contented and revolutionary, because it that in the "art and mystery" of govern sees keenly the evils that exist, because ment there exists the same sort of differit revolts against the sway of prejudice ence between the competence of the wise and custom. In times of swift social and and that of the masses as exists between political change, on the other hand, this his own mastery of nature and the help.. same class is apt to become timorous, be- lessness of the untaught; forgetting, in a cause it sees more keenly than the mass way which would be surprising if it were. of mankind the risks which change may not so common, that among the wise in involve. This tendency becomes still matters of government there are differmore marked if the educated class ad- ences of opinion infinitely wider than any vances in wealth and social consideration, that exist among scientific men on scien-. finding itself no longer looked down upon tific subjects, and that the multitude canby those who claim to be better born, or not obey, were they never so willing,. who have inherited wealth. Such a class, because they know not to which of many absorbed into the comfortable or luxurious contending voices they ought to listen. upper stratum of society, acquires the The man of science is strongly impressed sentiments and aversions of the rich by the unequal distribution of gifts and sentiments tinged by a strong suspicion powers among men, and is proportionately of the humbler and poorer strata which displeased at the claims for complete seem to threaten their previous predomi- political equality asserted on behalf of all nance. Men of science have gained enor- men alike, regarding it as something unmously in social consideration of late scientific that where there is admittedly years, and have come to feel the influence unequal capacity there should be equal of class opinion. Of those who devote privilege. Where science touches legis little thought to public affairs, some re-lation he conceives that the voice of scimain Liberals by tradition, because their fathers or predecessors were so. But the majority adopt the attitude of the society which they have entered, and by accepting its views repay its acceptance of themselves. now ence should be unhesitatingly obeyed; and if ever he finds popular sentiment standing in his way, as in such matters as freedom of vivisection and compulsory vaccination, his wrath is kindled against the possibly ignorant clamors by which legislatures and The two explanations we have been con- ministries are moved, and he feels inclined sidering are obvious enough, and can to sigh for an enlightened despotism — hardly be questioned. But there is a third the term we use to describe a despotism set of causes that needs closer examina- we are ourselves to enlighten. In matters tion, because less patently operative of religion he is usually a sceptic, and causes to be found in the mental habits like many sceptics, he thinks an Estab which scientific studies produce. Science lished Church preferable to voluntary is positive, definite, exact. It expects, Churches, because more likely to chill enbecause it has so constantly revealed, uni- thusiasm, and to prevent religion formity in the succession or recurrence of that Established Churches cannot venture phenomena. It thinks of the world as to persecute-from retarding knowledge ruled by uniformities; and from contem- and working mischief in the world. Enplating what are called by a familiar meta-thusiasm and sentiment are in his view phor the laws of nature, we may believe disturbing, irregular, and therefore dis that it is insensibly led to expect and de- tasteful elements in public affairs; and sire a similarly palpable prevalence of his dislike of them heightens his aversion uniformity in human affairs-such uni- to the multitude, whom he holds to be formity, such subordination of individual chiefly swayed by these incalculable impulses and efforts to fixed and rigid forces. rules as the force of the State imposes. In other words, there is in the scientific habit of mind a strong affinity for the so-called principle of authority, with a corresponding aversion for the endlessly varying passions, fancies, desires of the multitude, which science thinks of as fitful and capricious. The man of science, accustomed to contrast his own knowledge of the secrets of nature with the ignorance of the laity around him, is apt to think too meanly of the multitude. He is apt to suppose If there be any truth in these sugges tions they are put forward as sugges tions only - it may be asked whether the man of science, if he reasons after the fashion here adumbrated, reasons in a truly scientific way? Is the sentiment which opposes vivisection, for instance, any commoner in the humbler than in the middle and upper classes? Do enthusiasm and sentiment injure a State more than they benefit it? Were governments any wiser and peoples any happier when power resided in the hands of few, than now, | framework; while the brick and stone when power has passed to the many? How edifices of larger places have appeared can policy be left to experts when experts differ so widely on the gravest questions of policy? If Mr. Gladstone, for instance, condemns, and Lord Salisbury favors the policy of supporting the Turk, where shall we find the special knowledge that is to determine which is right? If we could train and trust specialists in politics as we do specialists in astronomy and navigation, in law and medicine, government would be a much simpler matter than the world has ever found it. And if scientific men are no more scientific in reasoning on these points, or in handling political questions generally, than the rest of the world as we see that they are notthis is but saying that eminence in any particular department of knowledge raises a very faint and feeble presumption in favor of competence in one of a wholly different nature. A man of science is no more likely to be wise in politics than a theologian to be wise in painting, or a cricketer in clock making. Sir William Hamilton went so far as to hold that math ematical studies positively disable men for reasoning well in probable matters. And the strangest error among the many errors which some of our men of science make, is