The Age of Science: A Newspaper of the Twentieth Century
Date: 2020-10-30T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science fiction; Satire; England -- Fiction; Dystopias -- Fiction

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Title: The Age of Science: A Newspaper of the Twentieth Century

Author: Frances Power Cobbe

Release date: October 31, 2020 [eBook #63581]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from
images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AGE OF SCIENCE: A NEWSPAPER OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY ***

Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

THE AGE OF SCIENCE.
A NEWSPAPER OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

BY

MERLIN NOSTRADAMUS.

“Forerun thy time, thy peers, and let
Thy feet, milleniums hence, be set
In midst of knowledge dreamed not yet:

·       ·       ·       ·       ·

Thou hast not gained a real height,

Nor art thou nearer to the light.”

Two Voices.

LONDON:

WARD, LOCK, AND TYLER,

Warwick House, Paternoster Row.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY J. OGDEN AND CO.,

172, ST. JOHN STREET, E.C.

THE AGE OF SCIENCE

The greatest discovery ever achieved by man is beyond all question that which it is now our privilege to announce, namely, that of the new Prospective Telegraph. By this truly wonderful invention (exquisitely simple in its machinery, yet of surpassing power) the obstacle of Time is as effectually conquered as that of Space has been for the last generation by the Electric Telegraph; and future years—even, it is anticipated, future centuries—will be made to respond to our call as promptly and completely as do now the uttermost parts of the earth wherewith the magic wire has placed us in communication.

For obvious reasons the particulars of this most marvellous invention, and the name of its author, must be withheld from the public till the patents be made out, and the enormous profits which must accrue from its application be secured to the Company which is invited to undertake to work it (with limited liability). We are only permitted by special favour to hint that the natural Force relied on to set the machinery in action is neither Electric, Magnetic, nor Galvanic; nor yet any combination of these; but that other great correlated imponderable agency, whose existence has been for some time suspected by many intelligent inquirers, called the Psychic Force, whose laws of action it has been reserved for this new and greater Wheatstone to develop and apply to practical utility. That no scepticism may linger in the minds of our readers, we desire to add that we have been gratified by the actual inspection of several short fragments forestalled by this invaluable process from the press of the next fifty, eighty, and one hundred and thirty years respectively; and have at this moment in our hands a complete transcript (the most important document of the series) of a newspaper bearing date January 1st, 1977, photographed in a very beautiful manner by the machine upon an enormous sheet of paper, which was found needful to contain the type in the most compressed form. As the printed matter of this gigantic periodical equals at least in bulk the whole of Gibbon’s History, or Mr. Jowett’s edition of Plato, we cannot attempt to do more than offer our readers a few brief extracts, serving, however, we trust, as not inadequate samples of the literary treasures which are shortly to be revealed to our curiosity, and satisfying even the most incredulous that the invention of which we speak has been crowned with triumphant success. We have only to add that the great originator of this discovery entertains hopes that, by an ingenious inversion of the action of his machine, he may be able to convert it, when required, into a Retrospective Telegraph, bringing back the Past, as it already antedates the Future, and restoring to us all the records of antiquity whose loss we have deplored, as, for example, the Odes of Sappho, the missing Books of Livy, the Prometheus Unbound of Æschylus, and the original MSS. of the Vedas, the Zend Avesta, and the Pentateuch. The final completion of this latter discovery, however, is scarcely perfected, and we shall not therefore pause to describe its probable value, but proceed without further delay to put our readers in possession of all the details for which we can find space concerning the Newspaper of 1977, which has been very sagaciously selected by the inventor as the first fruits of the working of his Prospective Machine.

The name of this journal (which, we conclude, may be considered as the Times of the twentieth century) is

THE AGE OF SCIENCE,

and obviously refers with pride to the consciousness of its readers that they live in a period of the world’s history when Science reigns supreme over human affairs, having achieved unimaginable triumphs, and altogether superseded most of the pursuits of mankind in ruder ages, such as War, the Chase, Literature, Art, and Religion. This appropriate title is printed, we may remark, in the largest and clearest possible Roman type, instead of in the Old English character now commonly used for a similar purpose. No fount, indeed, which we have ever seen employed, save in a few old Italian folio éditions de luxe, has type so large and legible as that in which the whole newspaper is printed, the greatest care apparently being taken to spare the eyes—or perhaps we should say the spectacles—of the readers, since, judging from the opticians’ advertisements of “Spectacles for Infants,” “Spectacles for Elementary Schools by the gross,” and “Cautions to Mothers” against allowing babies to use their eyes, it would appear that unassisted vision had become rare, if not unknown. There are ten columns on each page, each ten times as long as it is broad, and there are a hundred pages in the journal, proving that the decimal system has been thoroughly adopted even in such details. Spread out open, the Age of Science would cover the floor of a very large hall, and we apprehend from certain marks that a convenient method of suspending it on pulleys from the ceiling, must have superseded our clumsy practice of holding our papers with extended arms.

Proceeding to peruse the intensely interesting contents of the Age of Science, we first note that it is written in English differing from our own chiefly by the use of a strange and, to our eyes, barbarous orthography, (intended, we presume, to facilitate elementary education,) and by the introduction of a vast number of technical terms of the class we reserve for scientific treatises, but which are apparently brought into use in everyday parlance. The familiarity of the contributors with all gases, fluids, and substances of chemistry, all the bones of all the beasts, birds, and fishes which live, or ever did live, on this planet, and all the diseases incidental to humanity, speaks volumes for the superiority of their scientific education over our own. At the same time, on two or three occasions when illustrations have been chosen from past History or Poetry, the writers betray that their studies have not been much extended in the direction of Literature. One gentleman thinks that Mr. Gladstone wrote the Iliad on hints afforded by Dr. Schliemann, and that Milton was the author of the Book of Genesis. Another refers to the period when Rome was founded by Romeo and Juliet, while a third mentions the “once celebrated Divina Commedia by Moliere,” and regrets that “so curious a specimen of archaic Japanese art as Titian’s ‘Assumption’ should not have been spared from the pile in which the ‘Transfiguration’ of Phidias and the ‘Last Supper’ of Praxiteles were so judiciously destroyed by order of the Committee of the Royal Academy, to put a stop to the propagation of bad æsthetic taste.” For the intelligence of our readers we shall be compelled to translate the singular phraseology of the Age of Science as nearly as possible into familiar English, and our present spelling; and shall only quote a few of the Leading Articles, touching on specially interesting topics, out of the twenty-five which the vast newspaper publishes as its daily contribution.

The arrangement of the Age of Science is a little different from and more logical than that of our journals. The first page is rationally devoted to Telegraphic Intelligence, which everyone may be supposed to desire first to read. Instead of political news, however, or records of battles, deaths of eminent personages, floods, storms, or fires, these telegrams consist exclusively of minute verbatim reports of the proceedings of above ninety Scientific Congresses, which seem to be taking place at the same time in Europe, Asia, America, Australia, and even in one instance (a Geographical Meeting) in Africa, on the shore of Lake Albert Nyanza. The various sections of the British Association have been obviously long broken up, and again divided and subdivided till separate congresses have been found desirable for each department.

