trust not, for I have seen the Belgian and German convents so often misrepresented in all kinds of newspapers that I feel it a sort of duty to here witness as a Protestant to the merits of the only one into the mysteries of which I have ever been admitted, from kitchen to garret, from the garden walks and lakeside retreats to the dormitories and private chapels. In saying this, let it be understood that I offer no opinion upon the theological side of the conventual subject. If Protestants would maintain a genu%fc and successful competition with them on the score of education, tlfly should be as earnest, as honest, arjd as self-sacrificing in their conduct of children's schools."

" Thou didst love me and call me thy son 1 I come in A notable CON* the name of Positive philosophy to vindicate the Vebsion. lights of universal Masonry. They have cheated us, and stolen thee from thinking humanity (VHumaniU pensante). But the future will judge thy enemies and ours. Master, we will avenge thee by making the world read thy books." So, according to the London Tablet, did the Atheism of France, by the mouth of one Dr. Galopin, apostrophise the dead body of Littre lying in his coffin. But let the world read his books, and let it know that Littri, the great apostle of Positivism, the master of " Modern Thought," who wrote them, died not in the creed big books, but a son of the Catholic Church ; his creed, evidently, had never his full confidence. Nor was his conversion, as it often is among these so-called Freethinkers, the result of early teaching ; of the voice of conscience, smothered in the years of health and strength, and the pursuit of the world, but at the sight of death's approach

becomes uproarious, and not to be repressed. Littre, while he had no reason to suppose that his death was imminent, turned his attention to the Catholic faith, and acknowledged it to be the truth. The details vouched for by the Tablet's Paris correspondent are as follows : " Since the month of November, memorable in France as le mois des expulsions, M. l'Abbe Huvelin, one of the most esteemed piiestb of Lue paiish of St. Augustine, has been in the habit of going regularly five times a wock ... to hold a religious conference , with M. Littre. He did this at M. Littrii's own desire and request. and at considerable inconvenience to himself The old savant waited for four o'clock with such, impatience that when the Abbe was unavoidably delayed a few minutes, he would exclaim* ' Ah, my consoler is not coming to-day, lam afraid.' During his long series of conferences, M. Huvelin instructed M. Littre in Catholic doctrine, which the latter accepted fully in every point. He made his confession again and again, not sacramentally, but as a preparation for the sacrament -which he hoped to receive in due course. His sentiments of contrition were often a source of deep edification to his pious friend and instructor. More than once he cried out, after confessing his sins : ' M. l'Abbe, a man caanot repent more bitterly than Ido !' And again, overcome with sorrow, ' Did you ever know a man who needed more to repent — nay, «rho did repent more bitterly than I V Frequently, when the beauty of Christian truth impressed . him with a sudden force, he would make an act of faith and then 4ay : ' M. l'Abbe, I charge you to proclaim to the world that I was Tiot an Atheist ! They called me an Atheist, but it was not true.' On the Abbe's replying that he had rather not come forward in so personal a matter, M. Littre would repeat, ' I charge you to do it. I took the wrong road (J'ai fait fausse route)' I could not refrain from expressing surprise, and regret (continues the correspondent) that with such fitting dispositions, the final act of faith should have been delayed to the last, thus putting a weapon into the hands of the enemy. 'Yes,' replied my informant, 'but it was not from any hostility in the will ; it was a kind of awe that held him back, something like the feeling that makes a person shrink from plunging into the water, when they are standing on the brink and fully resolved to plunge in. But I can assure you positively that he was in full and entire possession of his faculties, and that he received the Sacrament of Baptism with a full devotion and faith. He had no idea, nor had his family or the medical man, that the end was so near. He was going to the country, where be counted on greater leisure and recollection ; but his death came very suddenly, the very day before they were to leave town,' "

