, 1890-07-30

dreams of the Middle.Age physicists, and
have struck one more blow to diminish the
separating influence of time and space. 1t
will follow, we presume, that 1t will be pos
sihle not only to recognise but to photo.
grarh a face miles distant, q triumph Of SCI
qnce which, though probably useless, strikes
the imagination almost as much as the
revelation of unseen stars on sensltlSed
paper. Strange that the photographer
should still fail TO fix natural colours,
though they appear In every mirror.
Modern historians diStrust the stories of
the Roman p~OisOner LOcusta, and Cf'the wO-
men who in Italy sold GQsa totaaG as tbe best
means of satisfying jealousy; or hate, or
greed; but the Hungarian tribunals are
trying a case which makes all those
legends possible. No less than ten women
IN the town of Mitrovitz are charged with
poisoning their husb ands with arsenic OBJ
tanned from fy.papers, and they are only a
section of the women originally arrested or
suspected. They were all apparently taught
hv a single woman, Esther Sarac, a local
witch or herbalist, who deliberately lnstTuc-
ted at least one disciple, and probably many
more. The pOisonings, some sixty III mum.
Der, were done with little p~reCautlon, and
GOFEl al SFINCC ~ AnOAE bAAtNAA "OA 49,
ing all which time avague suspicion has been
of0ating about. The evidence against the
women under trial is said to be OveTwheIm-
ing. and most of them have saved trouble
by pleading guilty. They are all peasants
and probably Of q low order of Intelligence;
but the revelation throws a strange light
on the true value OF much OF modern "pr0-
gress." In Hungary, at all events, 1t does
not prevent epidemics of crime, th0ngh no
doubt the improvement of chemical ana
lvsis helps the authorities in detecting
and Furnishing the guilty.
The long administration of Senior Sagasfa
in Spain has at length come 20 an emit.
He resigned on Thursday, and it is beIiev-
ed that he will be replaced by the Tory
leader, Senior CanOyaS del Castillo. The
cause of this rather abrupt change is not
known, the OstenSible reason being only
that the Ministry is exhausted but the
Times correspondent in Madrid hints that
it is not entirely due to the rupture Ill the
Liberal Party, but that the Queen has
been Influenced by advice not wholly III.
rected with a view to the national Interest.
We suspect that some discomfort bqs bee.
discovered in the Army, but the stcru.
must be revealed in a few hours, The
change Will not Oe pbpuIdi, uuI Inelc VIA
be no revolution, as Spaniards Of all parties
have tac'tly agreed to await the majority
of the baby-King, some thirteen yeals
hence. The Queen, moreover, has the
governing instinct, makes few mistakes,
and pOshes nothing 10 extremes.
The General Act of the Anti Slavery
Conference at Brussels was published in
the Times on Thursday, and will be signed
at once. It is for the most part a detailed
Code for the guidance of the marine and
Other officers employed to put d own slav-
cry but it binds all the African Powers
to act together, and 10 treat Slave-catching
or slave-dealing as penal offences. Slavery
itself is still tolerated, but a slave who
reaches a European warship is ipso facto a
free man, and any agent of a European
Power may liberate a slave whom he fnds
on board a ship. A great central Office for
the suppression of slavery is to be set up
in Zanzibar, and the sale of arms to slave
catchers is rigidly prohibited. The Code
will serve as % basis of action for those
Powers which intend abolition, though it
will, we fear, be easily evaded by Powers,
like Portugal, which intend nothing of the
sort. Still, a formal consensus of Europe
has always some effect.