It would occupy more space than the whole of this volume to offer even the briefest condensation of these Reports, as the discussions and papers of the learned members of the different congresses are carried on chiefly in terms quite unintelligible to us, and refer to scientific disputes to which we do not possess a clue. We must pass over these columns of the Age of Science, and proceed to the next department, which is a Report of the Assembly of Convocation—a topic which we were surprised to find possessed such prominent interest, till we discovered that the Convocation of 1977 will consist exclusively of Medical men. The Upper House seems to be formed of Physicians and Surgeons who have obtained titles of Nobility, and take rank according to the dioceses over which they exercise medical supervision, and the Lower House to be a representative body elected by medical graduates throughout the kingdom.

The meetings for the Province of Canterbury take place respectively in Henry the Seventh’s Chapel, and in the nave of Westminster Abbey; Jerusalem Chamber and the Board Room of the Bounty Office having probably proved inconveniently small, and the whole Abbey (as we learn accidentally from a paragraph in another part of the paper) having been “set aside, since the Dissolution of the Churches, for the use of the Medical Profession, and for anatomical and physiological lectures and craniological researches, for which latter purpose the vaults beneath offer peculiarly interesting specimens.”

The Report runs as follows:—

PROVINCE OF CANTERBURY.

UPPER HOUSE.

Session ccxli.—Monday, January 1st, 1977.

The House assembled at eleven o’clock in Henry VII.’s Chapel, pursuant to the order of prorogation. His Grace the Lord Archphysician of Canterbury presided. There were also present the Right Rev. Lord Doctors of Winchester, London, Oxford, Ely, Salisbury, Exeter, Lincoln, and Peterborough. After the presentation of sixty-four Petitions, a Report was received from the Venerable Congregation of the Index, which was approved and ordered to lie on the table. Among the works whose perusal will henceforth be prohibited to the laity will be found all Medical Guides and Treatises on Domestic Medicine, Household Surgery, and the like, which have pretended to direct the multitude how to cure or prevent disease without the aid of a physician. As the Lord Doctor of Lincoln judiciously observed, “the heresy involved was precisely analogous to that of the old religious sect of Protestants, who taught the ignorant laity that they might save their souls without applying to a priest. Doctors,” his lordship added, “were the appointed Ministers of the Body, and the man who imagined his health could be saved without them would find out his error when it was too late.”

LOWER HOUSE.

The Doctors, Archdoctors, and Pro-Apothecaries constituting the Lower House of Convocation assembled in the Nave of Westminster Abbey at 11 o’clock. The Very Eminent Cyrup Camomile, M.D., Archdoctor of Cheltenham, Prolocutor, presided.

The Prolocutor having bowed to the busts of Hippocrates, Galen, and Harvey (a ceremony which has been substituted for the old form of prayers), præconization was taken by the actuary of the names of members; assessors were appointed, and a multitude of petitions presented. The Schedules of Gravamina and Reformanda were then called for. Among the former the most important (which was sent up at once to the Upper House as an Articulus Medici) was the gravamen of the Archapothecary of Sarum, which set forth that, contrary the interests of the profession and ordinary usage, a Coroner had been recently elected for the county of Dorset who was not a Medical Man. Another gravamen referred to the inadequacy of the fees to be legally claimed by Doctors for granting Certificates of Birth, Vaccination, Equination, Porcination, Sanitary Fitness for Factory or other labours, Fitness for Marriage, and, finally, the most important Certificates of having died under due Medical care and supervision, and being consequently admissible for Cremation.

Members were then called upon to give notice of motions, and discussions followed on those of Sir William Puffin—

That Convocation should remonstrate with Her Majesty’s Ministers for the laxity wherewith the laws relating to Medical Heretics are enforced.

Of Sir Andrew Scrivener—

That Convocation should desire Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Home Affairs to introduce immediately into Parliament a Bill prohibiting Dinner Parties, exceeding seven persons in number, to be held without the presence of a qualified Physician or Surgeon.

Of Dr. Aqua Fortis—

That a Bill should be likewise required, compelling Railway and Steamboat Companies to employ, at suitable salaries, a staff of properly qualified Surgeons, one of whom at least should travel by every train and on every steamboat.

And of Dr. Scurvydrop—

That a Deputation from Convocation should wait on the Lords of the Admiralty to remonstrate on the subordinate position allotted to Surgeons on board Her Majesty’s Ships, and to demand that the Medical Officer should at all times (except when the immediate conduct of the ship is in question) takes precedence of the Captain as Commander.

A similar motion was made by Dr. Turniquet for a deputation to the Horse Guards on behalf of the Army Surgeons, and was, like all the preceding motions, adopted unanimously.

The Report concludes with the observation—

As Parliament does not meet for another week, there must be a delay of a few days before the recommendations of Convocation are carried into effect, but it is unnecessary to remark that they will be adopted unchallenged by the Legislature. Since the solemn Protest, carried by the 50,000 doctors, who marched down Whitehall in procession, “against the Interference of the Secular Power in Things Medical,” no Minister of the Crown, much less any private member, has attempted to move an Amendment to any of the numerous Bills presented by the profession.

After the Report of Convocation, the Age of Science contains one column of Stocks and Shares, not possessing any special interest for readers of the present day, but appearing to prove, strangely enough, that investments are much fewer than in our time, and cannot be made in any Foreign securities. After these, in lieu both of Naval and Military Intelligence, and of the Church, five columns are devoted to Medical Appointments and Promotions, and to a considerable correspondence on the proposed endowment of two new Physicianships (with seats in the House of Lords) at St. Albans and Truro. After all these we find twenty columns devoted to Latest Intelligence, in short paragraphs, of which we cull a few of the most interesting.

OCCASIONAL NOTES.

The magnificent Joss House now in process of erection by the Chinese of London forms a striking ornament to Regent Street, standing as it does on the site of the old deserted Langham Chapel. It will, we imagine, be the only place dedicated to religious purposes which has been built during the last twenty years in the metropolis, and almost the only one in actual use. Although we cannot, of course, ourselves, as a Scientific nation, formally join in the worship of Buddha, we must all regard with sympathy and satisfaction the honours paid to that great Teacher by the very important section of our community, the Chinese day labourers and domestic servants, of whom it is said more than half a million have contributed to the erection and adornment of this Temple. Considering the impossibility of inducing Englishmen to undertake in these days the lower kinds of work, we should come altogether to a standstill were it not for the tens of thousands of industrious Chinese who have replenished our labour market. The statue of Buddha is a noble work of modern sculpture by Mr. Merino. The traditional pose of the crossed legs is slightly altered to bring them within the rules of scientific anatomy, and the Sage is obviously pondering those profound lessons of Pessimism (that it is a bad world we live in, and that we need not expect a better) which have justly secured for him the reverence of cultivated Europe.

An accident of the ordinary sort occurred last night to the new Magnetic train, which was at the moment passing under the Channel, about 10 miles from Dover. From messages sent by the portable electric machine along the wires the moment before the catastrophe took place, it would appear that the engineers have been again at fault in the construction of the roof of the tunnel, and that the sea was rushing in with such violence that little hopes were entertained of bringing the train to the next watertight compartment. The result justified these fears, for the whole compartment of the tunnel in which the train was stopped is to-day entirely full of water, and it must be assumed that the unfortunate passengers—numbering, it is supposed, about 800—have been drowned like so many rats in a trap. The accident is unfortunate for the proprietors of Submarine Tunnel Stock, and also for several Insurance Companies, as extensive repairs will be required; but Science teaches us to regard these occurrences with composure, as serving to check the increase of a superabundant population.

