village in your own pet country haunts | native English. The old English form, has just as curious a history as those Culmingatune, gives you at once the true about Lyme Regis; but it will not do story. Once more, Warwickshire antimerely to take the name in its current quaries used formerly to assert that Bir

original sounds would be obtained. This we cannot expect yet, but the results already obtained lead one to hope that in time even this may be achieved.

The photophone is the latest develop- | elements could be eliminated, the varying ment of Professor Graham Bell's ingenu- amount of illumination received at the ity, and for its scientific novelty, if not for distant end would wholly depend upon its practical utility, well deserves a brief the variations in sound at the transmitting description. One of the elementary end, and an exact reproduction of the bodies, named selenium, and allied to sulphur, is known to undergo certain changes in its molecular structure when light fall upon it. These changes cause the very high resistance it offers to the passage of an electric current to vary slightly, and this curious effect, hitherto believed to be unique, has lately been the subject of investigation by various English physicists. It occurred to several that this substance might be employed as a sort of telephone, a beam of light being used to replace the conducting wires of the usual forms of these instruments. Professor Graham Bell, the discoverer of the telephone, to whom, amongst others, this idea occurred, has had the good fortune to throw that thought into practical shape.

A mirror, from which is reflected a powerful beam of light, may be caused to vibrate by means of the voice. These vibrations toss the beam of light slightly to and fro, and this vibrating beam falls upon a selenium receiver, through which an electric current is passing, thereby creating slight variations in the resistances the current encounters. These tiny variations in electric resistance can be detected and rendered audible by that wonderfully sensitive little instrument, the Bell telephone. This was the conception which led Professor Bell to announce, in a lecture delivered before the Royal Institution so long ago as 1878, the "possibility of hearing a shadow fall upon a piece of selenium." Within the last few months, he has succeeded in putting this into practical execution.

In the articulating photophone, a beam of light, derived either from an artificial source or from the sun, is thrown by a mirror on to the transmitter, which is a small disc of silvered glass, with a tube and mouthpiece attached. The beam of light reflected from the transmitter is focussed as nearly as possible upon the distant receiver. When, therefore, words are spoken into the mouthpiece, the disc becomes agitated, alters slightly in shape, and, therefore, in its focal length, and thus affects the receiving station, by throwing upon it a greater or less amount of light, according as the beam is in or out of focus. If absolutely accurate adjustment were possible, and all disturbing

The receiver of the photophone, as at present arranged, consists of a large concave mirror, which reflects and focusses the light upon a selenium cell; this is connected with a battery, and a couple of ordinary telephones are included in the circuit. The selenium cell is very ingeniously adapted by Professor Bell to its purpose. It consists of alternate discs of brass and mica, the edges of which are coated with selenium, pared to make it as thin as possible, whilst yet exposing a sufficiently large surface to the action of the light. Any increase of light, falling upon this selenium cell, lessens its electric resistance; hence the vibrations of the mirror (caused by the words spoken into the mouthpiece by the transmitter), altering somewhat the amount of light received upon the cell, reproduce themselves audibly, by means of the greater or less amount of electricity thereby transmitted through the telephone. Both transmitter and receiver must, of course, be so supported as to be free to move, according to the direction in which the beam has to be sent or received.

There are many difficulties in the practical working of this little instrument, but though entirely satisfactory results have not yet been obtained, the principle is beyond dispute that sound and light can act upon one another in the manner described. Articulate speech has been transmitted by means of the telephone to a distance of some two hundred and thirty yards, the voice being heard sometimes almost as loudly as in talking through an ordinary telephone, though the sound varies in intensity in an unaccountable manner.

Professor Bell has arrived at many interesting results while experimenting upon this instrument. He has found that curious molecular changes take place not only in selenium, but also in thin surfaces of almost any substance; so that they respond, by audible vibrations, to the action of an intermittent beam of light. There is a great difference, however, in the sensitiveness of the different substances; vulcanite is one of the best, carbon is

very good, but water is absolutely irresponsive, and glass, unsilvered, is also bad. Upon this discovery, Professor Bell has constructed a simple form of photophone for transmitting musical tones.

A beam of light is thrown upon a mirror, and focussed by a lens as before; at the focus is a disc, perforated round its circumference with numerous holes. From this disc, which can be rotated so that the beam passes through a varying number of holes, according to the speed of rotation, the light passes on to a receiving disc of ebonite, from whence the sounds are conveyed by a tube to the listener. That these musical sounds which are much louder than the spoken words are really due to the action of light or radiant energy of some form, may be easily proved, for when the beam is interrupted by means of a disc of some opaque body, though the perforated disc is still rotating, nothing is heard at the receiver. No wires are needed as conductors between the transmitter and the receiver; the beam of light forms the only necessary connection, and this beam of light, with the simple apparatus described, has been the means of conveying distinct musical sounds to a distance of more than a mile. Not that even this distance is a necessary limit, for there is no reason why the sound should not be carried as far as the light can be thrown. We have here, in fact, a musical helio

From The Spectator.

