Thus a cast-iron code, imposing for each year of age a definite standard of acquirement, heedless of the varying capacities of children, could not fail to produce it. A disregard of physical conditions underlying mental evolution, and of critical epochs of development (especially in the female sex), affecting capacity for exertion, is another efficient cause, and the undue excitation of the unstable nerve cells of a child of neurotic heredity, to such a pitch of activity as might be harmless in a normal child, will, in the case of the former, be apt to constitute overstrain. Overpressure, indeed, is not an absolute quantity, but has to be estimated in relation to the personal factor in each case. It may, therefore, be defined in terms of educational work as that amount which in a given case is likely to produce excessive strain of the physical or mental system, or both. . . . It has been well remarked that puberty with girls is a period of profound nervous and neuro-psychological import. . . . Many a weak woman could, if she only knew, trace back her weakness to an overstrain at this period of life. There is too often a tendency to subject to serious and exhausting study girls of from twelve to fifteen years of age just at the epoch when they should have the minimum of schoolroom work and the maximum of outdoor exercise and recreation. . . . In these three points, then—(1) excessive hours of study, especially during spurts of growth and development, (2) deficiency of systematic outdoor exercise and recreation, and (3) disregard of physiological functions differentiating the capacity for work at certain times of girls as compared with boys—I think the high-school system needs amendment."
Effects of Labor Legislation.—The significance and tendencies of labor legislation are well summed up by Mr. S. N. D. North in his essay on Factory Legislation in New England, when he says that the whole subject has, in recent years, "shown the unhappy signs of a degeneration into a mere trial of strength between the employing classes and the organized trades-unionism of the operative classes. It has become the popular method of exploiting the assumed antagonism between capital and labor"; and the one certain result of the system as now pursued must necessarily be a constant increase in the intensity of that antagonism. There are also other dangers in such legislation, which the author only refers to. "The public at large has no apprehension of the present tendencies of this legislation. The lawmakers who pass these laws seem to have no well formed conception of their true scope, function, effects, and limitations. There is apparent no realization anywhere of the fact that they have profoundly modified not only the conditions of manufacturing, but the whole relationship between the State and the citizen engaged in business under its laws. There is underlying them a new doctrine of paternalism more extreme and more excessive than has shown itself in any other phase of democratic government; and the ultimate consequences of its indefinite development are beyond the reach of human ken." A. West Virginia court has described them as laws which "assume that every employer is a knave and every employed man an imbecile. . . . There has never been any intelligent and comprehensive study by or in behalf of the State into the practical and economic effects of these laws; and there exists no exact knowledge on the part of those who make them whether they have not already been carried so far as to defeat the objects they are intended to promote."
The Plague of the Mongoose.—The mongoose (Herpestes ichneumon) was introduced into the West Indies several years ago as a remedy against the gray rats. It made way with the rats, partly, but not entirely, and still keeps them from multiplying, but has itself become a greater pest. It has nearly exterminated poultry and birds from the islands, is very destructive of turtles' eggs, and is a terror to young pigs, lambs, and kids; it devours all sorts of fruits, sugar cane, fish, wild game, lizards, snakes, crabs, and even extends its depredations to the provisions in the house. One or two species which the farmers valued as vermin-killers have been exterminated by them; consequently ticks are flourishing and increasing fast. The mongooses are exceedingly prolific, bringing forth five or six young at a litter—sometimes ten or twelve—and six or eight litters a year. They live in the hol-
