Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1893-04-06


/ NOTES AND COMMENTS.
THE Free Public Library Commission
Is doing a work OF incalculable good IN
Massachusetts,. 1t will be but brief
time now before every town in the State
has its library accessible to every person
who can read Under the provisions of
the statute creating the Commission, any
town desiring to establish q public library
may have on application a list OF stand
ard works as the nucleus of collection.
It is expected that local interest and
private philanthropy will increas 1t. In
making report to the Legislature the
other day the Commission stated that
the towns Of Avon, Colrain, Dana, Essex,
Freetown, Gosnold, Holland, Leydcn,
Lynnfeld, Midway, Oakham, Savoy,
Shelburne, Tolland, Wilbraham, and
Wrentham had been supplied with books
during 1892 So far fifty-two towns
have received books from the state. The
Commission publishes classification of
the towns and cities of the State, and
finds that of the $50 on the list, 227 con-
tain free public libraries that arc entirely
under municipal control; thirty libraries
the use Of which is free and partly under
municipal management; twenty
Libraries to which the town or city
appropriates money, but over which it
has no control; nineteen towns have
free libraries supported by private funds +;
one has library which is not free, but
is supported by the town. There remain
| fifty-three towns with q population OF
20, 366, or per cent, of the population
of the State, lat possess no public
libraries. The Commission in correspon-
dence with the new Libraries impresses
on them the importance of collecting
material for town histories.
A PHYSICIAN who has made study OF
nervous diseases says that in them,
especially, is the faint of heredity shown.
People who are broken down by dissipa-
ton, exhausting diseases, excessive brain
work, or anxiety can no more transmit
vitality to their childred than decaying
vine can beget healthy fruit. There is
more in heredity than people realize" he
says land sometimes it is hopeless to
fight against it. l respect and pity the
man who is born with craving for
drink, or a tendency to steal, or to injure
and bully weak people, and -esists it
with all his strength, for that envolves a
struggle that men whose parents were
decent people know nothing about. X
is bitter one, and must be almost life
long. Occasionally the mau triumphs,
oftener he fails. Depend upon it, the
law of the future will and must take
cognizance of heredity. 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 needlessly
becomes incorporate. Look at the case
of that infant child of saloon keeper
that drank pint of whiskey and died.
Now, to the child of ordinary people
whiskey is most disgusting. 1t was plain
heredity of appetite. The saddest part
| of it all is that education cannot wholly
cure evil tendencies. Children of the
ignorant have small brains and it is i'm
possible to develop them beyond certain
point. When we have Utopia we will
interdict certain marriages.
A MUSICIAN says that in nothing is tn,
| growth of musical taste in this country
illustrated more effectually than in the
choice of selections for performance OF
the piano at public concerts. Take al
old programme" said he, ''and by tina
1 mean one thirty years old, or therea
bouts and you will find that the piano
pieces are by Dreyschock, Thalberg
Gottschalk, Wehli; 'transcriptions' from
teuifUrs- r.~fs--l-
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 a good dea
| played. to be sure, but you will find tina
the repetory of the successful modern
Schumann, Bach, Schubert, Chopin
Mendelssohn, Grieg. Rubinstein-mer
whose idea was to express musical thought
and feeling, not to show what a mar
could do with his fingers"
THE Philadelphia Record says that
the ice gorge in the Delaware River above
Trenton is the greatest on record, and
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 OF
forty feet into the air. The railroad
| lICnbOn WnlCu usually HIS u
clearance of thirty feet above high water.
is now on a 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 i'm
portant, from scientific view, is the
gorge considered that an illustrated
monograph on the subject is TO be pub
lishad by the University of Pennsylvania
THE English Congregational Year
Book shows the number of places OF
worship in England and Wales to be 4,
634. In Scotland there are about 100
churches, 1 in the Channel Islands and
40 in Ireland, including Is mission sta
tons; in tho British Colonies and on tho
Continent of Europe $40 places of wor-
ship, showing large increase in last
| years returns. The number of Congre-
| gational ministers in England and Wales
is 2, 725, of whom GA are without
pastoral charge. More than 1900 of
them arc total abstainers In the theo-
| logical colleges there are 423 students I;
293 in England, 90 in Wales, in Scot
land, and % in the colonies,
THE French government are expert
menting with electric locomotives, the
invention of j. j. Heilmann. They are
propelled by coal and steam turned into
electric power in the locomotive, and it