St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-09-29
SOME CONVERSATIONS.

Nature is usually alert to provide
compensations and mitigations for dis
turbances of the regular order of affairs.
Had the failure of foodstuffs In large
parts of the old world extended to this
side of the water also. great numbers of
people would probably starve to death
this year. In the old times. when the
facilities for taking heavy things from
one country TO another were meager,
local failures in means of subsistence
were not relieved by more fortunate
neighbors, and check was given to an
uncomfortable increase of population.
Then there were epidemics and pesti-
lences that did wholesale work in pre-
venting crowding. Scientific methods
in medication and sanitation did not in
terfere materially with their devastating
work. But these old methods are be-
in one part of the globe has all the
rest Of the world to draw upon, and
the transmission is SO rapid that the
destitute cannot get very hungry. 1t is
palpable, then, that reliance can no
longer be had upon the former agencies
to restrain the human multiplication to
an uncomfortable extent. Even in the
case of the diseases that still show ma
hgnant vitality, it is not certain that
they will have much chance in the fut-
ure. The scientists are discovering the
noXlous germs and finding agencies to
destroy their vitality. The alarming
danger that people will neglect to 90
out of the world in proper time, and the
mortuary interests stagnate, is happily
met by the new mechanical devices.
War deStructiyeS are now being made
that will, if the emergencies come,
wipe out human life, by vast armies.
In the meantime great work is &C
ing done by the inventions of material
affairs. 1t is within the memory of
many now living when the locomotive,
rail car and steamboat did their first
killing. The columns of the daily
papers show their persistent and effect
i've work. The constant record break
Ing speed, both by land and water, is
full Of promise for larger and Swifter
results i'll the coming time. The dyna-
mo and electric cars, and even the bal
loon, are liberal contributors to the de-
UNIV ilCIi OlClO ulC uOoIofOl
ingenious contrivances growing out of
modern civilization that do individual
work. A New Hampshire man put
bit of sponge up his nose with string
attached, but the string came off an
the man lost his life. This could
not have happened in the Abra-
hamic multiplication era, as the sponge
was not in use then, SO far as
remembered. A preacher in New York
put the small cork of the bottle in his
mouth as he administered castor Oil to
the yOungster. and got it in his throat
in some fatal way. In 5000 years of
history no such incident was recorded.
Another fell OH the point of a lead pen
Gil, piercing his breast, killing him. A
Pennsylvania miner dropped chunk
OF dynamite, and three heads were dis
sected. A generation ago dynamite had
never even brought rain from the clouds.
China has Yellow rivers that sweep
away a half-million or so at time, and
1t is said that female infants are killed,
so that the numbers are kept down. In
enlightened countries the reliance must
be upon the new factors in progress and
material development, and it is evident
that this reliance will not be in vain.