The Simian Educational Institute (on Frobel’s system), for members of the Ape family, continues to attract the strongest interest. In testing the educability of the Simian tribe we are solving one of the most important problems of Science, and hitherto everything seems to promise the triumphant success of the experiment. There are now among the pupils at the Institute three Chimpanzees, whose grandfathers and grandmothers have all been well-educated monkeys; so that the set of the brain of these young people is already marked towards progress and civilization. It is needless to observe that all the students are required to wash and dress themselves every morning in the becoming male and female habiliments provided by the taste of the Governors of the Institute. Great pains are also taken with their manners at meal times, and, to avoid temptation, nuts are not admitted at dessert. One of the young gentlemen (Joseph Macacus Silenus, Esq., generally known by his intimates as “Joe”) is said to exhibit extraordinary talents, and to be able to answer any question in elementary science by means of an alphabet and a system of knocks, which (in view of the yet unconquerable speechlessness of monkeys) has been accepted as the best substitute for language, having been formerly invented by an ingenious race of impostors named Mediums, who flourished in the obscurity of the Victorian age. The plan adopted in France, in deference to the advice of the great French naturalist, M. Houzeau, to employ the anthropoid apes as domestic servants, has proved, we are informed, altogether successful in several families. Madame Le Singe, a fine specimen of the Gorilla tribe, has acted for some months as confidential Nurse in the family of a distinguished Member of the Institute (M. Gobemouche), and is said to maintain discipline among her charges excellently well. It is an instructive spectacle to see Madame Le Singe walking on a fine day with the children, and pushing a perambulator in the Gardens of the Tuileries. The more ordinary employment found, however, for domestic Apes is that of cooks, when it is observed they occasionally call in the services of the household cat to assist them as kitchenmaid, especially when roast chestnuts form part of the entertainment.

The cheerful ceremony of opening the new “Incineration Hall” was performed an hour ago in Manchester by the Lord Doctor of Manchester, attended by the Mayor. It is a magnificent building, with a furnace capable of reducing 12 bodies at a time to ashes, which, after a certain period, will be used in the manufacture of water-filters for the drinking-fountains of the town. It is specially fortunate that the Hall can be employed at once, since the number of persons despatched by Euthanasia has been so great during the past week all over the country that the other Cremation establishments have proved inadequate to dispose of the corpses with sufficient rapidity.

An important addition has been made to that instructive place of public amusement, the Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park. The ground formerly occupied by a great Dissenting College (long in ruins) has been devoted to a department destined to contain those species of animals which are rapidly dying out in Europe, and which, if not thus carefully preserved, must soon be lost altogether to Zoological science. Among these are the Ass, the Fox, the Dog, the Hare, the Pheasant, and Partridge. In this age of Science it is, of course, impossible to go on employing a creature like the Donkey, proverbial for its intellectual deficiency, and we have no regret that only two pair of animals of the species (both in the Regent’s Park collection) now survive in England, though a few are said to linger in Egypt. Connected with the dog (Canis Familiaris) there are so many traditional records of sagacity, having a certain scientific interest in connection with the form and size of its brain, that we should have been glad if a more complete collection of the varieties could have been preserved. The Foxhound, however, the Greyhound, Setter, and Pointer, seem all to have become extinct within about thirty years of the repeal of the Game Laws and the consequent cessation of held sports; and several of the more favoured kinds of dogs—Italian Greyhounds, Toy Terriers, Pomeranians, and Poodles—were, it is said, privately destroyed by hundreds by their owners, who disgracefully sought to withdraw them from the researches of physiologists. The remaining kinds have been perhaps rather recklessly used by vivisectors, whose ardour in the noble cause of science has caused them to experiment, on an average, on about 14,000 dogs apiece (an example originally set by the sainted Maurizio Schiff), and the result has been that we only find at present twelve animals surviving, of whom nine belong to the class Mongrel. One noble old Newfoundland, who would have greatly graced the collection, was, it is said, drowned by his owner last year under interesting circumstances. The dog was much devoted to his master (a celebrated physiologist), and especially to his boy, a child of six years old. One day the little fellow fell out of a boat, and sank for the last time, when the dog arrived, and with immense difficulty (the water being very deep and stormy) dived for him and brought him safe to shore. The animal itself was so nearly exhausted that its stertorous breathing and other symptoms suggested to the physiologist the scientific interest which would attach to watching it slowly drowning in a suitable vessel, where all the conditions of that death could be accurately investigated on so large a scale as that of a full sized dog. The learned gentleman accordingly, in obedience to these fine and fleeting suggestions of the intellect, drowned the animal in a tub in his physiological laboratory as soon as his son was sufficiently recovered to witness the instructive and entertaining spectacle. The dog, when withdrawn half dead for a moment from the water, having attempted to lick the boy’s face, the child was weak enough to implore his father to spare it; but the learned gentleman of course pointed out to the boy the folly of such a request, and the experiment was completed. We trust to see this young gentleman hereafter as sound and eminent a physiologist as his distinguished father.

After some five columns more of similar Intelligence, the Age of Science proceeds to give its readers a few Reviews of Books. The brevity of the remarks vouchsafed to these productions seems to indicate that no great importance is attached to Literature properly so called, but only to treatises on Physical Science.

The Notices run as follow:—

REVIEWS.

We do not usually in the Age of Science intrude on the province of the sixteen leading daily Scientific Newspapers devoted to critical notices of the books which pour from the press on Electrology, Physiology, Astronomy, Geology, &c. We are tempted to depart from our rule, however, so far as to offer our meed of applause and congratulation on the publication of the last of the six splendid volumes forming the magnificent monograph on Cheese-mites, and the still more costly and exhaustive treatise on the great mystery of the Formation of Dust in Disused Apartments. The Analysis of the Dust Bin, which constitutes Book VIII. of this noble work, is a triumph of scientific investigation and (to employ an obviously appropriate term) of industry. In the inferior non-scientific walks of Literature we find that no Histories have been published during the last twelvemonth, and only one Historical Essay, namely:—

The Fall of the Church of England. By the late (and last) Dean of Westminster. The author of this book composed it, we are informed, during his retirement in the Isle of Anglesea, whither, like most of the clergy, and the Druids in former ages, he retreated after the great victory gained by Science, when the Cathedrals and Churches were made over by Parliament to the Medical Profession. The Dean traces the fall of the Anglican Establishment to the disrepute into which it had sunk in consequence of the folly of a party in the Church, who, in an age of doubt and transition, when religion needed to be presented in its most spiritual shape, made it appear by their practices a matter of rites and forms altogether childish. It is quite possible that these idle doings may have contributed to make sensible men impatient and contemptuous, but we are persuaded that the abolition of the Churches was due to a deeper and more widespread cause, namely, the growth of that sound philosophy which recognises Matter as containing itself the germ and potency of every form of life, and, of course, dismisses the dream of a Soul in man, which might enjoy existence after death. As soon as this great truth had had time to penetrate the minds of the masses, the collapse of Religion obviously became imminent. The sole attention and hopes of all classes have since been confined to the preservation of health and the extension of life to the utmost term of old age. That we have bodies, nobody can for a moment question, and we properly recognise as our guides and masters the Doctors who remedy their diseases. We have satisfied ourselves that we have no Souls, and it would be truly absurd to expect of us to maintain an order of clergy to undertake their “cure.” The endowments originally devoted to the latter profession have been naturally and fitly transferred to the former.

