even

Ainger's fancy as chiming in with his To Paul's or to Lambeth-'twas all one own taste in novelists, and I remember

to him. his quoting them with gusto one day at

But I do not recall one of his own so a dinner party at which there had been

purely witty without the admixture of previously some talk about recent and

a pun. The following, on his appointunnecessary editions of Charles Lamb. It was irresistible to tell him that their

ment to Bristol, are perhaps the best: writer was one of the “unnecessary" Ainger's made Canon, so 'tis said, editors in question. Mr. Lucas will Because so very well he read: perhaps forgive me if I record Ainger's "Ah, then," said Smith, demurely winkreply to this unexpected piece of in

ing formation: "Well, I should be glad to

He's cannoned off the red, I'm think

ing." make his acquaintance; we must have much in common beside friends; The Chancellor had been less blamed whether I think his edition of Lamb If some great preacher he had named:

“Ah, then,” said Smith, not necessary or not be always speaks of

blushin' me in it like a gentleman." Ainger's

"He'd then have cannoned off the cushverse epigrams, the taste for which he

ion." imbibed in youth from the study of Elegant Extraots, are certainly spoilt for He was especially felicitous in punning modern taste by his fondness for puns. quotations. The "How neat he spreads His standard epigram was the famous his wax," said to Dean Vaughan when one on a predecessor of his at the he split his candle grease on the carpet, Temple:

is as good as any for a sample.

But causeries must have an end. In As Sherlock at Temple was taking a boat

taking leave for the moment of Miss The waterman ask'd him which way he

Sichel's book, I should like to congratwould float;

ulate her on the accomplishment of a "Which way?” says the doctor; "why, very difficult task, and not least on the fool, with the stream."

words in which she sums up her story. The Speaker.

H. C. Beeching.

LEGISLATION AND “COMBINES” IN THE UNITED STATES.

We doubt if the general public, and tive rings and company-promoting tac

some financiers in the United tics, whereby the public's millions are States, fully recognize how deeply ensnared just as surely—though, perrooted is the distrust in this country haps, on a smaller scale-as by any not of the general honesty of the Amer- “frenzied finance” schemes in America. ican people, but of the business meth- For the most part, however, our losses ods of many of the great industrial un- usually fall upon our own heads, dertakings, and, more especially, of whereas, on the other side of the Atthe tactics of the great financial groups lantic, they have a way of managing which so largely control the financial these things so that-whether it is a destiny of the United States. We do matter of canned beef or blocks of deliot pretend to say that financial moral- preciated securities—the indigestion ity in London is necessarily on a much usually falls to the experience of peohigher plane than in New York, for in ples of other countries than their own. this country also we have our specula- We have been led to make the fore

seems

going remarks through perusing an test being raised, but at a moment account in the New York Commercial when trusts and combines in the United Chronicle of an address recently deliv- States would seem to have attained diered before the Iowa Bankers' Associa- mensions undreamed of years ago, and tion by Mr. Robert B. Armstrong, pres- following so soon after the disclosure ident of the Casualty Company of of a state of things in the meat-packing America, and at one time an Assistant- industry which has shocked the civSecretary to the Treasury at Washing- ilized community, it

rather ton. The subject of his address was strange to find that President Roose"Assaults on Corporate Management," velt's moderate protest against the and the Chronicle considers that it de- growing power of these combines serves wide attention, by reason of the should be regarded as antagonistic to fact that "these assaults on corporate

the best interests of the nation. Mr. affairs and aggregated wealth are very Armstrong in his address to the Iowa popular just now." The fear is, indeed, bankers, after speaking very glibly of expressed by our contemporary that it the danger of supposing that because a may be carried to a point absolutely few corporations are mismanaged all detrimental to the best financial inter- other corporations must also be misests of the country. Now, we quite ad- maaged, went on to express the mit that after a disclosure of scandals

fear that one of these days we will affecting a few particular groups of

miss Prosperity. There will be many companies there may easily be a ten

excuses for her absence from her usual dency to exaggerate the matter; to im

place. One will say "bad crops,” anagine that the general commercial and

other will say "over-production,” still financial morality is much worse than another will say “abnormal extension it is; and, as a result, to be over-zeal- of credits." But none of these will be ous for legislation, which the real facts