SIR ALEXANDER COCKBURN.

IN Sir Alexander Cockburn, we lose one who, after all due abatement has been made from the rather indiscriminate eulogies of the past week, must be acknowledged to have been a great, and in many respects a typical, Englishman. He came of a Scotch house, and had French blood in his veins; but his nature, both in its strength and in its weaknesses, was thoroughly English. But he was an Englishman of a particular epoch, who had survived all or almost all, his contempora ries, and lived on into a generation with whose ideas and aims he was not altogether at home. His vitality was so persistent, his powers so elastic, his resources so varied, that he often seemed as though he were one of ourselves, and we were tempted to forget that he belonged, in spirit as well as in time, to the Palmerstonian era. It was not a mere coincidence that the occasion which inspired his first great effort as a political speaker, and which revealed to the House of Commons his extraordinary faculty for argumentative rhetoric, was the Don Pacifico Debate. Don Pacifico was a poor creature; his claims were of the most questionable kind; Lord Palmerston's interference had been even exceptionally blustering; and Mr. Gladstone's condemnation of the whole business, to which Cockburn's speech was a reply, The real cause of the molecular changes correctly anticipated the verdict of history. accompanying this action of an intermit-Yet the debate was one long triumph for tent beam of light upon different substances is not yet certain. It appears probable, however, that the varying electric resistances of selenium are directly due to light; whilst, as with the radiometer, radiant heat is probably the real source of those molecular changes which produce the audible vibrations of vulcanite and other bodies. Whether, however, it be heat or light which is the original source of these vibrations, the wonder is equally great; for, if it be heat, the molecules composing the substance must be cooled and heated with sufficient rapidity to respond to vibrations, of which there may be many hundreds in a second. Science is every day showing us that we are only beginning to discern the subtler potencies of matter and energy, and we find that the goal of to-day becomes the starting-point of to-morrow, and that a barrier is no sooner reached, than it becomes a gateway to new and wider views of truth.

form" of the bench had, in his eyes, real | persistent and powerful antagonist of meaning and solemnity. To irreverent legal reform. The fusion of law and and sceptical bystanders of a later gener- equity, the unification of the courts, and ation, it was sometimes a matter of amuse- the assimilation of procedure, were ment to watch him clothing with his changes which he strenuously opposed, splendid rhetoric one or another of these and to which, even after their adoption, well-worn platitudes. But this temper of he never disguised his hostility. It may mind was one which the chief justice be admitted that many of his criticisms shared with some of his most eminent were justified, and that the new system predecessors, and has proved very ser- has not as yet realized all that was exviceable in liberalizing the interpretation pected of it. But that it has effected and controlling the technicalities of the some considerable improvements, few law. His memorable charge to the grand candid observers will deny. The lord jury in the case of Nelson and Brand, was chief justice of England, however, could only a conspicuous illustration of the never bring himself to relish the legislaspirit of watchful and well-founded jeal- tion which had transformed his ancient ousy with which he regarded all encroach- and illustrious office into that of president ments upon legal freedom. In the less of the Queen's Bench Division. known case of Dawkins v. Lord Paulet, The question whether he was or was where the majority of the court decided, not a great judge will be answered differin accordance with previous authorities, ently, according to the view taken of the that not even the presence of malice and requirements of his post. That he was a the absence of reasonable cause can make great lawyer, in the technical sense in injurious statements in the report of a which Lord Wensleydale was and Lord superior military officer actionable at the Blackburn is so reputed, no one would suit of his inferior, the chief justice dis- think of asserting. It is probable, indeed, sented from his colleagues. "I cannot that few of his predecessors were as debring myself to think," he said, in the ficient in what may be called "blackcourse of a judgment of which the matter letter" knowledge as he was, when he and the style are equally characteristic, first mounted the bench. It may be "that it is essential to the well-being of doubted, however, whether, in his posiour military or naval force that where tion, this was a serious disadvantage; and authority is intentionally abused, for the it is certain that with him, as with Lord purpose of injustice or oppression; where Denman, against whom the same comcharges are preferred which, to the knowl-plaint used to be made, it was more than edge of the party preferring them, are counterbalanced by the possession of intentionally unjust; where representa- resources in which he had no rival among tions are made which the party making his colleagues. His voice and manner them knows to be slanderous and false, -the party injured, whose professional prospects may have been ruined, and whose professional reputation may have been blasted, is to be told that the queen's courts, in a country whose boast it is that there is no wrong without redress, are shut to his just complaint." In this passage, the attitude in which Sir A. Cockburn approached the decisions of inferior tribunals, which were constantly being brought before him for review, comes out with unmistakable clearness. That in this land of law and liberty there is no wrong without a remedy, and that no remedies, except or beyond those pre-clusion. Sir A. Cockburn's summingsscribed by law, are either necessary or allowable, was with him an article of faith. Such a belief, while it quickens the zeal for justice which is the best quality of a judge, tends to blind the eyes to the imperfections and abuses which arouse the energy of the reformer. In Sir A. Cockburn's case it did more, for it made him a