POETRY.

The Loves of the Triangles. Reprinted from the Anti-Jacobin. We rejoice to see the merits of this Poem recognised at last, and the stupid idea of some dull critics that it was intended as a travesty exploded in this graver age. With the exception of the De Rerum Natura of Lucretius, and of Darwin’s Botanic Garden, it is almost the only poem bequeathed to us by the past worthy of retaining a place in our libraries.

The Gout, and other Poems. By the Poet Laureate. We warmly commend this beautiful and affecting volume, especially to our youthful readers. The accuracy wherewith the peculiarly poignant pangs of Arthritis are delineated is beyond praise. We should, however, recommend the omission of the episode of the patient’s marriage to his shampooer. It is a tribute to that false taste which requires Poetry to deal with Romance instead of with the facts of Science.

FICTION.

The Precession of the Equinox, and other Tales. By Wilkinson Collinson, Esq. This is a highly sensational story, and will sell like wildfire at the bookstalls. The interest of the plot turns on the phenomenon in question, but embraces subsidiary problems respecting the sun’s path through the Zodiac.

Daniel Allround. By George Evans. The chief attraction of this book lies in the abstruse technical terminology which the author has employed to illustrate profound observations of men and things. From this point of view the work has a certain scientific value, but too much space is lost by delineations of characters without tracing them to the laws of Heredity.

Edwin and Angelina. By J. Fitzparnell. Taking for his guidance the observation of the immortal Bain, that the Tender Emotions are exclusively Glandular Affections, the author of this charming novel has afforded his readers a perfect study of the effects of each of the passions—Pity, Sympathy, Regret, Disappointment, Hope, and Love—on the various glands which they respectively affect. A simple love story naturally describes each emotion in its turn, and allows us to pause and acquaint ourselves with its physiological results. The lucid explanation of the physiological reasons why Mothers love their children is particularly valuable, as calculated to explode the last stronghold of the superstitious reverence which was once paid to parents among semi-civilized nations.

After these critical Notices of Books, the Age of Science proceeds to offer the following remarks on Art and the Drama:—

EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS.

First Notice.

To-day being the first of the New Year, this Exhibition was as usual opened to the public, and we think all true lovers of Art will agree that it is a most satisfactory one, and displays more than the usual average merit of our Exhibitions, whether we consider the aggregate number of important works, their size, their execution, or the noble prices they have realised to their authors; such prices having been, according to the lately adopted custom, published in the catalogues issued after the day of the Private View, when connoisseurs have made their selection of the works not previously disposed of in the ateliers of the artists. This (which is, after all, the true test of success) greatly enhances the interest of these catalogues, affording a guide as to the degree of public favour in which the respective artists are held. Reform in the Academy itself, so long demanded, has been at last effected, in spite of all the obstacles thrown in the way of the reformers, who desired to break down the monopoly so long maintained by the painters and sculptors, who would only consent to the admission of a limited number of architects and engravers into their privileged body. Now, at last, the claims of all artists have been recognised, and Decorators, Carpet-designers, Metalworkers and Electrotypers, Wood Carvers, &c. &c., have been admitted within its walls, and the magic letters R.A. may frequently be found attached to the names of the leading members of many of our manufacturing firms. In fact, we may say that Painting and Sculpture have found their level, and now that the great canon of Art has been thoroughly established, and it is acknowledged that Utility, not Beauty, is its only legitimate aim, and Scientific Reality and Accuracy, not wild attempts at attaining a so-called Ideality, its true goal of perfection, the merits of these too-long unrecognised geniuses have been found to surpass all others. The mechanical helps with which Science has supplied us have rendered it possible to accomplish feats of which our ancestors had no idea. Photography has enabled us to reproduce all possible forms, thus securing, with great economy of labour, the facile execution of stupendous works adapted for the decoration of the outside as well as the inside of our buildings. In this Exhibition, of course, these gigantic works cannot be seen, but the smaller ones by the same artists give us good specimens of their power. No. 3,004, for instance, is well worthy the attention of visitors. It is intended, as the catalogue informs us, for the wall decoration of the Terminus of the Great Central Balloon Station, and gives a very wonderfully correct representation of the three Provinces into which London is now divided, as seen from the distance of six miles above the height of St. Paul’s. Every roof and chimney is accurately represented, and every feature of the smallest interest, on the scale of an inch to a mile. Portrait-painting may be said to have been entirely superseded now that the Sun has been compelled to add colour to form in the pictures taken by the photographic camera, and Landscape Art has died out in its old inaccurate fanciful sense, having been succeeded by a more scientific method of representing Nature as she really is. The geological formation of every mountain, the physiology of each tree and blade of grass, as determined by expert geologists and botanists, will alone satisfy us in this age of science, and we demand this accuracy from all who pretend to record the aspect of our country. We find all these requirements met in the works of the distinguished landscape painter of No. 60,072, “View of the Great Smelting Works,” in the iron district, lately discovered in the North of Scotland. We venture to affirm that none but a thoroughly educated man of science could have painted the details of this picture, and we cannot bestow higher praise. The “Interior of the Factory,” No. 20,621, is also a work deserving of much commendation for the minuteness of its detail, which must be examined with a strong magnifier to be thoroughly enjoyed—the complicated arrangement of the machinery escaping the naked eye; also the texture of the materials which are being manufactured into webs of the most gossamer-like lightness from heaps of rough coarse yarns and woollen threads. The faces of the operatives are exquisitely rendered, and you seem to hear the noise of the wheels and cranks.

The Sculpture Gallery is perhaps less attractive to the general public than are the pictures; still it contains some interesting works, and the tailors and milliners who were consulted by the art critics as to the details of the costumes of the portrait statues, gave their opinion that very few errors had been committed this year, thanks to the advice tendered by them at sundry lectures delivered on the subject last summer. Our statesmen and benefactors are no longer represented in dress, or undress, in which they were never beheld, but in the exact apparel which they actually wore; and future ages will be afforded a correct idea not only of their features, but of any bodily defects they may have laboured to conceal. Thus an archæological and historical interest will attach to these effigies, and truth will be upheld. Science has done much for this art also. Mechanical means have assisted this accuracy of representation—notably in the application of metal, which can now be applied to the dress, &c., where great elaboration of detail is required, so as to admit, for example, of stamping out patterns in lace ruffles, and imitating the very texture of the materials, while the resemblance to marble is perfect. Especially useful is this invention for the application of colour; and we defy anyone to detect the difference of substance without the closest observation, such as a skilful workman alone could bestow. The advantages offered by this discovery are obvious in the case of veiled statues, so much admired by the British public. (See Nos. 720 to 1,293.) We cannot bestow too much praise on the exquisite polish of surface and delicacy of the workmanship of many of these works, notably in the feathers of the bird’s wing in No. 2,320, “A Chinese Scullion plucking a Goose.” Compare this with the rude and uncouth attempts of the ancient Greeks to idealize the naked human form!