in supposing that the Conservatism they profess and which is in many points a legitimate and reasonable Conservatism is identical with the Toryism which they support by their votes. The Tory party is to-day no more conservative in the proper sense of the word than are its antagonists; and gives to the man of science no better guarantees for the defence of what he desires to maintain. From St. James's Gazette. WHAT AMERICAN CYCLONES CAN DO. able to withstand the fury of the elements. That a city like Louisville, numbering about two hundred thousand inhabitants, and possessing massive structures of iron, stone, and brick, should have been shattered as it has been speaks for the fearful force with which the storm must have raged. It is strange, too, that this city is not in the region most frequented by tornadoes; for of all the South-Western and Southern States Kentucky has been the most free from them, while Missouri has suffered the greatest number of visitations. Statistics of the damage wrought by such storms as these can never be very reliable, for it is almost impossible to test them; but in 1887 a compilation was made by an officer of the United States Army Signal Corps, which gave as far as possible the number of tornadoes, the number of lives lost in them, and the value of property destroyed by them, for the previous eightyseven years - since the year 1800. According to this report the actual number of cyclonic storms occurring in the United States during that period was 1,867, or an average of twenty-one per annum; the number of lives lost in these same storms is put at 3,165, or an average of thirty-six per annum; but this is probably far below the real loss, as it is quite impossible in the track of a large storm to discover any. thing like the definite number of people killed. The value of property destroyed by these same 1,867 storms is placed at the startling figures of $941,282,500 – over £188,000,000. To those unacquainted with the marvellous destroying power of even an ordinary cyclone these figures must appear stu pendous; but to those who have ever had a glimpse at one, or have even viewed the course over which it has pursued its ruinous way, any estimate would seem credible. Nothing appears able to withTHE terrific cyclone that has just passed stand their force. The ordinary country over a portion of North America exceeds dwelling will be blown about like a lady's in intensity and destructiveness anything parasol; large and sturdy oaks will snap of the kind that has ever gone before, in two, and their upper halves will flutter and the loss of life and property is appall-away like feathers from a girl's hat. It ing. These storms are not by any means has been my lot to be an eye-witness of rare occurrences, and their track is inva-two of these tempests one in Minneriably marked by devastation and death; sota, one in Georgia. The first, as cy but, fortunately, they do not generally clones go, was a tolerably tame affair, and embrace as large an area as this one ap- I had the advantage of viewing it from a pears to have covered, neither have they place of security. When it came up I wrought such wholesale havoc in the large was in the rotunda of the Merchant's cities. Hitherto small towns and villages Hotel, St. Paul, and was able to watch it have been the heaviest sufferers, their from the windows as it passed over the buildings mostly being composed of light town and across the Mississippi. For a 22 - not a few minutes darkness reigned supreme, The weather was calm and sultry with us, the air was filled with whirling bricks, pots, though we could already see objects floatpans, hand-carts, and a thousand other ing in the midst of the black cloud, and things, and there was a noise similar to the tops and boughs of the trees breaking that of a hurricane on the Atlantic. Then away from the trunks and being hurled the storm gradually passed away in the hither and thither. Although there was distance, looking like a dense black fog no breeze stirring in our vicinity except rolling over the earth. It had not lasted what was created by the velocity of the seven minutes but it had wrought wonders train, it was plainly apparent to us that in that time. On the street approaching nothing was able to withstand the violence the river, and directly opposite the window of the wind following in our wake. Presat which I stood, was a wheelwright's ently we ran into a narrow valley between shop, having in front of it several vehicles two high mountains, which were covered undergoing repairs. When this shop be- with heavy timber. in fact, a forest. came visible again after the storm had After running on for a couple of miles we passed, every one of these vehicles was turned a sharp curve, the engineer shut gone and no trace left of them. They had off steam, put on brakes, and the train been blown to pieces, some of the débris came to a halt in a deep cut, where was a being carried far away across the giant small station. High up on each side stream, and some being whirled into the towered two great hills, studded with water. There was not so much as a speck magnificent trees and covered with brushof dust or a loose stone left in that street. wood. The station was a small and comThe second tornado which circum-pactly built log cabin. Into this I dived, stances have compelled me to witness followed by the other passengers, and was not viewed under nearly such happy from here we watched the storm circumstances; and the feeling of security which pervaded me in the massive hotel at St. Paul was exchanged for something very much akin to terror. It was in the spring of 1884, and I was travelling on the Georgia Pacific Railroad to Atlanta. I was up on the engine with the engineer and fireman. This is not the cleanest nor the most comfortable part of the train; but it is a part where much more can be seen than anywhere else, and where an entirely different motion is to be felt. Then, too, the monotony of the journey is often varied by seeing the engine toss an ox or cow into the air or run over a flock of geese; the latter invariably race the train down the track. All these entertainments are lost to the passengers in the cars. On this occasion, however, we did not race with a flock of geese we raced