Genre:

Regular Feature, Editorial, News-Commentary

Relevant illustrations:

eng.

Subjects:

Hunting, Natural Imperialism, Extinction, Sanitation, Imperialism, Sex, Hygiene, Public Health, Aeronautics, Exploration, Navigation

Institutions mentioned:

Army Army
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    Calls on the American government to 'save the seals [of the Alaskan Islands] from destruction by adopting the method of herding and branding recommended by Dr. Jordan Jordan, David Starr (1851–1931) WBI
Close   View the register entry >>' (see Anon, 'The Progress of the World', Review of Reviews, 15 (1897), 413–23), and warns that 'a five years' armistice in the warfare waged by man against the seal, will be necessary to avert the threatened extermination of the herd' (110). Reports that the 'disaffection and almost revolutionary discontent provoked by the efforts to enforce sanitary regulations in Poona continues to harass public attention', and advises that the 'savage resentment occasioned by the use of soldiers and police to enforce the most elementary sanitary regulations ought at least to convince Lord George Hamilton Hamilton, Lord George Francis (1845–1927) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> that he had better proceed very cautiously in attempting to reimpose the C. D. Acts in India' (111). Also records that in early July 'Dr. Andrée Andrée, Salomon August (1854–97) RLIN
Close   View the register entry >>, accompanied by Dr. Strendberg Strindberg, Nils (1872–97) RLIN
Close   View the register entry >>, a young scientist of twenty-five, and Mr. Frænckell Frænkel, Knut Hjalmar Ferdinand (1870–97) RLIN
Close   View the register entry >>, an engineer, started from Danes' Island on the North-West coast of Spitzbergen' in an attempt to reach the North Pole by balloon. According to their own calculations, the men should by now have completed their journey, but 'no authentic news by carrier pigeon or otherwise has reached the world of the safe arrival of the intrepid explorers'. Observes that 'balloons, from their great bulk, are bad to steer, and Dr. Andrée has gone perforce where the wind chose to take him', although 'If they perish, it is at least some consolation that there are only three'. (116)

Genre:

Regular Feature, Biography

Subjects:

Machinery, Technology, Invention, Commerce

    Recounts a personal conversation with Mark Twain Twain, Mark (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) (1835–1910) CBD
Close   View the register entry >> onboard the SS New York SS New York
Close   View the register entry >> in 1894, during which the American humorist discussed his long held plans to gain 'the exclusive contract for the type-setting of the world' with the introduction of a 'perfect' self-adjusting type-setting machine [the so-called Paige Compositor invented by James W Paige Paige, James W (d. 1917) http://www.twainquotes.com/paige.html
Close   View the register entry >>] (126). Twain declared that he and his collaborators had 'constructed a machine which could think', and gave an 'elaborate explanation of the immense superiority of his machine over all others, and especially over one, which, he declared, seemed to develop more unscientific lying and bad spacing than any other machine invented [probably the Mergenthaler linotype]' (127). Reflects that 'if his machine would do all he said it would be an earthquake. Labour-saving machines in the long run increase employment no doubt, but in their immediate effects they inflict great hardships on multitudes' (128). Concludes by noting that since their conversation three years before, Twain has 'been involved in difficulties through no fault of his own' after the failure of the type-setting machine venture and is now 'manfully struggling [...] to satisfy his creditors' (132). Expresses the hope that the character sketch of Twain will 'have contributed, however little, to help the sale of the new edition of his works and the forthcoming volume of his latest travels', and suggests that readers 'who owe him many happy hours [...] at least pay a peppercorn acknowledgement of their debt by purchasing "The Surviving Innocent" Twain, Mark 1897. The Innocents Abroad; or, The New Pilgrim's Progress: Being an Account of the Steamship "Quaker City's" Pleasure Excursion to Europe and the Holy Land, London: Chatto & Windus
Close   View the register entry >>' (132–33).

