The Portland daily press., 1881-09-15
Tue PRESS.
Boston's Lurid Light.
What the Funny Editor of Baltimore
Paper Says of It.

The terrible preponderance Of mind in and
around Boston, which makes the laws oil mat
ter SO uncertain, was shown in very startling
way on Tuesday last. There was a display oil
electro pneumatic, meteorologic chromatics
such as has never been witnessed outside OF
New England, where mind is counted among
the physical forces The telegraph carried
the tidiDgs all over the world that, lin BOSTON,
the atmosphere was pervaded with yelo"ish
light, which gave strange appearance 10 esi
ery object On the Common the grass pre-
septed most unnatural appearance; the hVio
green looking as though it was the result oil .
coat of paint The gas Jets burned with
white brilliancy, making thea resemble cleo
trio lights" One of the discoveries of modern
science is the fourth" condition, or radiant
condition Of matter. For example, water has
iong been known under the three forms OF ice,
water and steam, depending on the degree o.
temperature. The fourth or cometary condi
fions Of matter is as much thinner and hghter
than steam. as steam is than water; 1t is en-
dowed with force immensely greater lar tna a.
steam. and is self-luminous. Get up sum
Gent amount of beat and any mode OF matter
will assume its fourth condition and become
nebulous or cometary. Now, holding these
facts firmly in the mind, the Boston phenome
ma are easily accounted for. The proalg'ous
psvchical heat that has been generated IN ana
around Boston during the past summer Vaca,
ton, by conventions held, orations dehVereu
and poems read, has been such that counsn
balls have assumed the cometary condltlon'
and intellect, SO to speak, broke loose. Frosa-
ic philosophers try to account for IL III ph9h
cal way They talk about the smoke of iores'
fires and the floating pollen IN the ar az ln!eI-
cenfino the shorter color waves and leaving
only the orange and the yellow rays. But thai
would not account for the 'llvid green Oh
Boston Common, "like a coat OF paint, nor
would il account for the ordinary gas JET pufh-
ing like an electric light No; that explanation
will not do. The same energy, Whatever IL De-
that makes an ordinary Bosom mind, In the
opiniop of other Boston minds, blaze with the
corascations of genius, makes an ordinary Bos-
ton gas Jet burn like an electric llght. IL Is
the cometary or radiant condition OF PORK ana
heans mar has liz up Boston Common with liv
id green EmerscDian sceptics, may, however,
possibly beihink them that the lurld glow IN
and around Boston was not objective put supJec-
tive: it existed in the inner consciousness Oh
Boston Bostonians didn't really see 1t, but
thought that they saw it, That is to say, that
the lurid glare and electric gas jet scntilla-
tons were the results of internal CONGREGATIONS
of intellectual energy, superinduced upon
transcendental cogitations by the therapeutic
action of cooling beverages taken into the sys-
TEN by suction through a straw. 1t is stated
BY persons of large observation and experience
that gas Jets not only increase in brillancy,
but in apparent numbers under such infu-
ences, and that yellowish glow or mist sur
rounds external objects after prolonged efforts
of this kind. The ''livid green" is evolved by
subjective contemplation of the rings around
the eve on the morning after an interview with
the lamp post-which, at the moment OF con-
tact had emitted the electric coruscations al
ready mentioned. But this theory is clearly
the work of calumny. The long record of Bos-
ton as the abode of abstinence forbids any such
hypothesis 1t is true that the upper circle OF
thought IN Boston adhere to the doctrine OF
'shigher law' in temperance-a something that
teaches that while prohibition is for the masses
the higher Authorization of superior beings re-
quires them to rrigate the remoter realms OF
thought by occasional visits TO those secluded
abodes of refreshment which in New York are
called "gin mills and "luiceries," but which
in Boston are Co lied studios" This hypothe
sis is, however, not only evil in suggestion,
but insufficient in accounting for the unusual
and beautiful phenomena above mentioned;
and the only adequate explanation yet rendered
is the immense rush of mind that has convert
ed syndicate of Goldfish balls into the nebu-
lous or cometary condition of matter.