THEATRES.

At this season in former times, when boys were foolishly allowed to leave school for the holidays, the theatres (as some of us are old enough to remember) were much frequented, and were principally used for a silly kind of entertainment called Pantomimes. Of the three theatres in London which still continue to be devoted to some sort of dramatic performance, and have not been transferred into Lecture Halls, one only (the Gaiety) seems successful this winter. Crowds attend every night to witness “School,” a piece in which there is no folly of love-making, but the anxieties of a Competitive Examination for Honours in Science are finely realised. A tragic interest is imparted to the plot by making the hero become insane just as he has achieved the object of his ambition. At the Haymarket there has been a failure which we fear will result in the ruin of the lessee. This enterprising gentleman imagined it might be possible to revive in these days an interest in some of the old plays once popular in this country, and after (it appears) long consultation and deliberation, determined to bring the Merchant of Venice upon the boards. It was hoped that the proposal of one of the characters of the piece, named Shylock, to cut a pound of flesh from another, and the discussion whether this could be done without the effusion of blood, would excite the interest of the spectators. Unfortunately, as the author of the drama (Shakespeare, we are informed) stops short at the very crisis of the physiological experiment, and allows the intended subject to escape, the audience not unnaturally have exhibited disappointment, and the piece has been pronounced a failure.

At the St. James’s Theatre the manager has likewise made a mistake in reviving Moliere’s Malade Imaginaire. We see no humour in this, so-called, comedy. Where is the point, for example, of the supposed jest of making the young medical student, Thomas Diafoirus, present his lady-love with a ticket of admission to a dissection? The act was a natural and delicate attention.

The next department of the Age of Science is very short as usual.

COURT.

Her Most Gracious Majesty, accompanied by the Princess Urania, and attended by Dr. Brown and Dr. Robinson, Lords Physicians in Waiting, honoured Dr. Scalpel’s studio by a visit, during which Dr. Scalpel exhibited to the youthful Princess several beautiful preparations of various cutaneous diseases, and of the morbid anatomy of Lupus and Elephantiasis.

Sir R. Atmosphere, Astronomer Royal, Sir A. Diggory, Geologist in Ordinary to her Majesty, and the eminent Chemist, Herr Von Pestle-Mortar, had the honour of dining with the Queen at Windsor Castle at 10 P.M. The Lord Doctor of Winchester, Her Majesty’s Medical Confessor, said the new Grace (“May good digestion wait on appetite”) at the commencement of the repast, and the Band, with chorus of male and female voices, performed at the conclusion the Hymn, “Oh, take thy pill,—Oh, take thy pill,—Oh, take thy pilgrim home.”

In examining the journals of a foreign country, the intelligent reader will generally be able to gather some insight into the habits of the natives by passing his eye down the columns of advertisements and noting the class of objects presented for sale. In the Age of Science there are no less than fifty the vast pages we have described devoted to announcements and puffs of the most astonishing variety, including hundreds of articles whose names and uses are at present quite unknown. Of advertisements of servants and other persons requiring employment we have not found a single instance, but there were at least twenty columns of invitations to “Ladies and Gentlemen” to be so kind as to act for the advertiser in the capacity of housekeeper, steward, superintendent of the house, or some equally well-sounding office, the remuneration offered being at the lowest, it would seem, about £200 a year, with “the use of a steam carriage,” and “every other luxury desired.”

We must, however, leave the columns of Advertisements for future examination, and proceed to give an account of the more important Law and Police Reports, which form, perhaps, the most surprising part of the Age of Science. It would appear that it had become necessary to hold assizes in at least twenty towns and villages in every county; and that the judges were incessantly occupied with cases of robbery, garrotting, arson, rape, stabbing, poisoning, and (strange to remark) a number of offences with new names, of whose nature we can merely guess, but which appear to involve mortal injury to the victim. The words employed, such as “Debarrassing,” “Morbifying,” “Disbraining,” “Petroleumization,” “Electroding,” “Mesmeraciding,” &c., seem to have become so common as to need no definition, and to have taken their place in the statute book. For all these crimes the same class of penalties are allotted; the convicted persons are invariably sentenced by the presiding judge to so many weeks’ or months’ detention—not in prison, but in the Penal Hospitals of their respective towns or villages. The principle on which crime is thus visited appears from the addresses of several of the magistrates, who remark that the “diseased minds” exhibited by the robbers and murderers “obviously require careful medical treatment,” and that they trust that the eminent Physicians and Surgeons to whom the prisoners are consigned will not fail to complete their cure. In numerous cases, as the offenders have been sentenced many times previously, the judge speaks of their crime as exhibiting “an intermittent fever” of homicidal rage, or of covetousness. Remarks are also always made by the reporters as to the “abnormal cerebral development” or “morbid symptoms” exhibited by the criminals, and the tone assumed in speaking of them (even in cases of what we should term the most cruel and brutal murders) is invariably one of scientific study and calm philosophic analysis.

A very different method of treatment, however, is adopted towards another class of offenders, whom it would appear the authorities in the Age of Science are determined to put down in grim earnest. That our readers may not suppose we mistake the sense of the amazing paragraphs in which these new features of English legislation appear, we quote them as they stand in the Age of Science, pp. 63 and 64.

POLICE.

At the Mansion House this morning, 79 men and 140 women were summoned for the non-attendance of their boys under two years old at the Public Infants’ Science Classes in the new Kinder Garten in the Tower. Various pleas were, as usual, put forth by the defendants, purporting to prove in some cases that the children were ill with small-pox and scarlet fever, and in several instances that they were dying or dead. Mr. Alderman Busby remarked that “if they were to listen to such pleas, children would grow up to three or four years old without learning even the rudiments of astronomy or palæontology.” He ordered all the fathers to be publicly flogged, and the mothers to receive each a dozen stripes of the birch privately, in the State Whipping House, and to stand on benches for three days in the nearest Elementary School during school hours.

[Similar judgments are recorded at Westminster, Worship Street, Clerkenwell, and several other police-courts in London and the provincial towns.]

MIDDLESEX SESSIONS.

The Duke and Duchess of Broadacres, the Marquis of Carabas, Lady Clara Vere de Vere, and the Lady Adeline Amundeville were brought up (in chains) to receive sentence on the charges (fully proved against them last week) of having deceived the Officers of Domestic Inspection respecting their own and their children’s Canination and Porcination. It was shown that all the defendants had been Vaccinated according to law four times during the last twelvemonth, and Equinated twice during the late prevalence of glanders, but though Rabies and the Measles were both known to be raging in London, they had not only neglected to present themselves and their children at the Canine and Porcine Stations in Queen’s Gate, but had deceived the Inspectors as above stated by exhibiting the former scars for the latter. Being unable to produce any medical certificate showing that they had obeyed the law, and having been found “guilty” by a special jury (containing, of course, the legal proportion—three-fourths—of Medical graduates), all five prisoners were sentenced by Mr. Justice Draco to the extreme penalty of the law. They will be vivisected for the instruction of the students at the magnificent new School of Physiology in Carlton Gardens, as soon after the opening of the session as may be convenient. Some sympathy was expressed in court for the Duke of Broadacres, who, being an elderly nobleman in feeble health, seems to have feared superstitiously the processes (unknown in his youth) of using, for the purpose of inoculations, the saliva from mad dogs, as a preventive of hydrophobia, on the principle of “a hair of the dog which has bitten you.” The expression of misplaced public commiseration was instantly checked by the learned Judge, and the prisoners were removed, exhibiting many signs of trepidation. Lady Clara Vere de Vere implored that she might be even Ratified sooner than given over to the students, but her request was, of course, sternly refused. It is indeed specially fortunate that so sensitive a subject as this young and delicate-looking lady is likely to prove should fall, in course of law, under physiological investigation at the moment when the exquisite experiments of Dr. Blacksmith on the Nervous System are in course of exposition.