Genre:

Regular Feature, Abstract

Publications abstracted:

Bellamy 1897 Bellamy, Edward 1897. Equality, London: William Heinemann
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Subjects:

Futurism, Science Fiction, Electricity, Telegraphy, Technology, Machinery, Language, Extinction, Energy

    Bellamy's novelistic account of life in the early twenty-first century depicts the use of many new technologies, including 'the electroscope, by which he maintains it will be possible for anybody to see anything that is going on in any part of the world. Already the telephone has taught us that we can listen to a sermon or a play at a distance of hundreds of miles. He maintains it will be possible to adapt the same useful agent to the service of the eye, so that we shall be able to see as far as we can hear'. Because of this 'combination of the telephone and the electroscope [...] the habit of meeting together in public assembly [...] goes out of fashion', and the new mode of world-wide communication also 'presupposes the blotting out of dialects, and of many of the languages of the smaller peoples', as well as the adoption of 'a kind of Volapuk or universal language'. Also predicts that by the year 2000 'the horse will be as extinct as the dodo, his place having been taken by the electric motor', while the 'force and power that is used to work the machines' will be 'obtained from the natural inequalities of temperature', and 'Power [...] with all its forms of light and heat and energy, is to be practically exhaustless and costless, and scarcely enters as an element in the economical calculation'. (194)

Genre:

Regular Feature, Abstract

Publications abstracted:

Sprigge 1897 Sprigge, Samuel Squire 1897. The Life and Times of Thomas Wakley: Founder and First Editor of the "Lancet", London; New York: Longmans, Green and Co.
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Subjects:

Medical Practitioners, Periodicals, Radicalism

People mentioned:

Thomas Wakley Wakley, Thomas (1795–1862) ODNB
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Publications cited:

Lancet Lancet (1823–1900+) Waterloo Directory
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Genre:

Regular Feature, Editorial, News-Commentary

Relevant illustrations:

photo.; eng.

Subjects:

Imperialism, Sex, Hygiene, Public Health

    Reflects that 'August, as usual, was a great month for Congresses. The British Association for the Advancement of Science British Association for the Advancement of Science
Close   View the register entry >>, the greatest of all the autumnal assemblies, met this year in Toronto. There also the British Medical Association British Medical Association
Close   View the register entry >> has held its meeting. It is well to see great scientific associations treating the Empire as a whole and considering Toronto to be as much a British town as Liverpool or Leeds' (227). Also prints a photograph of John Evans Evans, Sir John (1823–1908) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>, the President of the British Association, and an engraving of the University of Toronto University of Toronto
Close   View the register entry >> (228–29). Reports that a 'petition signed by more than 60,000 women has been presented to the Government, protesting against any return to the regulation system dealing with contagious diseases in India', and also notes 'the insolence, to use no milder word, with which the military authorities in India' have treated George F Hamilton's Hamilton, Lord George Francis (1845–1927) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> attempts to interdict any 'attempt to return to the evil system of past days'. Advises that the '60,000 women memorialists will probably find their best line of action in supporting Lord George Hamilton's veto against the insubordination of Indian authority'. (228)

Genre:

Regular Feature, Biography

Subjects:

Invention, Machinery, Mechanics, Institutions, Lecturing, Industrial Chemistry, Patents, Physiology, Ageing, Health, Nutrition, Natural Philosophy, Christianity

    Describes the life of the late Isaac Holden Holden, Sir Isaac, 1st Baronet (1807–97) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>, the Scottish inventor who effected several improvements in the machinery involved in the manufacture of yarn and wool. As a young man Holden helped form the mechanic's institute at Reading, and 'mechanic's institutes were his colleges until he was over forty'. At Reading he 'gave lectures on natural philosophy and chemistry. A demonstration at a chemical lecture was destined to make a mark in the world. It was to show on the end of a stick how sulphur and phosphorous could ignite. An attentive lad went home and related the experiment to his father. They repeated it, with the result that the father patented the lucifer match!'. (235) Holden then went to Yorkshire and made his fortune in the wool-combing business by 'inventing a comb with a square action to imitate the motion of the hands', and later he became 'the partner of the present Lord Masham, then Mr. Samuel Lister Lister, Samuel Cunliffe, 1st Baron Masham (1815–1906) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>' (236). Also relates how Holden 'found time to attend scientific lectures at the Sorbonne Université de Sorbonne
Close   View the register entry >>', where 'he heard Flourens Flourens, Marie-Jean-Pierre (1794–1867) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> lecture on physiology and the means to ensure health and long life. He had already learned a good deal of what Flourens taught in John Wesley's Wesley, John (1703–91) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> "Natural Philosophy" Wesley, John 1763. A Survey of the Wisdom of God in the Creation; or, A Compendium of Natural Philosophy, 2 vols, Bristol: printed by William Pine
Close   View the register entry >> [...] a well regulated mind and desires, the sparing use, when old, of food containing phosphates of lime, such as bread, and of meat, unless one had to do heavy muscular work' (238).

