The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-12-19
NEW

to the fact that his mind. practically speaking, had stopped work It was this, indeed, that led to the wild le- gends about his being at times incapae- itated by drunkenness.
 Yet another instance of these unac- countable aberrations of mind is one which figures in French history. or all the kings of France Henry II, was the most cunning and secretive. Yet one day, while hunting in the forest of Vim cennes, he suddenly turned to Prince William of Orange, mere acqualnt- ance and guest, whom he had reason to distrust, and without any provocatlon or reason revealed to him his monstrous secret agreement with King Philip or Spain, to end all heresy in France, as well as in Spain, by a wholesale massa- ere or all ProtestantS. That revelation turned the course of European history. Yet neither King Henry nor the prince | of Orange ever knew or was able to understand why that secret was reveal ed. It can only be ascribed to the sud- den and momentary loss of the head which In more recent times has been the cause of the loss of the Mohegan and of the Victoria, as we'll as of the battles already mentioned.
 It would be well if these were the only instances of this petit mar' or temporary paralysis of the brain, Yet there is every reason to believe that not merely scores, but hundreds, nay, | even thousands of atalities are ascribed to the same reason. It will be responsi- ble for the engineers occasional ina bility to distinguish the proper signals; | for the switchman's neglect to open or 1 close the switch, for the contradictory orders of a general in the field or of a naval commander, or, in fact, for any one of those thousands of fatalities, small and great, concerning the causes of which we are likely to speculate in vain And it cannot be denied that ca l tastrophies due to causes such as these are increasing in frequency to ar alarming extent precisely because the tax to which we are wont to subject the brain nowadays is far more severe and
 exhaustlng than formerly. Sometimes
 the disasters in question are small, anc
 fail to attract more than passing at
 tention., It is only now and again thai
 a catastrophe of the magnitude of the loss of the Victoria or the Mohegan oc'
 CUTS to invite more careful reflection as
 to the possible remedy.
 | Search as one may there is only one
 remedy which can be discovered, name A ly, a division of responsibility. It is
 nothing more nor less than inviting dis
 aster to stake the safety of the lives O.
 hundreds of human beings upon thu
 sound workings of one usually tire( brain, likely to give way suddenly ant
 without warning at any moment. Jus
 as each well-equipped vessel carries ol
 board spare pieces of machinery read.
 to replace at amoments notice thos
 that give way during the trip, so eacl
 man occupying the post the responsi bilities of which comprise the safety o the lives of others should have read, by his side double empowered to talk
 his place if his mind give way, No sig mailman should ever be alone in his box no captain without his double by hi side on the bridge, no general withou , a comrade by him ready to assume tn direction of the military operations, need be, in his place. Of course, ther are many objections which will doubt less be raised to this notion of divide authority. But it is the only means Q averting the danger resulting from tn sudden giving way of that most delicat of all mechanisms, the mind Ne, York Tribune.