There is a lady in "Ireland named Mulcahy. She the is the heroine of the hour. She has, in fact, caused COLdstream a commotion throughout the Empire, and found GUARDS herself for a time at the head of the British army. IN hot water. The Dublin Freeman ha 3 issued a cartoon of the scene in which the lady heads the Guards and, with a broomstick brandished in her hand, leads them on to the defence of her stronghold— a cabin built beneath the walls of a ruined castle in Tipperary. Mrs. Mulcahy, it seems, had given shelter to a married daughter with her husband and family, but, after some time, as it is reported that it also occasionally happens even in the more refined ranks of society, mother-in-law and son-in-law had a disagreementThe old lady accordingly resolved to withdraw her hospitality, and gave her relations notice to quit, which notice they however declined to receive, and continued, as tranquilly as it was possible for them within hearing of tbe tongue of an outraged mother-in-law, to share the forbidden dwelling. It was to assert the right of Mrs. Mulcahy to expel her visitors that Her Majesty's Guards were mobilised and ordered on the march ; but of the method of their undertaking and results a correspondent of the Freeman informs us: — "To be aptrictly accurate, those noble warriors only stood smoking their pipes on the loadside, while Mr. Goddard (the sheriff) and his angels were engaged in vindicating the rights of mothers-in-laws to throw out their daughters' crockery and babies on the roadside. The officers of the Guards— bronzed and handsome young fellows all, with their gold moustaches, and frank, soldierly ways — lounged about the door during the operation, turning over the old hencoops and mysterious bedclothes with the cuiiosity with which they might have examined the contents of an Indian wigwam, and yet not uDkindly. Doubtless it was not the field of fame of which those gay young soldiers have some time or other raved in their dreams. The married daughter who was evicted gathered her little babies and her hens about her, under shelter of an old dresser, and looked philosophically on while all the power of England was engaged in smashing her little furniture. « Have you any place to stay to-night, Missus V one of the officers asked kindly. ' Begor I have no place except this,' said the woman, pointing to the cabin from -which she had been just ejected. She said this with an unconcern which puzzled me at the moment, but the explanation was soon forthcoming. The army was not half a mile on the march, after leaving the mother-in-law solemnly in possession, when the unmarried daughter came running along the

road to announce that her married sister had just retaken possession, and was at that moment calmly engaged in cooking dinner in defiance of all the bearskins of the ' Goldstream Guards' (as the country folk call them). The young lady proposed to the commander-in- chief to march back his forces to avenge this insult to the British flag and to mothers-in-law in general ; but a council of war decided that enough had been done for honour, and they continued the retreat, leaving Mrs. Mulcahy's rebellious daughter to eat her dinner in peace upon her own hearth." Hera, then, we have clearly the representatives of a most impracticable people — a woman who in face of the British army never flinches from her determination to have her own -way, but declares in a tone of subdued irony that she means to walk straight back into the place she has been expelled from in spite of all their bayonets ; a young girl who runs across the bog to give the word of command to a regiment of picked troops as if she thought no more of them than if she were Joan of Ire, or they were scare-crows — and , still more wonderful, a man away at his work somewhere or another, but without any other notion in his head than that he would return in the evening to a hearth over which he would find presiding a furious mother-in-law. Such a people are to be made nothing of : they had better be given their own way at once. But as for Her Majesty's troops, since such is their warfare, let them have marbles and hoops, with here and there even a stray doll or two, to furnish their pastimes. They would thus be properly suited. By the way» could the army be made self-supporting by employing it at the sewing machine? When the troubles in Ireland are over something must be done to furnish it with occupation, and the sight of its present employment suggests to us such a useful and remunerative undertaking for it. The suggestion seems worthy of being considered.