Even these startling announcements, however, are less surprising than the following:—

SANITARY OFFICE.

Dec. 25, 1977.

The proceedings of this most high and solemn Court in the Realm were, as usual, held with closed doors. There were present five Lord Doctors, and sentences were passed, after due deliberation, and (it is rumoured) the application of the Question, ordinary and extraordinary, on nine obstinate heretics. Three of these were members of that fanatical sect, the Peculiar People, who refuse to consult physicians on the ground of religious scruples—an instance of the survival of outworn superstitions scarcely credible in this enlightened Age of Science. One of these miserable delinquents, named John Nokes, alleged that his twelve children had enjoyed unbroken health till his youngest little boy cut his finger. The wretched father, instead of hurrying instantly for the nearest surgeon, himself dressed the child’s wound (which appears to have been superficial) with adhesive plaster, and gave the child a fragment of toffee to stop his crying, in lieu of the proper therapeutic remedies for the shock to the nervous system which any medical attendant would have exhibited. The crime came fortunately to the knowledge of the police, who immediately brought the matter before the Sanitary Office. A second offender of the same sect, named Styles, had, it seems, an attack of Podagra, but took no advice, and having rather quickly recovered, was in hopes (it is supposed) that his neglect to obey the law would pass undiscovered. A crutch seen in his room raised the suspicion of a visitor, and the offender was eventually arrested. When interrogated by the Lord Presiding Doctor of the Sanitary Court as to the motives of his crime, the man (as his sentence sets forth) actually dared to reply by quoting a passage from an obsolete book, wherein it is narrated of a certain King, “Now Asa was diseased in his feet, yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians. And Asa slept with his fathers.”[1] This narrative, as Styles had the audacity to argue, was an authentic, and, indeed, inspired report of a fit of the gout—its diagnosis, treatment, and the result. As he did not desire to “sleep with his fathers,” he (Styles) had avoided consulting the physicians, and had endeavoured to consult the Lord by following the dictates of common sense, and the consequence was that he had recovered with unusual rapidity. The Lord President was moved to great indignation by the obduracy of this heretic. He remarked that the book which contained such a passage—a volume which, he was happy to say, he had, for his part, never read—ought to be burnt before the doors of the London University; and as to the prisoner Styles, it would be useless for him to hope to escape sharing in the same combustion.

1. 2 Chron. xvi. 12.

After the Peculiar People, two Homœopaths were found guilty—one of administering globules to an old woman, the other of refusing to join in the processions on the 5th of November, when the busts of Hahnemann are carried to be calcined. The remaining four heretics avowed belief in as many different heinous errors. One gave credit to Michel’s process for the cure of external cancer, another thought new-born infants ought not to be dosed with castor oil; a third placed confidence in bone-setters, and the fourth (a very old lady) retained an infatuated preference for the remedies which were in vogue a century ago—bromide of potassium and chloral—which, of course, have been since peremptorily condemned and pronounced highly injurious by the supreme authority of the Faculty.

The aforesaid nine heretics, having been solemnly found “guilty,” after due inquisition by the High Sanitary Office, were condemned as contumacious by the Lord Presiding Doctor, and the Most Eminent Doctors Pole, Gardiner, and Bonner, and were delivered over last night to the Secular Arm. Piles are in process of erection in Trafalgar Square. It is announced that Her Gracious Majesty Queen Mary III. will preside at the execution, which will take place on Sunday morning next, after hearing a Lecture on “True Medical Belief,” to be delivered by Her Majesty’s Medical Confessor in Ordinary, Dr. Torr Quemada, under the dome of St. Paul’s.

Such is a brief abstract of these most astounding Law and Police Reports in the Age of Science. We make no comments upon them, except the expression of our wonder at the similarity between the office and behaviour of a Priest of Religion in the fifteenth century and a Priest of Science in the twentieth. With complete citations of four out of the twenty-five Leading Articles of the Age of Science, we must conclude this imperfect but thoroughly reliable account of the remarkable journal of 1977, whose discovery has been the glorious first-fruits of the Prospective Telegraph.

Since the epoch, now nearly forty years past, when Smith made his immortal discovery of the Army Exterminator, followed up so rapidly by Jones’ invention of the Fleet Annihilator, international policy has necessarily undergone a great modification. As war has become impossible as an ultima ratio in any case, and the principle of Arbitration, on which such hopes were founded, has proved ineffective, in consequence of the general refusal of the working classes to permit their governments to pay the amendes agreed upon by the Arbitrators, a permanent state of discord between nations seems to have become established. The dream of Free Trade having also been exploded, following the example of the American Empire, at that time a Republic, (prohibitive duties having been placed by the different States on their own exports and the imports of other countries,) commerce is undoubtedly, just now, considerably hampered. The immense facilities for travelling which we possess, thanks to the æro-magnetic propeller, have also their disadvantages, since the abandonment of extradition treaties allows the criminals of each country to take refuge immediately in the neighbouring State, when they happen to entertain any serious objection to detention in the Penal Hospitals. For all these drawbacks to our progress, however, Science will no doubt soon provide an efficient remedy.

We are on the high-road, it cannot be doubted, to a period of prosperity and universal longevity (after all, the main object of all rational ambition) such as the world has not hitherto beheld.

The foreign news of the hour is somewhat unsatisfactory. In consequence of the generally lawless condition of the Southern Russian Republics, the great corn districts of those regions have for some years been falling out of cultivation; and no hopes are entertained that we shall be able to import any more grain from Odessa, or indeed from any quarter of the world. In a similar way, the native rulers to whom we restored what was formerly called our Indian Empire, and also China after its brief occupation, have so far adopted American and European ideas as to place for this next year such duties on rice and tea as will almost prohibit the importation of those articles into the English market, while they have positively forbidden the introduction of English cotton or iron into their respective States. The bad and deceptive quality of the goods furnished by our manufacturers is the alleged cause of these unfortunate regulations. Science will, no doubt, ere long enable us to supply the deficiencies thus caused both in our Commissariat and the income hitherto derived from manufacture; but, for the present, some anxiety is naturally felt in commercial circles regarding these untoward events. Against all mishaps, however, we rejoice to set the announcement—which will be greeted with universal exultation—that the researches of the learned Professor Coppervale respecting the animalculæ causing the Vine Disease, the Silk-worm Disease, and the Potato Disease, have resulted in the glorious discovery of a method of conveying the infection with absolute scientific certainty from a plant or insect which has been attacked to another still healthy. In this manner the vineyards of Château La Rose and of Château Yquem have both been effectively inoculated by the processes recommended by the English Professor to the French Director of Agriculture; and the result is perfectly satisfactory. Not a grape on either ground was available during the last vintage for wine-making. In the words, then, of an illustrious philosopher of last century, “From this vantage ground already won we look forward with confident hope to the triumph of science over all the loss and misery which the human race has experienced.” Anyone who has eaten a grape infected with the phylloxera according to Professor Coppervale’s stupendous discovery, will have enjoyed a foretaste of the triumph of Science in ages to come.

