“Everything which happens has its bent given by the events that have gone before, and is brought into relation with those that come after.”—Forster.

The C. L. S. C. Class of ’86, just organized, will number over 12,000 members.

A very impressive lesson in economy (and who does not need one), may be found in the following: A young lady in Wisconsin, who works in a family for seventy-five cents per week and her boarding, desired to read the C. L. S. C. course. No members living near her, and having no opportunity to borrow the books, she was so anxious to gratify her thirst for knowledge that she bought them, saving enough money from her income of seventy-five cents per week. She is now zealously reading, and expresses herself as delighted with the studies.

On the occasion of the recent visit of German astronomers to Colt’s Armory, a Gatling gun was brought out and fired perpendicularly. The heavy ball mounted into the air a distance of two and a quarter miles. An account says that the ball made the ascent and return, four and one-half miles in fifty-eight seconds.

The journal to be published by the lunatics on Ward’s Island, under the title of The Moon, is not, according to the Buffalo Express, the first periodical printed by the inmates of an insane asylum. Thirty years ago, the Express says, the prisoners in the Utica Insane Asylum published a monthly magazine called The Opal, which contained some of the craziest poetry ever printed. It quotes this couplet as an example:

According to a reporter of that city, Miss Susan B. Anthony left St. Louis the other day for Leavenworth with two medium-sized trunks for baggage. At first the baggage-master objected to check them both on a single ticket, and demanded pay for extra weight. “But,” said she, “they together weigh less than the ordinary-sized ‘Saratoga.’ I distribute the weight in this way purposely to save the man who does the lifting.” The clerk looked at her incredulously. “And you tell me seriously that you do this simply out of consideration for the baggage-men?” “I do.” “How long have you done it?” “All my life. I never purchased a large trunk, for fear I might add to the over-burdened baggage-man’s afflictions.” The clerk walked off and conferred with the head of the department. Then the two returned together. “Do I understand,” said the chief, “that you, of all women, have been the first to show humanity toward railroad people?” “That is a tenet of my creed.” “Check that baggage,” said the chief with emphasis.

Those of our readers interested in C. L. S. C. work will find in our department for “Local Circles” a great many valuable suggestions concerning methods of study, questioning, conducting the work of the circle, and, in some instances, plans may be found for courses of lectures, concerts, etc. These reports are from members who have seen the practical workings of their plans, and therefore speak knowingly.

London Punch sent a pleasant greeting to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes on his retirement from the professorship at Harvard, in this form:

Take care, girls! A professor in Jefferson College, Philadelphia, says that the habitual use of arsenic “for the complexion” causes the clearness of the skin it produces at first to be succeeded by a puffy, dropsical condition.

President Arthur’s New Year reception was interrupted by the sudden death of one of his callers—the Minister from the Hawaiian Islands. The music ceased, but the handshaking went on.

A forcible “temperance” argument from the Queen of England is found in her last speech to Parliament: “The growth of the revenue has been sensibly retarded by a cause which, in itself, is to be contemplated with satisfaction. I refer to the diminution of the receipts of the exchequer from duties on intoxicating liquors.”

Moral reforms move to victory slowly. The Mormons are liable to have a rest because public sentiment, that was focalized against their system a year ago in a law enacted by Congress, is in danger of being inoperative. The friends of the commandment against Mormonism will reap the harvest if they now enforce the law of Congress with as strong a public sentiment as they inspired to enact it; otherwise we shall see the movement a failure.

Girton College, the girls’ college at Cambridge University in England, is about to be enlarged, and the plans for the new buildings have been already drafted and submitted to the proper authorities. The applications for admission have recently been very much in excess of the accommodation at present offered.

The Alcott homestead in Concord—“Orchard Home”—standing next to the “Way-side” home of Hawthorne, is a quaint-looking old mansion, with a peaked roof and gables, high old-fashioned porches, and surrounded by lofty oaks and elms. It was here that Miss Louisa Alcott wrote “Little Women” and most of her other works, and here, too, that her younger sister, Mrs. May Alcott Nericker, executed the beautiful sketches and paintings that still adorn the parlor walls. It is now the home of Professor Harris, of the Concord School of Philosophy, and author of the series of articles on “Education,” now running in “The Chautauquan.”

At the 1880 meeting of the British Association for the Promotion of Science Dr. GÜnther thus summed up the objects of museums: “1st. To afford rational amusement to the mass of the people. 2d. To assist in the elementary study of the various sciences. 3d. To supply the specialist with as much material as possible for original research. And in the case of local museums we may add a 4th. To illustrate local industries and the scientific features of the district. In starting a local museum we consider the best plan is to form a scientific society (a local circle), whose first concern should be to get a suitable room, well lighted and a good deal larger than there seems to be any actual necessity for, the importance of this step becoming evident anon. The next point should be to obtain as many objects as possible for a start, and from the commencement every member should be required to do his best in collecting objects whenever he has an opportunity.”

