St. Landry democrat., 1893-05-06
NOTES AND COMMENTS.

y
IS dong work Of incalculabe GOOD in
Massachusetts. 1t will b. but a brief
time now before every town in the State
has its library accessible 10 every ncraon
! who can read. Under the provisions If
the statute creating the Commission, any
town desiring to establish public library
may have on application list Of stand
| ard works as the nucleus of a collection
1t is expected that local interest and
private philanthropy will incrcas it. In
making report to the Legislature the
| other day the Commission stated that
inc towns of Avon, CoIrAin. Dana, Essex.
freetown, Gosnold, Holland, Lcvdcn,
lynncld, Midway Oakham, Savoy,
Shelburnc, ToIIand, Wilbralarn, and
| ren'ham had been supplied with books
| turing iS,2: so far tiftytwo towns
nave received books from the state The
commission publishes ii classification of
the towns and cit % Of the State and
finds that Of the 312 Oh the list. 221 CON
tam free public libraries tnat are entirely
| under municipal control; thirty libraries
| the use OF which is free and partly under
municipal management: twenty-tvo
libraries to which tn" town or citv
approprlatcs money, but over which it
has no control; nineteen towns have
Tree libraries supported by private funds;
one has library which is not free, but
ID supported by the town. There remain
fifty-three towns with population OF
1865, or 3 per cent, 81 the population
of the State, that possess no public
libraries. The tImmission in correspon.
dence with the new libraries imprcsses
on them the Importance Of collie ing
material for town histories.
A PHYSICIAN who has made study Of
nerves diseases SAYS that in them,
especially, IS the faint of horelity shown.
People who are broken down bv dissipa.
ton, eXhaustln@ diseases, excessive brain
work, OF anxiety can no more transmit
vitality to their chiIdrcd than dccaying
vine can beget healthy fruit. There is
more III heredity than people rcalizc,n he
says land sometimes it is hopeless to
fight against it. | respect and pity the
man who is born with craving for
drink, Or a tendency to steal, or to injure
and bully weak people, ar1 resists it,
with all his strength, for thai envolvcs a
struggle that men whose parents were !
decent people know nothing about. It
is bitter one, and must be almost life
long. Occasionally the man triumphs,
oftencr he fails. Depend upon it, the
law Of the future will aud must take
cognizance Of hcredty The man who
drinks because of an overwhelming desire
to do so, that he got directly from his
father and mother, is not so culpable as
the man who deliberately and needIessly
becomes lntempcl ;. Look at he case
of that infant child Of saloon keeper
that drank a pint of wh;skey and died.
Now, to the child of ordinary people
whskey is most disgusting. It was plain
heredity of appetite. The saddest part
of it all is thai education cannot wholly
cure evil tendencies. Children Of the
ignorant have small brains and it is i'm
possible to develop them beyond a certain
point. When we have Utopia we will
interdict certain marriages.
A MUSICIAN says that in nothing is thu
growth of musical taste in this country
illustrated more cfectually than in the
choice Of selections for performance on
the piano at public concerts Take an
old programme, said he, land by that
LiSt'h oiit t!ilAbF Nt"tiS tt't VI lHticd~
bouts and you will find that the piano
pieces are by nfcyschock, Thalbcrg,
Gottschalk, Wchli: prescriptions from
Italian operas and not rourris Of popular
airs, designed entirely to show off the
technical abilities Of the performer.
Nowadays YOU hear but little Of all that
The musical interest must exceed the
technical interest List is good deal
played, to be sure. but YOU will find thai
the repetory of the successful modern
pianist is made up from Beethoven,
schumann, Bach, Schubert, Chopin,
Mendelssohn, Grieg. Rubinstein-men
whose idea was to express musical thought
and feeling, not to show what a man
could do with his fingers -
THE Philadelphia Record SAYS hat
the ice gorge in the Delaware River above
Trenton is the greatest on record, aad
that the ice will probably not entirely
disappear until the opening of summer.
Eighty miles of ice are crowded into
eight, and the accumulated mass extends
from the bottom of the river to thirty or
forty feet into the air The railroad
bridge at Trenton which usually has
is now Oh level with the ice, people
being able to step from the bridges road
bed to the gorge without any trouble.
A complete set of photographs of the ice
phenomena has been obtained. So m
portant, from u scientific view, ia the
gorge considered that an illustrated
Oh the subject is to be pub
lshad bv the University Of Pennsylvania.
TIE English Congregational Year
Book shows the number Of places of
worship in England and Wales TO be A.
GA. In Scotland there are about 100
churches, / III he Channel Islands and
43 in Ireland, including - mission sta
lions; in the British Colonies and on tho
Continent of Europe $40 places of wor .
ship. showing a large increase in last
years returns. The number of Congre-
gational ministers in England and Wales
is 2.725. of whom OBJ are without
pastoral charge. More than 1000 of
them are total ahstainerS. In the theo-
loeical colleges there are 423 students;
293 in England 90 in Wales, in Sect
land, and IS in the colonies,
THE French government are expert
menting with electric locomotives, tFa'
invention of J. j. Heimann. They
propelled by coal and steam turned IN o
electric power in the locomotive, and it &
is claimed for this invention that it gives
practically more power than is usually
done by the action Of steam directly on
the piston. There is besides the further
ADVANTAGE of more easily controlling the
,,o,,,nr I'm. trnunrato{ and with little