Chicago eagle. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1889-19??, 1893-04-15
NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Massachusetts,. 1t will be but a 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 public library
may have on application a list of stand
ard works as the nucleus of a collection.
1t is expected that local interest and
private philanthropy will increas it. In
making report to the Legislature the
other day the Commission stated that
the towns of Avon, Colrain, Dana, Essex,
Freetown, Gosnold, Holland, LeJden,
Lynnfeld, Midway, Oakham, Savoy,
Shelburne, Tolland, Wilbraham, and
Wrentham had been supplied with books
during 1892. So far tifty-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 3J2 on the list. Z n con-
tain free public libraries thas are entirely
under municipal control; thirty libraries
the use of which is free and partly under
municipal management; twenty-five
libraries to which the tom or city
appropriates money, but over which it
has no control; nineteen towns have
free libraries supported by private funds !;
one has Arbitrary which is not free, but
is supported by the town. There remain
fifty three towns with a population Of
70, 366, or per cent, of the population
of the State, that 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 a 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 a 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. | respect and pity the
man who is born with craving for
drink, or tendency to steal, or to injure
and bully weak people, and resists it
with all his strength for that envolvcs a
struggle that men whose parents were
decent people know nothing about. 1t
is bitter one, and must be almost life
long. Occasionally the man 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 aud 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 developthem beyond certain
point. When we have Utopia we will
interdict certain marriages.
A MUSICIAN says that in nothing is the
growth Of musical taste in this country
illustrated more etfectually than in the
choice Of selections for performance on
the piano at public concerts Take an
old programme, = said he, "and by that
/ mean one thirty years old, or therea-
bouts and you will find that the piano
pieces are By Dreyschock, Thalberg,
Gottschalk, Wehli; prescriptions from
Italian operas and not pourris 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 that
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 saws 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 or
forty feet into the air. The railroad
bridge at Trenton which usually has a
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 a 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 H.
ga. In Scotland there are about 100
churches, II in the Channel Islands and
40 In Ireland, including 10 mission sta
tions; in the British Colonies and on the
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 GA are without
pastoral charge More than 1000 OF
them are total abstainers. In the theo-
logical colleges there are 423 students
293 in England, % In Wales, o in Scot
land, aud 2s in the colonies,
TnE French government are experi.
mcntluQ With electric locomotives tla