Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 61, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 April 1907 — PAPERS BY THE PEOPLE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PAPERS BY THE PEOPLE

ELECTRIFICATION OF STEAM RAILWAYS. f —7• By Blon F. Arnold.

Previous to 1904 the officials of the steam railways of the country had paid but little attention to the subject of electricity, but were beginning to realize the jnroads that were being made jupon their local traffic by the interurban roads. This caused the more progressive ones among them to begin carefully to investigate the claims of the advantages of electric traction, with tho result that al LhqL

time there either were eoutemplated, or well under way, a number of important electric installations, which could be credited to the favorable decisions of steam railway officials. The Pennsylvania railroad system, in addition to the electrification of its great terminal system in the vicinity of New York, gradually is electrifying the Long Island Railroad system, which so effectually gridirons the island lying east-of Manhattan isiand, and known as Long Island. The New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad company also is going to great expense in the electrification of its line from New York City to Stamford. Conn., a distance of thirty-one miles, with probability of ual extension of electric traction over its system. These few examples, together with the electrical operation of the great Simplon tunnel, by, means of which the “traveler will be carried from Switzerland into Italy without the annoyance due to the obnoxious gases emitted from the sfeaiajpcomotlve, I believe are sufficiently“impressive to emphasize the correctness of the lines of development outlined by me iu 1004, involving, as they do, an expenditure of approximately .$100,000,000 for electrical equipment, and a collateral investment of some $300,000,000 more.

MEDICINE HAS MADE GREAT STRIDES. By Dr. W. 'H. Welch.

I wish to emphasize the mutual helpfulness of the various medical sciences in the development of medical knowledge and practice. Consider, for example, the indispensable share of embryology, of anatomy, gross and microscopic, of physiology, of pathological anatomy, of clinical study, in the evolution of our knowledge of the latest contribution to diseases of the circulatory system—that disturbance of the

cardiac rhythyi called ‘heart block.” Similar illustrations of the unity of the medical sciences and of the co-opera-tion of the laboratory and the clinic might be multiplied indefinitely from of disease. Great as has been the advance of medicine in the last half century, it is small, indeed, in comparison with what remains to be accomplished. On every hand there are still unsolved problems of disease of overshadowing importance. The ultimate problems relate to the nature and fundamental properties of living matter, and the power to modify these properties in desired directions. Knowledge breeds new knowledge, and we cannot doubt that research will be even more productivt in the future than it has been iu the past. It would be hazardous in

the extreme to attempt to predict the particular direction of future discovery. How unpredictable, even to the most farsighted of a past generation, would have been such discoveries as the principles of antiseptic surgery, antitoxins, bacterial vaccines, opsonins, the extermination of yellow fever by destruction of a particular species of mosquito, and many other recent contributions to medical knowledge. LIFE IS STILL ROMANTIC. By Helen Oldfield.

This century to be, and is, intensely practical. The struggle for life is strenuous, and many are forced to “cut their hard paths stralghtly by Poor Richards eloquence.” On the other hand, we are continually told that modern society has no earnestness, no depth, little or ncrsiucciity, and, worst of all, no high moral standard. Fashion and pleasure and.ft sham love are the amusements of the hour. To

outshine each other tit-dress; in engagements, in admirers is apparently the whole duty of young women in the “classes.” There can be no love without romance. Take that away and. poetry vanishes; even as war without romance is merely licensed slaughter, so love, bereft of its sentiment, is but an affair of sale and barter. It is hbve, romantic love, which makes of marriage the most sacred and beautiful of ties; that sweet passion which South lias called “the great instrument of nature, the bond and cement of society, the spirit ayd spring of the universe,’ which, wisely controlled and rightly bestowed, warms, elevates and brightens life. But it should not be lightly given nor heedlessly accepted. The heart should carefully discriminate between true love and its many spurious imitations; with its sacred aureole of glory no unworthy object should be crowned, neither should it be allowed to dominate reason and judgment. Romantic love 1s by no means one and the same with blind, unreasoning passion. —”

TRIAL MARRIAGES WOULD BE MONSTROUS. By Rev. Dr. Frank Crane.

The modern novel attack upon the family is nothing but another foi'm of the Avorld old complaint against human destiny. Mrs. Parsons suggests trial marriages. The scheme of trial marriages is, of course, simply monstrous. To cure a slight evil it would open the door to a most certain and positive crime. It would put a premium upon the wicked propensities of men. When a man and woman

marry it is right that it should he under the promise of “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, till death do us part.” It is this feeling of finality in the act of marriage that brings out the good in both parties. For few marriages fail which would not have succeeded had there been unswerving loyalty to the spirit of the marriage vows. Men and women are so constituted that, other things being reasonably equal, and there being no intolerable and inanifest incongruity, their living together in loyalty induces love more and more.