Considerable excitement prevails just now in many of our large towns in consequence of the needful, but somewhat troublesome, formalities required by law before any trade or handicraft may be exercised. Blacksmiths’ apprentices, we are told, very generally resent the necessity of passing their proper examinations in Metallurgy before they are qualified to shoe a horse; and the Artificial Flower Makers constantly evade attendance at the lectures on Botany, given expressly for their benefit. The candidates for licenses as Cabdrivers have more than once exhibited signs of discontent, when rejected on the grounds that they failed to answer some of the simplest examination questions on the principles of Mechanics applied to Traction, and on the correlation of Heat and Motion, as discovered by the illustrious author of “Heat as a Mode of Motion.” A strike (it is even rumoured) is impending among the stonemasons and bricklayers and slaters in a certain large city, because the Police, at the order of the Magistrates, having brought up several members of those trade-unions to the Local Examining Board for inquiry, it was elicited that none of them had acquired a competent knowledge of Geology in general, nor even of the formation of the strata of rocks wherewith their proper business is concerned.

These difficulties were to be anticipated in the progress of Scientific knowledge among the masses, and we earnestly hope that no proposal to relax the late very wise legislation will be made in Parliament, but rather to reinforce the existing Acts by severer penalties upon ignorance and inattention. Who can for a moment think, for example, of allowing his shirt to be washed by a person who knows nothing of the chemistry of soap, blue, and starch? or his dinner cooked by a man who (however skilled in the mere kitchen art of sending up appetising dishes) is totally ignorant of how much albumen, salts, and alkalies go to the formation of vegetable and animal diet?

A kindred subject of unreasonable popular dissatisfaction are the Medical Certificates of good Health now legally required from men, women, and children performing any kind of labour in factories, warehouses, shops, fields, ships, or in domestic service. Obviously it is impossible to certify the health of any individual for more than a few days at a time, and the necessity which the recent Act enforces of obtaining a fresh certificate (and, of course, paying the doctor for it) every week, is felt by discontented persons as a burden unfairly laid upon them by the State. We regret that the process is, in truth, slightly troublesome and expensive (the minimum fee for the humbler trades is, as our readers are aware, half-a-crown; for exercising the higher professions—artists, merchants, lawyers, &c.—5s.), but it was recognised so long ago as 1876 as a right principle of legislation in the case of factory works, and it now forms so legitimate a source of regular income to a large body of most respectable medical gentlemen, who make it their business to grant certificates, that we cannot imagine anyone being so ill-advised as to suggest the repeal of the law. Of course the number of persons thus excluded from the labour market is very considerable indeed, but we must accept such a consequence as inevitable. Since cripples were rejected a century ago for the office of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, the practice has been constantly followed of placing restrictions upon the feeble attempts at industry of persons labouring under natural defects and disabilities, and the Blind, for example, are no longer allowed to compete with the seeing in making mats and baskets. For all such wretched people there are open the proper asylums, the Hospital for the diseased, and the Workhouse for the feeble, the maimed, the deaf, and the blind. Charity itself can ask no more. The resistance of these unfortunates against entering these institutions must be put down. The world is, after all, made for the strong—the strong in mind, and the strong in body; and the notion that it is our business to “bear each other’s burdens” belonged altogether to an Unscientific age. What if physicians and surgeons do try experiments daily on the patients in the hospitals, sometimes involving a good deal of pain, or loss of limb or life? These people are fed and housed, and often extravagantly fattened up on the most luxurious food, on the condition of serving the cause of Science as subjects of experiments. And what, again, if the children in the workhouses be given over now and then by the Guardians, at the request of the Medical authorities, for vivisection? They are nearly always placed under the influence of anæsthetics, indeed, we may say invariably so, unless the object of the experiment would be frustrated by their use. Could the humanest of our humanitarians ask anything more? The rule of Science is the most benign, as well as enlightened, the world has ever seen.

The sanitary interests of the community are now recognized on all hands as the supreme concern of the State, as the care of his own health and the prolongation of life at all costs are the chief ends of each individual man. We therefore commence our yearly review by noting in what manner the advance of Science, (in which lies our only hope,) has contributed during the past twelvemonth towards this grand object.

The foremost place of honour is, of course, due to the discovery of the eminent Dr. Howlem of the scientific way to give Cholera; after which we may reckon Dr. Mowlem’s short method of conveying the Plague; and last, Dr. Bowlem’s most interesting and valuable plan for producing Leprosy. These immense discoveries (effected, it is needless to remark, by laborious pathological experiments on animals and idiots) may well make the past year memorable in the annals of the Science of Medicine; and though the particular specific remedies for the diseases in question have not yet been ascertained by the Faculty, we can scarcely fail to attain that secondary object ere long, together with the proper treatment of Consumption, Scarlet Fever, and other maladies which Science has been able to convey for the last hundred years, and must ere long find out how to cure.

Next in importance to actual discovery we are inclined to place the new Regulations which Parliament has laid down in obedience to the High Court of Convocation. The absolute prohibition to Women to read or write—even in cases where they may have formerly acquired those arts (now recognised as so unsuitable to their sex)—will, we apprehend, tell importantly on the health of infants, and of course eventually on that of the community. So long as females indulged in no more deleterious practices than dancing in hot rooms all night, unclothing their necks and chests, wearing thin slippers which exposed their feet to deadly chills, and tightening their waists till their ribs were crushed inwards, the Medical Profession very properly left them to follow their own devices with but little public remonstrance. The case was altered, however, when, three or four generations ago, a considerable movement was made for what was then called the Higher Education of women. The feeble brains of young females were actually taxed to study the now forgotten Greek and Latin languages, and even Mathematics and such Natural Science as was then understood. The result was truly alarming; for these poor creatures flung themselves with such energy into the pursuits opened to them, that, as one of their critics remarked, they resembled “the palmer-worm and the canker-worm—they devoured every green thing”—and not seldom surpassed their masculine competitors. At length they began to aim at entering the learned Professions—the Legal, and even the Medical. Our readers may be inclined to doubt the latter fact, which seems to involve actual absurdity, but there is evidence that there once existed two or three Lady Doctors in London, who, like Pope Joan in Rome, foisted themselves surreptitiously into an exalted position from which Nature should have debarred them. Of course it was the solemn duty of the Medical Profession to put a stop at once to an error which might lead to such a catastrophe, and numerous books were immediately written proving (what we all now acknowledge) that the culture of the brains of women is highly detrimental to their proper functions in the community; and, in short, that the more ignorant a woman may be, the more delightful she is as a wife, and the better qualified to fulfil the duties of a mother.

Since Science has thoroughly gained the upper hand over Religious and other prejudices, the position of women, we are happy to say, has been steadily sinking, and the dream of a Higher Education has been replaced by the abolition of even Elementary Schools for girls, and now by the final Act of last Session, which renders it penal for any woman to read a hook or newspaper, or to write a letter. We anticipate the very happiest results from this thoroughly sound and manly legislation.

