of shocks which they respectively impart to the
car and eye, have been strictly determined. The
number of waves of red light which enter the
eye in a single second is 474,439,680,000,000.
To produce the impression of red in the brain,
the retina must be hit at this almost incredible
rate.  To produce the impression of violet, a
still greater number of impulses is necessary,
amounting to six hundred and ninety-nine
millions of millions per second.

Thus a thing, an entity, several billions of
which can be contained within the point of a
needle, is able to give the cattle disease,
hydrophobia, or the plague; or to gratify you with
the perfume of a rose, the flavour of a peach,
the warmth of sunshine, the delights of music.
Are atoms, then, to be despised and disregarded,
being components of ourselves and of everything
around us?

Despised!   Their force is gigantic,irresistible
—rending iron, riving rocks, upheaving
mountains, and, if fully set in action, consuming
the world with fervent heat.

       INHUMANE HUMANITY.

WILL the Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals be good enough to look
after the Royal Inhumane Society?  I make
the request on behalf of the dogs, the cats, the
guinea-pigs, and the rabbits, who have a very
serious charge to bring against the society.
But, before stating the case of these much-
injured animals, I will allow the society the
privilege of saying everything that it can in its
own favour.

It claims to be born of respectable parents,
to have been repeatedly recommended by the
nobility and the clergy, and to be actuated by
the purest motives and the best intentions.  In
its ninety-first annual report of itself, the Royal
Inhumane Society states that no serious
investigation of the subject of suspended animation
took place until the middle ot the last century.
At that period, the penetrating genius of Dr.
J. Fothergill led him to perceive the fallacy
and dubiousness of the received criteria of
dissolution, and in a paper which he addressed to
the Royal Society, he maintained, as the result
of his inquiries, the possibility of saving many
lives without risking anything.  This theory
was subsequently put to the test of practice by
M. Reaumer. That gentleman, having succeeded
in several attempts at resuscitation in Switzerland
in the year 1767, transmitted reports of
his cases to the Academy of Sciences at Paris.
Soon after this, a society for the recovery of the
apparently drowned, was instituted at Amsterdam,
and, as if by a simultaneous movement,
several similar associations were formed in
different parts of Europe.  The Transactions of the
Dutch Society were translated into English in
1773, by Dr. Cogan, for the purpose of
convincing the people of this country—who were
rather slow to believe—of the practicability of
resuscitating persons apparently drowned.  The
work fell into the hands of Dr. Hawes, and that
gentleman, moved by its suggestions, formed
himself into a Humane Society.  With the
purpose of demonstrating the theory of the little
book with which he was so much taken, Dr.
Hawes publicly offered rewards to persons, who,
between London and Westminster Bridges,
should, within a certain period from the
occurrence of an accident, rescue the bodies of
drowned persons and bring them to places
appointed on shore.  At these places the good
doctor, at his own expense, made experiments
upon many bodies, and in several seemingly
hopeless cases succeeded in restoring animation.
During a whole year, Dr. Hawes gave
his services gratuitously, and paid all rewards
out of his own pocket.  At the end of that
time Dr. Cogan proposed a society, and forthwith
a society was formed.  It consisted at first
of thirty-two members, and one of those
members was no less a person than Oliver
Goldsmith.

There is magic in the very name.  We pause
here in our dry history to have a bright vision
of the big-hearted, tender-souled, gentle Oliver
rushing headlong into the scheme and subscribing
his last guinea on the spot.  How his face
would glow with enthusiasm!  The very
suggestion of such a heaven-born mission would
work a miracle upon his halting tongue, and let
it loose to the heart's true eloquence.  He had
the knowledge to understand as well as the
heart to feel for the sufferings of the  "poor
unfortunates,"  who rashly sought, or by some
mischance found, a cold meeting with death in
the waters of the Thames.  Perchance, during
his practice in Southwark, he had been called
in to some poor creature when it was too late;
or he might have been conscious of a life that
had slipped through his fingers for want of skill
on his part.  We may be sure it was from
the tenderest and most humane motives that
Oliver Goldsmith joined that society.  Could he
ever have dreamt, even in his surgical
philosophy, of the inhumanities which are now
practised in the name of humanity?

For two years after its formation the little
association did its work modestly, with little or
no assistance from the public; but at the end
of that time it began to have its secretary,
its president, its vice-president, its medical
officers, and all the "paraphernalia" of a
constituted public society.  Sermons were preached
on behalf of its funds, and one of the first divines
who advocated its claims was the notorious Dr.
Dodd.  Many bishops and dignitaries of the
Church have preached for it since then, and
many princes, dukes, and great lords have
presided at its annual festivals.  It is worthy of
notice that the era of dining on behalf of
public charities seems to have commenced about
the year 1820.  Previous to that date the main
lever was a sermon.

Now let us hear what the society has done
in all these ninety-one years.  It has saved and
restored thirty-five thousand lives.  A great and
blessed work, truly!  During the past year, two
hundred and thirty-two persons were rescued,
out of two hundred and forty who were immersed.