CURRENT EVENTS. In Switzerland they are making clocks which do not need hands and faces. The clock merely stands in the hall, and you press a button in its stomach, when, by means of the phonographic internal arrange ments, it calls out " half-past six "or " twenty-three minutes to eleven," as the case may be.
In Japan, what we call " after-dinner speeches" are made before dinner, thus insuring brevity, and furnishing topics for conversation during the meal itself Recent observations among Indians show that in South America, as well as in North America, the red woman lives longer than the red man. But the average duration of life is only seventeen years for both sexes in the South, and twenty-two per cent of the Indians die during the first year of life.
The Chinese government does all in its power to check the opium habit, the punishments common in the Chinese army for this habit being extreme. For the first offense a man may have his upper lip cut; for the second he may be decapitated. For the last sixty years, on an average, half a ton of opium has been sent to China from India every hour.
The earlier editions of "Webster's Dictionary" contained a verb " to Jew," and defined it " to cheat," •• to play with," etc. At the request of a number of influential Israelites, the word was eliminated from the book. As a matter of fact, however, the word had no connection with or reference to the followers of the Mosaic faith. It was derived from the French "jeu " and " jouir," which means '• to play with," " to cheat," etc., but its orthography had become cor rupted to '•jew." It did not appear in subsequent editions of the work. Recent investigations have shown that the princi pal source of the Gulf Stream is not the Florida Channel, but the region between and beside the islands of the West Indies. At Binioni the volume of this warm water is sixty times as great as the com bined volume of all the rivers in the world at their mouths. A club exists in Vienna the members of which are pledged to marry some poor girl. If, by chance or design, a member marries a rich girl, he is fined two thousand dollars, which sum is bestowed on some respectable but impecunious couple engaged to be married.
LITERARY NOTES. The Century Magaz1ne is redeeming its promise to cover the war of 1898 as authoritatively as it did the campaigns of 1861-65, though the late and shorter war demands much less time and space in the maga zine, and, in fact, as a magazine feature, the April and May numbers will practically close the series so far as it relates to active operations. In the April number an article of extraordinary interest and importance is Rear-Admiral Sampson's full and frank statement of the part taken by " The Atlantic Fleet in the Spanish War." Major-General Francis V. Greene, one of the highest living authorities on modern warfare, gives a full account, from personal experience, of the actual capture of Manila, and John T. McCutcheon describes the surrender of Manila as viewed from Admiral Dewey's flagship. Mr. McCutcheon was on the bridge with Dewey during the action. An account by the American Director of the School at Athens of recent American discoveries at Corinth includes the turning up of "A Relic of St. Paul." In this con nection should be mentioned an entertaining de scription of Jerusalem and its environments, written especially for The Century by the distinguished French artist, J. James Tissot.
Prof. John F1ske, in the April Atlant1c, treats the ever-engrossing question of the " Mystery of Evil " in a profound and thoughtful paper in which he embodies the results of his own researches and the writings of religious and philosophical authors, and draws a conclusion that cannot fail to interest all thinking and reflecting people. Samuel Harden Church calls attention to the coming " Tricentenary Celebration of Oliver Cromwell " in an interesting and instructive paper, treating of the conditions upon which Cromwell rose to power; what he accom plished for his country at home and abroad; the prominent features of his character, and the place to which he is entitled in the history of the English peo ple and the English nation. Prof. T. J. J. See, in his paper on the " Solar System in the Light of Recent Discoveries," states, in a popular and easily understood manner, his recent important and unex pected discovery of a new law of temperature which totally reverses all the hitherto accepted theories and beliefs of the development of the universe. Pro fessor See's discovery is as interesting to all readers in general as it is vitally important scientifically and astronomically. ••The Stuff that Deeams are made of," is the title of the leading article in Appleton's Popular Sc1ence Monthly for April. Havelock Ellis, the au thor, is a prominent English psychologist, and he has