The last sanitary event to which we need at present advert is the new law by which, on the certificate of any single Medical Graduate that a person is Insane, the police will be called on immediately to arrest and consign him to such mad-house as the Medical graduate shall appoint. The magistrate by whose order the arrest is made is left no option as to obeying the Medical graduate’s certificate, and we are glad also to see that, by another clause in the Act, the only remaining difficulty connected with these Asylums has been removed. None but a Medical graduate, responsible only to the great Medical Trades Union Council, is henceforth eligible to the office of Inspector of any Lunatic Asylum throughout the kingdom, nor can any Justice of the Peace grant an order for admittance or search, except to such a graduate. These wise and reasonable regulations will afford much satisfaction to the Medical gentlemen who have undertaken the arduous but not unprofitable profession of managers and proprietors of Lunatic Asylums.

Our prognostics of last New Year’s Day have been amply justified by the Summary of Crime for the past twelvemonth, which has just been published, according to the excellent recent appointment of the Registrar General of Offences. Crimes of the lesser class, such as murders, poisonings, electroding and exploding, have indeed increased considerably in number, and perhaps also in the degree of recklessness and violence exhibited by the offenders; but on the other hand, as we prophesied, those crimes which involve so much larger evils to the community—the detestable Homœopathic and Hydropathic heresies, Infidelity respecting the sacred doctrine of Evolution, neglect of Schooling, and neglect of Equination, Vaccination, Canination, and Porcination, have dwindled under the severe measures of punishment which we urged for so long on a too lax legislature, but which have at last been thoroughly enforced. We may really hope to see a few years hence the Reign of Science so complete that no man, woman, or child in the land will presume to whisper a doubt on any subject on which the Sanitary Office has pronounced, or attempt to evade the seasons appointed by authority for receiving the Rites above mentioned. The Act passed at the end of the last century, whereby certificates of Vaccination were substituted for all legal purposes for Baptismal certificates, was the first step towards the happy order of things under which we now have the privilege to dwell.

Lest our readers should feel a not wholly unnatural anxiety, founded on the admitted increase of the lesser crimes to which we have adverted, we wish to remind them that such an occurrence was inevitable on the final collapse of Religion, and that we must be content to wait till Science shall have had time to substitute some more effectual checks on human passions than it has yet been in our power to apply. It is too obvious to need remark that since men have learned that Death is the end of their existence, they must be expected to seize more hastily and resolutely every pleasure which life may offer, nay, that it would be absurd and unscientific to expect them to do otherwise. Let us do justice to the old effete superstition, and admit that the delusive notion that an invisible Being watched human actions, loved good men, and would punish bad ones in another world, if not in the present, was calculated to exercise considerable influence of a beneficial sort on ordinary minds. Certain types of character (not now, of course, to be found in the world) seem to have flourished under the fictitious charm of these antique ideas—characters exhibiting a certain courage and unselfishness, of which it is scarcely possible to read without some little regret that they are not conformable with sounder philosophic views of the nature and destiny of man. People had, we must remember, in former days, four distinct motives for doing good instead of evil. First, they believed in an omnipotent Lord and Master whom they called “God.” 2nd, they believed in a sacred internal Guide whom they called Conscience; and 3rd, they believed in a peculiar principle of action which they called Honour. After all these came the Criminal Law, ready to punish those who neglected what were deemed to be loftier motives. Now we, in this glorious Age of Science, must remember that of all these four incentives to virtue only one remains. We know there is no God, or, at least, that, if there be, he is Unknown and Unknowable; and we are persuaded that Conscience is merely the inherited prejudice of our barbarous ancestors in favour of the class of actions which were found conducive to the welfare of the tribe. As to the Law of Honour, men had already begun to forget what it signified a hundred years ago, when the Age of Science was just dawning, for we find at that epoch a writer of considerable pretensions, in a periodical called the Fortnightly Review, actually asserting that its standard “is submission not to Law but to Opinion ... deference to the opinion of a particular class.” Up to that period we think it was universally understood by “honourable” persons to signify, quite on the contrary, Reverence for an inward standard of rectitude, truth, and generosity; for a man’s own private sense of Honour and self-respect, which he would not forfeit to gain the applause of a world. In our time, of course, it is needless to say that all these fine ideal sentiments have gone utterly out of vogue, and, having left them behind us, we have only the Criminal Law on which to rely for the protection of life and property. It is needless to repeat that the delusive exhortations of some amiable but short-sighted philosophers of the last century to “labour for the good of Humanity in future generations” (a motive which they supposed would prove a substitute for the old Historic Religions) have been once and for all answered by the grand discovery of the Astronomers that our planet cannot long remain the habitation of man (even if it escape any sidereal explosion) since the Solar heat is undergoing such rapid exhaustion. When the day comes—as come it must—when the fruits of the earth perish one by one, when the dead and silent woods petrify, and all the races of animals become extinct—when the icy seas flow no longer, and the pallid Sun shines dimly over the frozen world, locked like the Moon in eternal frost and lifelessness—what, in that day predicted so surely by Science, will avail all the works, and hopes, and martyrdoms of man? All the stores of knowledge which we shall have accumulated will be for ever lost. Our discoveries, whereby we have become the lords of creation and wielded the great forces of Nature, will be useless and forgotten. The virtues which have been perfected, the genius which has glorified, the love which has blessed the human race, will all perish along with it. Our libraries of books, our galleries of pictures, our fleets, our railroads, our vast and busy cities, will be desolate and useless for evermore. No intelligent eye will ever behold them; and no mind in the universe will know or remember that there ever existed such a being as Man. This is what Science teaches us unerringly to expect,—and in view of it, who shall talk to us of “labouring for the sake of Humanity”? The enthusiasm which could work disinterestedly for a Progress destined inevitably to end in an eternal Glacial Period must be recognised as a dream, wherein no man in a Scientific Age can long indulge.

There is, then, but one Method on which we can rely to repress human passions and hold together the somewhat brittle chain of Society. That method is the Scientific Treatment of Crime, under such conditions as careful investigation and experiments may prove to be best suited to effect its cure. We can hold out no supersensual motives to the Minds of the multitude, but we can treat their Bodies in the very best manner possible to render them virtuous and industrious citizens. It is true that as yet the results of our efforts in this direction have not been very satisfactory. The salutary processes employed in the Penal Hospitals under the most eminent physicians have not been altogether crowned with success; and crime of the violent kind increases year by year almost in geometrical proportion. Nevertheless, it would ill become any of us who have the privilege to live in this enlightened age to entertain a shadow of a doubt that our Scientific method is the right one, and that by-and-by (while we respectfully wait the results of their experiments) our great Medical men will discover the proper remedies for murder, rape, and robbery. For our own part, it is superfluous to assure our readers, we retain unwavering, unbounded faith in the resources of Science to provide a perfect substitute for Religion, for Conscience, and for Honour.

J. OGDEN AND CO., PRINTERS, 172, ST. JOHN STREET, E.C.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.

2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.

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Table of Contents

- THE AGE OF SCIENCE. A NEWSPAPER OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

- THE AGE OF SCIENCE

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE