Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-04
NEW IDEAS OF TRUTH.
British Scientists Latest S0lu-
tons of Nature Mysteries.
CRUSHING MIDDLE CLASS
Legislators Detriorating Race by
Fostering Poor.
ALCOHOL NECESSITY IN NORTH
Earth Not Cooling-Children of
Workers Propagated at Expense
of Better Stock.
ALCOHOL NECESSITY IN NORTH

DUBLIN. September 4.-Yesterday's
session of the British Association pro-
duced several most interesting declara-
tons by scientists in the various sections.
In the archaeological section Prof.
Ridgeway asservated that no attempt to
eradicate the tendency to imbibe alcohol
in northern ATTITUDES could succeed. be-
cause the universal love of strong drink
there was not the mere outcome of vi
cious desires. but of climatic law. Phi
lanthropists and legislators could not do
any more than control it.
Prof. Ridgeway raised a warning that
the tendency of present day legislation is
toward reduction of the middle class
element of society. which is greatly SUI
periOr to the other classes. Legislators
If they wish the nation to prosper, he
said. must conform to the principles fol-
lowed by the stock breeder and encOur-
age the most fit element and discourage
multiplication of the worst. Yet states
men of both parties in Great Britain had
adopted the opposite policy.
Children of working men and women
were educated at the cost of the state,
free meals were given to them and prob
ably some of them would be clothed at the
expense of the taxpayers. The taxes en-
.ahed by this system so burdened the
middle class that they postponed marriage
ara shrank from bringing up families.
with the result t!.at their numbers were
falI;n.
Our legislators are bad stock masters
said tie professor. The are selecting
those ply s!CsIly and mo-, ally most unfit
to continue the race, while they are in
creasingiy discouraging the propagation
OF what has been proved to DE the main
stay of every state"
In the geological section Prof. Jolly
attacked the time-honored theory that
the earth is'cooling. Prof. Jolly has been
investigating the amount of radium and
what Is called its grandfather, uranium,
In deep behring's, such as the SimplOn tun-
mel, and also in the sea, and he has come
to the conclusion that the earth probably
has u central core which is Il continuous
source of neat and this is possibly increas-
ing at what may become a dangerous
rate, owing to radio thermal actions
Sir Archibald Geikie in commenting on
this, described Prof. JOYS paper as
epoch making. If radium was supplying
heat at this rate, he said, the existing
theories Of biologists must be rejel ted.
Hills and volcanoes would then be re-
garded as due not to the shrnkage of the
earth through cooling, but IA her to the
washing down of great stores of ra-
dunn from the surface 70 different strata
and to heat caused by this accumulation
Of radum.
y less wonderful but more practical
note was struck in the chemical section
by Prof. Frederic Stanley Ripping who
III discussing the new patent act in it's re-
lation to chemical industries took a
gloomy view of the future of British in
vention.
Patent acts he said, ARE useless I'M
less you have something to patent and
among manufacturers and scientists alike
the fear begins to prevail that from bot
tom to top we are falling behind the Ger
mans and Americans in invention
Our Workmen are not as good as they
In any of the finer work and our organ
iZers have not enough knowledge of the
application of science to industry to at
tempt competition with the Germans"