were as near perfection as such things well can be. His dignity was so impressive and his courtesy so winning, that the late Dr. Kenealy was probably almost the only man who ever ventured to be impertinent to him. His intellectual gifts were equally remarkable. We doubt whether he has ever been surpassed in that highest department of the art of advocacy, which consists in the telling of a complicated story with perfect lucidity, and without suppression, addition, or comment, and yet in such a way as to lead the mind of the hearer irresistibly, and as it were spontaneously, to the desired con

up were, for the most part, efforts of this kind. He held, and we think rightly, that it is the duty of the judge in charging the jury to do something more than chop up the evidence into small pieces, and cram it raw down their throats. It was, as a rule, not difficult to gather from his summingup which way he thought the verdict

ought to go. Accordingly, he was not unfrequently accused by stupid people of partiality, when he had in reality only done what every judge who is determined to prevent the defeat of justice is from time to time bound to do. There is no doubt that he was seen at his best when presiding over a criminal court or sitting at nisi prius. That he had a weakness for sensational cases must be acknowledged; but may not the same thing be said of the great Lord Mansfield, and of tant. They have never founded a State

being said just now in Germany, is not, we think, very hard to understand. The Jewish, like every other tolerably pure race, has its own distinctive quality, and that quality, which is substantially quickness of insight, or, to use a simpler phrase, intelligent keenness, happens, under the conditions of modern society, to be exceedingly valuable. There are many other qualities which the race has never displayed, and which are also very imporLord Campbell, and, indeed, of almost of any magnitude, though they have every judge whose position has allowed always been more numerous than the

him to gratify his tastes? In Banc he had the good or the bad fortune to sit for years side by side with the greatest living master of the common law. Of the judgments which are recorded in the reports of the Queen's Bench during the last twenty years, it is no disparagement to his memory to say that those of the chief justice will not be the most frequently cited. The elaborate learning with which his prepared decisions abound, has sometimes rather the air of having been got up for the occasion. But they display an intellectual grasp, a felicity of expression, a familiarity with other systems of law, and an insight into the principles of general jurisprudence, which are not too common in the English courts, and which will cause them to be remembered and admired by posterity.

The best tribute to the memory of the late chief justice is the feeling, which is, we believe, universal, both in the legal profession and in the country, that his loss has left a blank which cannot be supplied. His many-sided talents, his exuberant energy, and his brilliant career,

Romans who conquered the world, and now exceed in numbers any of the minor peoples of Europe. They have never made even an effort to become a nation, which, in recent times, at all events, would have been easy for them, on better soils than Palestine. With a momentary exception in Moorish Spain, they have never dominated any people, or conciliated any people, even in the East, where they have had fair chances; or founded any great city, or done anything, except in theology, of which history hitherto has found itself compelled to take great notice. It may hereafter be compelled to describe Lassalle and Marx, but the hour of triumph for their ideas, if it is ever to arrive, has not come yet. They have never since the Maccabees produced a great soldier, for Masséna was only second-rate, the Jewish chief of the staff on the Austrian side did not succeed at Sadowa, and we cannot yet credit them with a statesman of the first class. Lord Beaconsfield is hardly more than a great party leader in politics, though he has a certain genius for apprehending the pass

prolonged with unabated vigor and suc- ing waves of emotion in the British peocess through the lifetime of two genera- ple; Herr Lasker has never overthrown a tions, made him a unique figure among government, M. Crémieux proved a failour public men. His name was asso- ure at Bordeaux, M. Fould was only a ciated in the popular mind with a very clear-headed banker, Sir H. Drummond

definite and very interesting personality. The people knew him, understood him, and were proud of him; and though a fit successor to his vacant office may not be difficult to find, it will be long before the void which his death has caused will cease to be felt. He was a great judge, and an even greater power.

From The Spectator.

JEWISH SUCCESS AND FAILURE. THE success of the Jews in western and central Europe, of which so much is

Wolff has scarcely made a mark, and if M. Gambetta is, as the Jewish papers say, Hebrew by descent, he is at once the strongest representative of the race and the one whose blood is least pure. The Jews have never produced a very great engineer, and, curiously enough, have not risen to the front rank among the captains of industry. We can recall no man of the race, who, as inventor, is on a level with Arkwright; or, as manufacturer, with Titus Salt; or, as contractor, with Mr. Brassey; for Herr Strousberg, who in the range of his ideas was decidedly greater than any of the three, failed, being beaten, we have always thought, by quali