the real reason, though they may be

contributory. The real reason will be of the situation do not merit. Against

an epidemic of fear, of timidity, of dissuch hasty clamor for State interfer

trust produced by unwarranted, continence we should be the first to raise

uous attacks upon every instrument of a protest, and, of course, we frankly

progress and development which has confess that at this distance it is less made and is making the country great. possible to form an intelligent opinion of the real merits of the position than We write, of course, without a full it is by the man on the spot. At the report of Mr. Armstrong's speech, but same time, we think that we shall from the abbreviated account given in fairly express the feelings of the public the New York Commercial Chronicle, and the financial community here if we there seems something rather humorous say that we are impressed even less about this notion of "missing prosperby the occasional revelations of finan. ity" by reason of any attempt to legiscial scandals in America than by the late wisely, not for the suppression, or fact that it seems well-nigh impossible even the fettering of the power, of corto move the legislative powers in the porate bodies, but simply for preventStates to take effective steps to pre- ing them-by reason of their excessive vent their recurrence. If, by an over

strength-being rendered in any way paternal system of control, the author- harmful to the general community. ities at Washington had been con- Nor, in our judgment, was the lecstantly imposing restrictions

upon turer any happier when, in referring to financial and commercial enterprise, we the subject of railroad rate legislation, could understand a strong note of pro- he attempted to draw a parallel be

man.

tween the railroad and banking inter- been relatively few and unimportant; ests. Referring to the proposals which so that the desire for any special legishave been made for regulating rates, he lation has not arisen. asked the Iowa bankers how they It is not, however, so much with the would receive a proposition to control details of Mr. Armstrong's argument the rates of interest for the various lo- that we are concerned as with the gencalities by a Government Commission. eral tenor of his remarks, whereby the He said:

protest aroused by recent disclosures is

described as a wholesale attack upon What is the essential difference be- capital, and bankers are urged “to set tween the regulation of rates of interest their faces against the wholesale and railroad freights? You say you preaching of anarchy and the nationare better able to judge of local condi

wide encouragement of Socialism, envy, tions, of oompetition, of special consid

and malice." We are quite at one with erations. Well, so does the railroad You say, it is not your money.

Mr. Armstrong when he remarks that The railway man can equally well say

"financial depression often comes from the same thing. You say he is a com- timidity of capital and its failure to comon carrier, and you are not. Techni- operate," but between that statement cally that is true, but your responsibil

and his previous characterization of the ity to the business community is the

feelings engendered by recent financial same. Why, then, may it not be ex

disclosures in the United States as bepected that those in favor of Government paternalism will next advocate

ing expressive of anarchy, Socialism, the regulation of interest rates through- envy, and malice, there is, surely, a out the United States by a Federal wide gulf. In the perfecting of relaCommission ?

tions between capital and labor is to be

found the truest essential of the prosWith all due respect to Mr. Arm- perity of a nation, and when either the strong, we think that the parallel se- one or the other becomes of too exactlected, though apt enough, considering ing a character something other than the audience he was addressing, was financial prosperity usually results. unfortunate. After all, while there Unfortunately, however, these relations has been of late a certain amount of in the United States, thanks to the consolidation, even in banking interests combined forces of trusts and protecin the United States, it is one of the tive tariffs, are immensely complicated features of that country that the num- by the power on the part of the capiber of competing banks is extraordina- talists to raise the cost of living, and rily great, so that the variation in if anything is more certain than anmoney rates throughout the country other, it is that the social problems in is, on the whole, regulated by entirely the United States are being greatly natural conditions. It is quite true that aggravated by the ever-increasing tenin no other city are there such violent dency for wealth to become concenmoney “squeezes” as in New York, and, trated in the hands of a few individuals to some extent, this is due to the im- and corporate bodies. Such a position mense wealth owned by a few individ- may not-and probably does not-call uals, but other causes-such as the im- for the immediate application of perfect financial system and the daily drastic remedies, which might only resettlement in stocks-also play an im- act unfavorably upon the country as portant part. Moreover, it is also due a whole; but it does demand the atto banking in America to say that, tention of true American patriots to see hitherto, scandals in that direction have to it that the forces which have in many respects added to the wealth noteworthy is that, after a prolonged of the nation are not allowed to be mis- period of prosperity in the States, acmanaged, or carried to a point which companied by an enormous speculation shall prove disadvantageous to the in stocks, the slightest attempt to imcommunity. In a sentence, the forces pose any curb upon the power of some must not be allowed to get beyond con- of the great "combines" of the United trol. Doubtless the exercise of such States, even at the initial stages of incontrol is a matter in which the high- quiry, should be magnified into a wholeest skill and the least possible interfer- sale attack upon financial interests in ence with natural conditions are re- the States, by reason of which the quired, but what strikes us as rather country is to “miss prosperity."

The Economist.

SUSPENDED ANIMATION.

