The Portland daily press., 1877-02-19
from the New York Timesl
The Green Ray.
A Companion Discovery for PIeasonton's
by a French savanf.

1t is striking illustration of the peryersity
OF human nature that no sooner does some
man invent something for the benefit of man
kind, than some other person proceeds to in
vent counterpoising evil. Thus the Invention
of iron armor for vessels stimulated the inven-
tion OF mOnstr0us guns to smash it; and the
discovery of the benefcent lightning-rod was
followed by the peculiar atrocities practiced by
lightning rot men. There is no rose without
certain amount of thOrns, no home without
taxes, no useful invention without its antidote.
Gen. Pleasonton has just taught US that blue
glass is a cure for every i'll, and while we are
yet felicitating ourselves upon his discovery,
a perverse Frenchman announces the discovery
that green glass is sure and deadly poison.
The good that may be secured by the use of
blue glass will be more than counterbalanced
by the evils that will be inflicted through the
medium of green glass. Pieasonton may save
his Scores but the Frenchman will assassinate
his hundreds
M. Bert, the Frenchman in question, had no
sooner learned that light passing through blue
glass Gains the mind and strengthens the body
than he began to experiment with glass of
other colors. He found that plants submitted
to the influence of green light soon wilted and
died. The poison which slew them seemed to
exercise strange fascination over them. The
simple cabbage, the gentle asparagus and the
stalwart gooseberry were alike in this morbid
thirst for green light and they drank 10 its
deadly rays until they sank forever into dis
hoDored pots.
rious influence of green wall paper Hitherto,
chemists have asserted that green paper con-
tains arsenic, and that the arsenic is the cause
of the unpleasant SYMPTOMS developed in those
who reside in green papered rooms. We now
know that the green color, and not the arsenic
| is at fault The rays of light striking upon the
paper are tinged with green before they have
time to rebound upon the occupants of the
room, and thus the latter continually absorb
the poisonous green light until their health and
spirits give way.
Similarly, we can now understand why the
typical villain of romance and the stage is
represented as wearing green glasses For
ages mankind has mistaken the cause for the
ehect. Men do not wear green glasses because
they are depraved, but they become depraved
by wearing green glasses. 1t is frightful to
think of the number of innocent and we'll
meaning men who, having adopted green
glasses from mistaken belief th at they would
thereby benefit their eyes, have poisoned their
bodies, perverted their minds, and warped their
whole moral natures. What green glasses
have done for men, green wells have done for
women. In former years. when green wells
| were fashionable, our women were notoriously
| delic ate and sickly. Now that blue wells have
| become popular, American women are Begin
| ming to rival their English sisters in vigor OF
| constitution and ability to walk miles in thick
| Shoes Obviously the green light filtered
| through the green wells was the real source OF
| the physical weakness formerly the reproach OF
| American women, and the inventor of the blue
veil was an unconscious but potent phllan-
| thropist Who can tell to what extent the
| evils of intemperance are due to the effect OF
| green glass bottles upon the wine and ardent
| spirits which they inclose? How much OF the
| treachery of feline nature is due to the green
ewes with which cat are fitted, and may not the
monster" be an unconscious recognition of the
fact that, in proportion as a man sees things in
green light, he becomes prey to Jealousy
| and all other evil passions? The green flag ex-
/ "A sha h
| man, and green apples develop the most unholy
| impulses of the juvenile stomach. Nj. Berrs
/ discovery explains all these otherwise unac-
/ countable facts, and finds in them the con-
sistent manifestation Of an inexorable law OF
| nature.
| ia publishing this discovery M. Bert has
i placed a dangerous weapon in the hands OF
| unpripcipled men The wretch who does not
/ appreciate his wife's mother will present her
/ with green silk dress and green parasol,
and convince her that her complexion will suf
/ fer unless she wears green veil Ii she is an
/ unusually vigorous old lady, and her constitu-
| ton wthstands the effect of the poison in mod
crate doses, he will put green curtains in her
| room, and so finish her at once. The wicked
husband, instead of coarsely shooting his wife,
or sweetening her coffee with arsenic, will wear
| large wastcoat Duttons of polished green glass
| and by them reflect rays of poisoned light upon
his unconscious victim as she sits at the otner
end of the table. The assassin will safely smlte
his enemy at noon day, concentrating upon MS
nervous centers rays that have passed through
| q small green burning-glass, and the colored
| voter will be intimidated to an unprecedented
| extent by ruthless Democrats, who Will lure
| HIM to crush gigantic green cheeses with his
unsuspecting head, and thereby poison his
mind against his true political friends. Crimes
like these will be easy of perpetration, and the
criminals will be almost certain to escape pun.
ishment. M. Bert may not have ,foreseen all
this, but that fact-if it fact-does not ex-
cuse him. A man has no right to make reck
less discoveries and before M. Bert published
the record of his cabbsge-killlng experiment
he should have reflected upon the terrible con-
sequences which it Will inevitably entail.