Winged Death.
The report of the medical commission
Eont to investigate tlio coiiditiou of the
largo southern camps and the causoe re
sponsible for the virulent cpidomio of
typhoid fever , which has slain mort
than Mauser bullets during the war , is
of great interest. The substance of the
revelation involves nothing now , but it
illustrates what had been recognized in
n vague fashion with a startling vigor
and gives awful importance to what
medical eciouco had before passed an a
minor fact. That fact is the possible
connection between flies and the trans
mission of typhoid and other dangerous
forms of disease of an infectious or con
tagious nature. The conditions involved
are best shown in the investigation of
Camp Thomas.
In the first place , it is to bo remem
bered that the natural surroundings of
this camping ground aru of the most
favorable character water , air , drainage
ago and lay of the land. Nature picked
out this place for such a use. Yet , being
tbe most populous of the organization
camps , it has bocu the most fatal center
of feverpestilence. / . The conditions
which inevitably accompany the con
centration of many thousands of men
unless under the most rigid control oi
discipline and good management speedi
ly began to prevail. The arrangement
of the sinks , among other things , seems
to have been one of the worst features
amid much crass organization of detail
The excremental filth lay exposed to
the attention of the millions of flies ,
which began to swarm with the onset
of warm weather , and this innumerable
progeny of Beelzebub flew freely every
where sleeping quarters , cookhouses
and mess tents. Specially as the rains
set in , driving the creatures to every
possible indoor shelter , the very teu
walls were fly specked into a mourning
hue No guardianship of the hospitals
was able to exclude them. The first
cases of typhoid fever were without
question imported from the state camps
But badly ordered swarms of men at
Ghickamauga , so far as camp arrange
ments wore concerned , and swarms of
flies by the million soon multiplied the
few cases into the many , the sporadic
into the epidemic. Men were prostrated
by whole messes and tents full. The
winged messengers of death held high
carnival , and ho stalked through a lush
harvest.
The matter takes a grave general in
terest at once aside from the problem
involved on its array side. If flies have
the facility of transmitting disease in
one case , why should they not in many
others. It may bo said that the danger
is not in a few flies , but in their mil
lions , under the peculiar conditions of a
badly arranged camp. There have been
swarms of flies at the Jacksonville
camp , too , but the sickness there was
small The sinks wore covered , directly
connected with the town eewurs , and
those were flushed every day. But , ad
mitting that the most deadly circum
stances under which the fly becomes a
certain carrier of disease do not exist in
ordinary civil life , the sharply accentu
ated thought is that the ordinary house
fly has this power to some degree under
all conditions His hairy little feet
easily boar away some particle of all
the filth and contamination on which
ho feeds in his uncertain journeys. Dis
ease either of the infectious or contagi
ous sort may bo carried about as the
bee carries the pollen of flowers in his
flight The startling fashion in which
the possibilities of the fly are thus made
emphatic invests this winged nuisance
with a sense of terror as well as of an
uoyauco and disgust Dr. Koch declares
that the mosquito carries with him in
his attacks on man the germs of ma
laria. But the fly in his devious wan
derings may bo the vehicle of a score of
terrible diseases.
The ineptitude of the Spanish race in
the practical work of business and sci
entific industry is ouo of the causes of
their lagging pace in the march of his
tory The records of their mining oper
ations in all their rich colonies , famous
for their mineral wealth , show how little -
tlo they were able to got from them
They simply robbed what others had
taken The report that Spain is about
ro offer a further mortgage on the Ala
meda quicksilver mines as security for
another loan from the Rothschilds calls
to mind a story from Buo'.de's"Historj
of Civilization. " About the early mid
die of this century the government wafc
alarmed at the decrease of the quicksil
ver output. Foreign mining experts
wore imported to discover the cause
They promptly perceived that the veins
ran obliquely , while the shafts ran per
pendicularly It was simply a question
of following the veins with oblique
shafts But the Spanish miners refused ,
because their ancestors had always doni
things the old way So other minort
had to bo brought from Germany. What
n vivid illustration of national char
uoter !
The Chinese Kaleidoscope.
Little less than a month since the
world was interested in straugo news
from China. The young emperor had
issued a series of decrees inaugurating
remarkable reforms in the civic , admin
istrative and educational policy of the
middle kingdom , which had been crys
tallized by the habits of thousands of
years. These changes wore of a sort to
bo farreachiug and down reaching ,
with promise to attack some of the
worst evils of that strange oriental so
ciety at their very roots. This assurance
was quickly followed by the equally as
tonishing uews that the empire had
been deposed from power by the empress
dowager ; that the imperial edicts of
reform had boon recalled , and thut Li ,
dismissed from tha primacy in the
tsuug-li-yamen , because once an advo
cate of reform , had become a reaction
ist , and that the representative of Rus
sian influence had been reinstated.
That this palace revolution was em
inently in consonance with the wishes
of the great mass of mandarin officials ,
who naturally feared the destruction of
their own corrupt power , is likely
enough. But it appears to be believed
in European diplomatic circles that it
never would have been achieved so
promptly without the backing if not
the direct inspiration of Russia. The
other European nations , England in
particular , having secured their spheres
of influence , are more immediately in
terested in the growth and progress of
the Chinese people than in their con
tinued immobility. The advance of
Chinese society in the arts of modern
civilization and good government is
tantamount to the vast extension of her
market for the goods of the west. The
Chinaward ambition of the leading
manufacturing countries is commercial
and not political. The conviction of
Russia's rivals io that this great power
contiguous iu territory to China is po
litical as well as commercial in its
aims. Oiily the complete possession of
Manchuria will perfect that great Si
berian zone across the Asiatic continent
to the Pacific. Russia has been moving
toward it for a half century with the
slow and implacable force of a glacier.
Anything tending to awaken Chinese
nationality and public spirit through
the agency of reform would interfere
with this astute plan toward which St.
Petersburg intrigue recently made a
long stride. Therefore it is concluded ,
with some show of logic , Russian advice
had much to do with the revolution ,
which killed proposed reform a.1-its very
inception.
However farfetched this reasoning , it
is not without a semblance of truth. It
is perfectly justified by all the prece
dents of Russian diplomacy , which has
ever been more potent in winning its
way than Russian arms. The end in
view is consistent with Russian inter
ests. The late developments show that
England can act with Franco and Ger
many in the Cbineso question without
any serious clashing. But with Russia
there is a radical cleavage of interests ,
a difference of aims and ideals , which
breeds perpetual antagonism. That an
tagonism on Chinese soil will probably
evolve a remarkable political drama before -
fore the twentieth century will have
scored many years.
Commercial colleges , though some
times sneered at by the fanatical admir
ers of the higher education , play a very
important part in the evolution of our
progress. They provide the elements of
a respectable education in the English
branches with special reference to the
pursuits of trade. In many of them
French , Spanish and Gorman are taught
as features of the complete course.
There is a class of schools , however , in