Genre:

Regular Feature, Editorial, News-Commentary

Subjects:

Geology, Stratigraphy, Mining, Glaciology, Creation

    Observes that amidst the chaotic rush to begin mining the gold reserves recently discovered in Alaska, the 'geologists have been busy explaining how it is that there is gold in the valleys of the Klondyke creeks'. Their calculations, moreover, reveal that the 'gold found in placer deposits is but as the dust on the fringe' compared to that which is 'stored up in the quartz rock', and to 'locate the mother lode will be for years to come the modern nineteenth-century Western world substitute for the search for the Holy Grail'. Explains that the 'deposit of gold dust and of gold nuggets in the bed of the Klondyke creeks is due to the operation of very simple causes' by which 'Nature' works 'calmly and continuously in the course of ages. Her mill never stops'. (245) Declares that 'with patience God stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all', while also noting that 'Creation never stops, the streams are still dropping gold-dust from their heedless fingers into the pockets of their channels, and still the heavy gold nugget, glacier crushed, sinks down into the gravelly bottom, awaiting such time as Nature will seal it up again in her mighty safe of petrified conglomerate' (245–46).

Genre:

Regular Feature, Editorial, News-Commentary

Subjects:

Hunting, Natural Imperialism, Extinction, Politics

    Reports that the American government is so concerned that present levels of Canadian and British hunting of the fur seals in the Behring Sea will mean that 'there will soon be no seals left to catch, and the only surviving herd of fur seals will disappear from the planet', that they are threatening to 'order the entire destruction of the herd' when it next arrives at the American-owned Pribyloff Islands for the annual breeding season. This 'odious task', they claim, will be a necessary one because otherwise 'the seals will all be dead in six years, and during those six years there will be friction and irritation and endless worry between Washington and London. If the seals are to die, they had better die quick, and save all future botheration'. (331)

Genre:

Abstract

Publications abstracted:

G Clarke Nuttall Nuttall, G Clarke (fl. 1897) RLIN
Close   View the register entry >> , Humanitarian Humanitarian (1892–99) Waterloo Directory
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Subjects:

Miracle, Religious Authority, Bacteriology

Genre:

Regular Feature, Editorial, News-Commentary

Subjects:

Imperialism, Telegraphy, Railways, Progress, Astrology

    Reports that 'Mr. Rhodes's Rhodes, Cecil John (1853–1902) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> dream of an overland telegraph line from Cairo to the Cape [is] beginning to materialise into fact. The wire now works to Berber, and Mr. Rhodes last month ordered another five hundred miles of telegraph wire from England in order to carry his end of the line northward to Lake Nyassa' (442). In addition, the 'opening of the railway line to Buluwayo' will take place later in the month and is 'an outward and visible sign of one part of the work which Mr. Rhodes has accomplished. To plant a railway terminus in the blood-stained kraal of Lobengula Lobengula Khumalo, King of the Ndebele (Matabele) (c. 1835–93/4?) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> is an achievement which ten years ago would have been relegated to the twentieth century. But it is already an accomplished fact' (442–43). Also notes that the myriad 'troubles which afflict India show no sign of abatement', and the 'Hindu astrologers have long held that India is approaching a great catastrophe, which will culminate in the year of April, 1899, and end in April, 1900 [...] Madame Blavatsky Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna Hahn (1831–91) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> also prophesised in the same vein' (443).