Prof. C. A. Leveridge, of Crawford, N. J., makes a very interesting statement below, which we are pleased to transmit to our readers: “I have a number of sets of cabinet specimens, lithological minerals, representing the glacial and eruptive period, each set numbering 103 varieties and 160 altogether. A few of these came from the Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia, 1876, and some of the foreign are quite scarce. They are interesting either for study or library, and make a fine appearance. They are all catalogued, named, numbered, and located, and each set carefully wrapped and packed in box. I have sold a number and have received many acknowledgments of satisfaction. They are just the thing for study, showing the coolings (crystallization), rubbings and scratchings by the ice period. I have used a number of jaspers instead of the rougher rocks, which I think is better. I sell a working set for five dollars, and a cabinet set for ten dollars. There is to me no profit, but I am an invalid and have these specimens, which have cost me a great deal of money.”

The family of President Garfield have been spending the holidays all at home together. Mrs. Garfield is busy arranging a memorial room, set apart to contain relics and mementos of her illustrious husband. The walls of it are covered with framed resolutions and letters of sympathy, and there will be tables and cabinets loaded with similar tokens. When the arrangement is complete, the room will be one of the most noteworthy spots on earth, containing as it will expressions of love and respect from people in almost every nation of the world.

The London demand for bonds of the late Confederate States of America has recently become stronger than at any other time since the collapse of the Confederate government. A large block was bought a few days ago in Baltimore, on orders from a London banking house, at the rate of nine dollars and seventy-five cents a thousand. The demand has resulted in placing in the market several thousand Confederate dollars’ worth of bonds that have been pasted on fire-boards and screens.

One of the inconsistencies of our civilization may be seen in this item: “A Nevada penitentiary convict says that he was sent to prison for being dishonest, and is there kept at work cutting out pieces of pasteboard to put between the soles of shoes in place of honest leather.”

The people of the oil regions of Pennsylvania were afflicted with the spirit of speculation in oil, near the close of 1882. Professional men, traders of every kind, women who had saved a few hundred dollars, and, indeed, all classes of people, some with large sums of money, and others with small sums, ventured to speculate. Oil went from fifty cents per barrel up to one dollar and thirty-seven cents, and then dropped back to seventy-six cents. The result is that a great many people in moderate circumstances have lost all they owned. To hundreds of men and women it has been as disastrous as if all their property had been consumed by fire. Moral.—It is wrong to speculate. It is dangerous every way, and, besides, it is gambling.

The Rev. Leroy Hooker gives us his comparative view of some of the poets in the Canadian Magazine as follows: “It may not be too much to say that among the English-writing bards of the century, Tennyson’s only near competitor for the first place is Longfellow; and that Longfellow’s title to a place above Lowell is based not so much to his having projected upon the thought and sentiment of the century a more potent and permanent influence, as upon the fact that he has given us, in ‘Hiawatha,’ the nearest approach to a great epic poem that has been produced within the period—not excepting anything that even Tennyson has written.”

The Rev. E. J. L. Baker, a trustee of the Chautauqua Assembly, died suddenly of heart disease at his home in Pleasantville, Pa., on Saturday afternoon, December 30. He had been a preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church for the past fifty years, and died in his field of labor when seventy-three years old. He was at one time presiding elder, and three times a delegate to the General Conference. Once when the conference met in Boston, Massachusetts, he cast his vote for Bishop Simpson and helped to elect him to the Episcopacy. Mr. Baker was a man of dignified bearing, of exceptional strength and force of character, and, while as a preacher he was not among the most brilliant, yet in his sermons he presented the central truths of the Bible in an interesting and powerful manner. Among ministers he made a fine reputation as a debater in a deliberative body. He was a Christian gentleman, a genial companion, and a workman that needed not to be ashamed. He died full of faith in the gospel that saved him, and that he had preached to others so many years.

A gold, open work C. L. S. C. badge by Henry Hart, of Brockport, New York, is one of the latest inventions we have seen for members of the C. L. S. C. It is a beautiful design, makes a handsome pin, and it is sure to please every eye that loves the gold that glitters.

The attempt to injure the reputation of the lamented President Garfield by publishing the letters that passed between him and Mr. Dorsey during the presidential campaign, is a great failure. Mr. Dorsey is on trial for the crimes he is alleged to have committed as one of the Star Route conspirators. Let him be tried on the merits of the case, and if guilty, let him be convicted, and if innocent, acquitted. But any effort like that made recently to palliate the wrongs of the living, at the expense of the dead president, will be resented by the American people. The verdict of the people is that James A. Garfield was one of our purest and best public men, both in his private and public character. He was tried for nearly a score of years in that political cauldron, the House of Representatives, and never found wanting. Let him rest, for

The Rev. Dr. Buckley, in the New York Christian Advocate, thus honors a worthy public man: “To the Hon. H. W. Blair, United States Senator from New Hampshire, belongs the special honor of having introduced and eloquently supported to its successful adoption the amendment prohibiting the employment in the United States civil service of persons addicted to the use of intoxicating liquor as a beverage. The citizens of New Hampshire and the friends of temperance throughout the country will not soon forget this great service.”