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Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 324, 27 January 1902, Page 1

With a wave of the hand, the St. Louis Post Dispatch dismisses science and leaves everything to conscience. It says : “ One scientist tells us that bovine tuberculosis can be communicated to the human family ; another scientist says it can’t. One man of science says man’s legs are growing shorter ; another says they are growing longer. One star-gazer says gravitation is attraction ; another says it is pressure. One is sure man descended from the monkey ; another is sure he didn’t ; while still another knows that the monkey, is a degenerate man. In this babel of conflicting certainties

how is the man on the street, the average man, to ' know where he is at ’ ? As between two certainties, gnashing their teeth at one another,

how is the casual freeman to vindicate his omnipotence at the ballot-box ? On one side of the polling-booth, a ipectacled professor tells him 1 it is’ ; on the other stands a budget of learning with goggles ecpially impressive, who says ‘ it isn’t.’ What is the poor man to do ? Men, for many ages to come, will grope their way toward perfection through the darkness of

ignorance, the mists of speculation and the twilight of opinion. They will listen to the still small voice and do what is right as they see it, praying that they may not always see as through a glass darkly. Conscience, not science, is the best and safest guide. Noble as it is, in its best estate, science is only the handmaid of conscience, and will do its best service to mankind in that humble office.”

An idea of the size of trees in the

Philippines is obtainable from the dimensions of Governor Taft’s round table, the top of which is a solid section of a native tree eight feet in diameter. Throughout the islands one frequently sees in the better class of houses dining tables that are seven, eight, and nine feet wide, the tops in every case being made of a single section. These are not so large as the Southern California table tops, but they will do. Lord Rosebery possesses the costliest collection of snuff boxes in the world. Many of them are of solid gold, and some are set with brilliants. A curiously-inlaid enamel snuff box was at one time the property of Napoleon Bonaparte. A small black box, studded with three diamonds, belonged to the statesman Pitt, while another, plainly inlaid with fine gold, was used by Fox. Although ihe collection comprises only twenty-two boxes altogether, its estimated value is 135,000.