We have heard how French Atheism protested suggestive against the defalcation of the great savant, so long '■ evidences, esteemed a chief amongst its leaders. But it was in vain that the " Black Cherubim" said to the Church, " Take him not, do me no wrong." The Church had received him. into her fold, and he was beyond their reach. The rage, nevertheless, that fills the ranks deserted by him broke out even at his tomb, and ' has covered them with lasting disgrace. But some honourable exceptions there are to be noted, and remarkable amongst them is M. Benan, who gave dire offence by going into the church for the religious ceremony, and even seeming to take part in the prayers ; it is said that he actually went so far as to bow dow at the Elevation. M, Benan, moreover, has of late given further signs that some shadow of his early training still clings to him, and it need astonish no one " should he also end by a penitent death. He has, it seems, been writing for a periodical some sketches of his youth, and amongst them occurs the following passage, which we find translated in the columns of our contemporary the Catholic Review :: — •• I was educated in a college conducted by excellent priests, who taught tnci Latin in the old style, and it was a good one. These worthy ecclesiastics were men of thehighest respectability. With nothing of what in these days is styled pedagogy, they earned out the primary rule in education, that is, not to render tasks too lasy, in which there may be a difficulty to overcome. They sought above all things to form good, honest men. Their lessons and moral counsels, which seemed to me to be spontaneous dictates of the heart inspired by virtue, were inseparable from the dogmas which they taught. The fact is, that the many tbiups said in disparagement of clerical morals, are, according to my experience, totally without foundation. I passed thirteen years of my life among priests, I never caw the shadow of a scandal, and I have known none' but good priests." It is evident, then, that M. Benan had some slight hankering after the lessons of his youth, even before the conversion of Littre occurred, and that was an event that might wellcause him, or any other member of the woild of Freethought whatever may be bis standing or powers, to feel uneasy at his position. Let us hope his demeanour at the funeral service of the convert was not a mere affair of good manners, but that it proceeded from some deeper source, acted upon by memories of the past and the influence of Littre's death bed.

Not the least among the discoveiies of the century A great is likely to be the one lately reported of, that ia the disconeby. power of conveying electric energy from one place to another, and applying it to an infinite number of useful purposes, revolutionising by its means not only tbe working of public institutionr but even of our private houses in their minutest details. Sir William Thomson, in a letter to tbe Times, describes the successful experiment made in bringing the box containing the force in question from Paris to Glasgow, and gives as an earnest of what may be expected, the following case. " A few days ago my colleague, Professor George Buchanan, carried away from my laboratory one of the lead cells (weighing about 181 b.) in bis carriage, and by.it ignited the thick platinum wire of a galvanic Scraseur and bloodlessly removed a nasvoid tumour from the tongue of a young boy in about a minute of time. The operation would have occupied over ten minutes if performed by the ordinary chain ecraseu?; as it must;

have been had the Faure cell not been available, because in the circumstances the surgical electrician, with his paraphernalia of voltaic battery to b« set up beforehand, would not have been practically admissible." The Times in a leader commenting on this letter says :—": — " That which Sir William Thompson regards as likely to be the first, at least in point of time, is the use or Faure's batteries in private houses, as reservoirs of electricity for domestic purposes* such a lighting, heating, working sewing-machines, so that no interruption of action would be produced by a temporary interruption of the electric supply given by any main engine from which it was derived." And, again, in concluding his article he writes as follows :—": — " It is possible that (persons now living) may see electricity brought by electric railways from the coast, or from the estuaries of tidal rivers, and delivered in the great towns for the fulfilment of all the purposes for which coal is at present either directly or indirectly employed ; and it would not be easy to exaggerate the benefits, from many points of view, which such a substitution of electricity for coal would afford. If we can imagine the atmosphere of London smokeless and clean, uncontaminated either by the solid or by the gaseous products of combustion ; with flowers and fruit nourishing in town gardens ; with our rooms, and especially our public rooms and places of assembly, freed from the heat which gas ftoccasions ; and with nature and art manifest in their true colours by night as well as by day ; our pictures uninjured, our precious metals uncorroded ; and, indeed, with many of the chief features of unwholesomeness which now arise from the aggregation of masses of people so much alleviated as to be scarcely perceptible, we shall be able to form some estimate of the advantages which the displacement of coal, its congeners and its products, by electricity, would be not only likely, but sure to accomplish. Such is the future which can be foreshadowed with some certainty for our descendants, even if not for ourselves ; and a great step in the direction of its being brought about, a great step towards lifting it from the region of mere hypothesis into that of high probability, was taken when the little box, with its stored million of foot pounds of electric energy, was conveyed by our correspondent from Paris to Glasgow."