One of the most fascinating problems bility of a certain number of proliferain speculation as to the future of the tions, and we therefore with a certain race under the influence of science is limited stock of energy expressed in suggested by a class of news paragraph terms of longevity. When this is exwhich appears from time to time in the hausted we grow old and die. But newspapers. The Daily Mail of last what if we could suspend at will the week published an account of the exhi- stages in this cycle, to resume them bition at a local field-club of a living again later? What if science should and lively toad which had been found enable us by submitting to certain embedded some feet deep in solid clay rigorous conditions to spend our stock and which had apparently existed for of vitality and our little term of sensaan indefinite time in this position. tion as we pleased, to put off consciousThe usual attitude to items of news of ness at a crisis and to take it up again this kind is one of reserve or scepti- later without in the meantime having cism. But there is no necessity for drawn on our original capital of threeentire disbelief in the possibilities score years and ten? Will the day which are often suggested; for there are come, that is to say, when the philosoundoubted cases on record in which, in pher who wishes to verify his prophecarefully conducted experiments, toads cies and to see the world fifty or a hunand other animals have survived, long dred years hence will be able to do so incarceration deprived of food and al- by taking out his life as it were in most of air. The vital functions must instalments ? have been practically suspended in the There is justification for thinking conditions which have been imposed. that such a result is not outside the

The interesting question which such vision of science as a possibility. Even experiments tend to suggest is as to in present conditions it is roughly true how far science may in the future be that the more energetic and wearing able to control the conditions of animal the life we live the soooner is our stock metabolism, The prevailing view at of vitality exhausted. The longest lived present is that the cycle of our lives re- occupations, as every insurance office sembles the wound-up mechanism of knows, are those which conduce to a clock. The cells in which our bodies ease of mind and a vegetative existoriginate are endowed with the possi- ence. Nature, where it has suited her purpose, has found no insuperable ob- in the situation for more than a few stacle in suspending the life of the in- minutes. Yet the toad when released, dividual at one stage, and after an in- after being for this interval deprived definite period of quiescence taking it of food and apparently, though of up again practically at the point at course it is necessary to assume not which it left off. The simplest example really, deprived of air, was in good conof all is in the case of seeds. The dition. After a short exposure to the young plant is developed in the seed air he became quite lively, his large up to a certain point, and development eye showing particularly bright and is usually continuous when the seed clear. On being kept for a few days begins to grow immediately. Yet some under a flower-pot he grew thin for seeds in normal conditions remain dor- want of food, but crawled actively mant six or seven years, and seeds of away when he was released to find it. certain plants of the pea family will Buckland once experimented with a retain their vitality for twenty or dozen toads which he placed in separate thirty years; although the tale of the holes in a block of porous limestone, germination of the mummy wheat is covering them up lightly with a glass held to be without foundation. In plate and burying the whole a yard cases of trance all the bodily functions deep in the soil. After a year and two are much slowed down, so much so that weeks most of them were still alive even death itself is sometimes simu- with their eyes open. He experimented lated. There is no inherent impossi- with a second dozen, which were put bility in the acts recorded of Indian into a block of dense sandstone. These fakirs, who are said in some instances were treated in the same way, but at to be able to produce at will the ap- the end of the period they were all pearance of death and to undergo found dead and decomposed. Some air burial, while of course making arrange- was a necessity, although a surprisingly ments for subsequent disinterment, small allowance seems to be sufficient as in the case described in Stevenson's in conditions of suspended animation. Master of Ballantrae. The cases which Fish will survive when frozen solid in are described of living toads being dug blocks of ice, and will resume activity out from solid clay, and even from po- when released. In the hibernation of rous rock or from the wood of trees the higher animals we have the same which have overgrown and entombed fact of life being continued while little them, have always the same general or no food and very little air is confeatures. The particulars are gener- sumed. Many of such cases ally so astounding that disbelief is gen- scarcely less remarkable as examples of eral. Yet it is easy enough for al- suspended animation. In hibernation most any one to test the fact that a there are all the gradations from ordiremarkable suspension of the vital nary sleep to a torpor or trance outfunctions does take place in the case wardly resembling death. Nature here of the toad in certain conditions. The again seems, when it is required, to present writer, in experiments which find no physiological difficulty in almost he conducted, found that a toad sur- completely suspending the vital funcvived for over a year firmly packed in tions for prolonged intervals. Excrethe ground under a depth of two feet tions disappear; even respiration is apof solid London clay. So impervious parently suspended. The air of did the clay appear when dug through closed jar containing a hibernating dora year after, that it seemed impossible mouse will remain unaltered for a long to imagine a bird or a mouse surviving time. Severe tests tend to show how

are