but without oversight and in need of it), being authorized to use its own judgment as to commit ment. The child can be released upon the re sponsibility of the probation officer, or it can be committed to industrial or other schools. All of fenses of whatever character committed by chil dren under the age of sixteen years come under the provisions of the law, which is modeled upon the Massachusetts statute." The same journal says in comment : — "It is useless to refer to the many times stated fact that our law is notoriously insufficient in so far as infants are concerned, in that it seems to recog nize no real distinction between the juvenile of fender and the hardened criminal. Crime is crime, it says, irrespective of the age of the of fender, and the same hard and fast rules are to be applied whether the wrong-doer be a mis chievous schoolboy or a hardened criminal. The reform school, while a step in the right direction, meets the difficulty only half way, as the child comes from it with more or less of a stain upon its reputation which only time removes. The special need of a court which will not administer strict rules of law, but to which some latitude of discretion will be permitted in cases of infant de pravity, is certainly apparent."
CURRENT EVENTS. Amer1can wage-earners will be interested in the report from Vice-Consul General Hanauer, which shows that in Coburg-Gotha there are 5455 children under fourteen years of age employed at their homes in making buttons, dolls and toys for the factories. They work from four to six hours a day, and e.1rn in button-making daily from 15-16 of a cent to 7 cents; on dolls from 2J to 8J cents; and on toys from I to 14 cents. The little town of North Perry, in Maine, will henceforth have a unique distinction. Some time ago the United States government directed a geo graphical survey to make an exact location of the forty-fifth parallel of latitude. Its location disclosed the f1et that the village of North Perry was situated directly on the line, and the government has ordered the erection, in the center of the village, of a granite shaft bearing the inscription, "This stone marks lati tude 450 degrees north, half way from the equator to the north pole. The name Boer has its counterpart in the German word bauer, signifying a peasant or farmer. The
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first Dutch who colonized South Africa in 1652 were of the bauer or farmer class, as were those who im mediately followed them, except the officials of the Dutch East India Company who governed Cape Colony. These were of an educated and higher class. Later, the colonists were of various nations, es pecially Germans and Flemings, with a few Poles and Portuguese and some Huguenot French, who left their country on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. It has been discovered that what may be called the first daily newspaper was a manuscript letter writ ten by salaried correspondents, and forwarded by them every twenty-four hours from London to the provinces. That was in the days of the early Stuarts. During the Commonwealth these London letters were printed in type, and circulated in large numbers. Even so long ago as 1680, the law of libel was such as to be characterized by Judge Scroggs as making any newspaper publication illegal, and tending to provoke a breach of the peace.
Some highly interesting experiments upon the ab sorption of x-rays and cathode rays by various kinds of matter have recently been described by Signor Guglielmo. They were undertaken, says "The Elec trical Review," •• with a view to deducing the dimen sions, absolute weights, and densities of atoms. The discussion is too long to be abstracted here, but the result reached is that the density of atoms is ... . 80,000.000 times that of water, or that atoms weigh about 28.000,000 pounds per cubic inch." • ' At the excavations now in progress at the Roman Forum, over thirty • styli,' or bone pens, have come out of the mud of two thousand five hundred years," says " Biblia." "They are in perfect condition. Near by was found the tholus, or store-pit, which was used as the corn-bin of the pontifices. Into it the corn was emptied from the jars in which it arrived. A clerk must have stood by, keeping tally of the number of jars received and emptied therein. Occa sionally, looking over the edge to see the cavity fill ing up with grain, the stylus he used to put behind his ear being of smooth bone, slipped and fell and buried itself in the wheat, until to-day. There was also found here a black bone tabelh1, or writing tab let, six inches by four in size, somewhat worn down at one corner by the thumb of the holder, and still showing scratches where the wax once spread upon it had been penetrated by the sharp point of the stylus. The specimens of the stylus are very beauti ful; some are are short and stubby, others long and graceful; some have been favorites with their owners, others scarcely used at all."