Genre:

Regular Feature, Abstract

Publications abstracted:

Allen 1897 Allen, Grant 1897. The Evolution of the Idea of God: An Inquiry into the Origins of Religions, London: Grant Richards
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Subjects:

Agnosticism, Religion, Christianity, Anthropology, Evolution, Descent, Creation, Prehistory, Spiritualism, Scientific Practitioners

People mentioned:

Herbert Spencer, Spencer, Herbert (1820–1903) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> Edward B Tylor, Tylor, Sir Edward Burnett (1832–1917) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> James G Frazer Frazer, Sir James George (1854–1941) DSB ODNB
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    Urges that this book by 'an agnostic of a very pronounced type' should be added to 'the library of Christian Evidence', and suggests that, despite his lack of 'admiration, much less reverence, for the central figure of the Christian religion', Grant Allen Allen, Grant (Charles Grant Blairfindie) (1848–99) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> may well 'figure as the nineteenth century successor of the eighteenth century Paley Paley, William (1743–1805) DSB
Close   View the register entry >>' (519). Observes that in the book 'Allen succeeds in conveying the familiar idea that Christianity stands in the same relation to all other faiths of mankind that man does to the brute. In other words, as man is to the ape, so is Christianity to the primitive beliefs of the savage. It is an evolution, a natural evolution, whose existence is justified by the law of the survival of the fittest. Christianity, like man himself, may claim to be the heir of all the ages', and 'in Christianity, the final evolution of all creeds, the original deposit of faith is never for a moment obscured' (520). Praises the book for 'the testimony which it renders to the part which a belief in Spirit Return has played in the history of our race', but expresses concern on behalf of 'Those of us who know that they exist', that 'Allen, unfortunately, does not believe in ghosts. He does not know that they exist' (521). Also criticises Allen for the 'lordly way' in which 'he disdains to conduct the inquiries' that have led 'Professor Crookes Crookes, Sir William (1832–1919) DSB ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>, Alfred R. Wallace Wallace, Alfred Russel (1823–1913) DSB
Close   View the register entry >>, and Camille Flammarion Flammarion, Camille (1842–1925) DSB
Close   View the register entry >>, to name only three among eminent men of science' to 'believe in Spirit Return, and the persistence of life after death' (522). However, in an appended footnote, Allen replies that 'I did once for some time inquire into spiritualism, and attended several séances in a spirit of pure inquiry; but nothing ever happened; I never saw any of the phenomena described by these men of science' (522n.).

Genre:

Regular Feature, Editorial, News-Commentary

Subjects:

Railways, Imperialism, Meteorology, Botany, Horticulture

    Reports that the 'opening of the railway which is linking Bulawayo to Cape Town has been the great event of the year in South Africa' (553). Also reflects that the 'season has been wonderfully mild', and 'in the gardens of Southern England there were more flowers in blossom in November than are often to be found in May. The chrysanthemum—the one great boon which we owe to Japan—has been singularly luxuriant' (563).

Genre:

Regular Feature, Abstract

Publications abstracted:

Grand 1897 Grand, Sarah 1897. The Beth Book, London: William Heinemann
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Subjects:

Sex, Hygiene, Public Health, Morality, Gender, Vivisection, Medical Practitioners

    Complains of the popular misconception which 'prevails as to Sarah Grand's Grand, Sarah (Frances Elizabeth Bellenden MacFall (née Clarke)) (1854–1943) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> latest work. One idiot seems to imagine it is a tract against vivisection because, as a character touch, a page is devoted to describing the vivisection of a dog; while a passing reference to the C. D. Acts has been magnified until people imagine that Sarah Grand has been republishing Mrs. Butler's Butler, Josephine Elizabeth (1828–1906) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> "The Constitution Violated" Butler, Josephine Elizabeth 1871. The Constitution Violated: An Essay, Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas
Close   View the register entry >>'. The novel nevertheless features a medical practitioner called Dan Maclure, 'who earns his living by acting as examining surgeon under the C. D. Acts, and divides his leisure between telling his young wife foul tales of the lupanar, in vivisecting dogs in his own house, and making love to his lady patients'. (619)