with a storm. The fireman had called the engineer's attention to an ominous black cloud behind us, and the engineer, who had lived all his life in that cyclonic region, instantly knew what it portended. "If we can get to the valley we are all right," he said, turning on full steam and motioning the fireman to pile on coal. The engine gave a bound and a quiver, and we were darting along at our utmost speed. But the tornado was coming along too. with any great feelings of security, though; for in spite of the fact that the huge hills above shielded us from the violence of the cyclone itself, we were in momentary expectation of being crushed by falling boughs and other heavy articles which were whirling about in the air. But the cabin was staunch and solid; and although limbs of trees and stones and earth rained down upon the roof, nothing penetrated to the inside of our little refuge. In half an hour it was all over, and we emerged from the cabin to view the destruction that had been done. Out of all the mag. nificent trees that had been standing thirty minutes before not one was left intact. Most of them had broken off in the middle; and their naked and broken trunks stood forth as monuments to the storm. Some of them had been torn up by the roots and hurled long distances away; others had been completely reversed, and had their roots pointing to the heavens. It was about as dreary a picture of desolation as could be found anywhere. And this was only a moderate tornado, though several lives were lost in it and some millions of dollars worth of property destroyed. Compared to this last catastrophe in Kentucky, however, it was a mere breeze. From St. James's Gazette. THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY OF MR. WILLIAM BLACK. MR. WILLIAM BLACK, the popular novelist, tells an amusing story of how he was persistently taken for somebody else, and has never been able to convince the persons concerned that he is really himself and not the other man. Some considerable time ago [he wrote recently in Messrs. Tillotson's Syndicate of Provincial Newspapers] I received a letter from a Mrs. MacV- , informing me that certain people and incidents in a particular novel of mine were known only to herself and to a nephew of hers, who was thought to have been drowned at sea some years before, and that, as I must necessarily be that nephew, it was incumbent on me to come forward and resume my own name and recognize my relatives, herself first of all. I pa d little heed; but as year after year went by, 1 found from the repeated letters she sent me some of them quite plaintive in their appeals that this was no temporary hallucination, but a veritable belief; and that the poor old lady was deeply distressed by my undutiful conduct. Then I set to work to try to undeceive her. I pointed out that I should be glad to take the name of MacV—, if I had any right to it, seeing that that is a much more distinguished name than my own, which in certain districts in the south of Scotland and in the Western Highlands is as common as Smith is in England. I asked her what motive I could have for concealing my identity-why I should refuse to recognize her as my aunt, if she were my aunt. I had mean while made sure that there was no eleemosynary purpose in the old dame's piteous cry; on the contrary, she had promised that if I would only admit that I was Neil MacV— she would at once get for me some jewellery and other things left for me by my mother, who, it seems, was a native of Skye. Well, argument was of no avail. Then I sent friends to assure her that she was mistaken; no use. I asked her to write to a U. P. Minister who had known me all my life-I thought she would have confidence in him, if in anybody short of an archangel but she darkly hinted that it was easy to get friends to connive when concealment was the object. So time passed; the reproach ful remonstrances, the pious counsel, the hope that I would see the inhuman ingratitude of my ways ere it was too late for me to make atonement, were repeated in every letter; and I could not but admire the composure of countenance on the part there was not a trace of consciousness on of the hall-porter at the Club, for his face as he handed me those missives, each of which had "alias Neil MacV-" on the envelope. Then, as it chanced, I was in a small fishing town in the West Highlands; and word was brought me that Mrs. MacVand a niece of hers had come from some considerable distance in the hope that I would go and see them. I went at once, for I thought this would prove decisive. I found at the post-office, which was the place of rendezvous, a most respectable-looking, serious, calm, and courteous old Highland woman, along with a very pretty and smart-looking young lady (for the mo ment I deeply regretted I was not Neil MacV, there being certain small cousinly greetings that one might fairly and naturally have claimed under the circumstances), and I forthwith assumed that now, at least, they would see I was not the relative they had lost. But I was mistaken. The old lady asked me to show her the forefinger of my right hand. I did so. "Ah," said she, "the mark is not there now; but marks like that often get worn off." Then I turned to the pretty young lady - with confidence; I was sure she could not share in this delusion. "Why," I said, "if your cousin had not been drowned at sea - if he were alive he would, according to your own story, be about eight-and-twenty years of age. Now, don't you see that I am rather over eight-and-twenty? Don't you see that my hair is turning grey?" "that's Her answer appalled me. "Oh," said she quite sharply, nothing; I have known a young man of two-and-twenty whose hair was quite white." That was not the end; for subsequently the whole clan MacV- appeared to have taken the matter up, and from time to time there came a letter filled with bitter reproaches, and also with dark threats of exposure. But that is not the tone in which the old lady herself now writes, when she writes at all. She has grown resigned; apparently she has given up all hope that her ungrateful nephew will come to comfort her declining years. She is no longer indignant; she is wistful and pathetic. She hopes God will pardon myimpenitent soul. And I hope so too. |