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quo' the miller, when he moutered twice" (i.e. twice took his customary payment); and again, "The miller mouters best wi' his ain hand"; while "to drown the miller "-a heinous sin in Scotland-implies putting too much water into a glass of spirits. "Every miller draws water to his own mill," points to his selfishness. The miller's wife partakes in her husband's failings. "Do," says another proverb, "as the miller's wife of Newlands did; she took what she had and she never wanted." She probably gossips a good deal, for "mealymou'd maidens stand long at the mill." Even the miller's dog is sharper than most of his kin, "the miller's dog licks his lips ere the pock be opened." It is worth remembering that "the lower millstone grinds as well as the upper." "To be trusted with a house full of unbored millstones," implies considerable distrust. Proverbial lore is much struck with the noise of a mill; "to be born in a mill ” is a synonym for being deaf; while "in vain doth the mill clack if the miller his hearing lack." It is not quite apparent to one who does not belong to the trade what can be the meaning of "The horse next the mill carries all the grist."

The windmill is on too exposed a situation to render it grateful to romance or sentiment. A tradition, indeed, at most mills tells of the adventurous person who for a wager undertook to clutch the mill-sails as they passed, and be swept round with them to alight safely whence he ascended, and of course a donkey was once killed by approaching them incautiously. Many a romantic story, on the contrary, attaches itself to the water-wheel, with its rushing pool below, the home of the big trout, and its deep dam above, where the finest perch may be taken. In one of these mill-pools St. Thomas of Canterbury was all but drowned by rashly leaping in to save the life of his favourite hawk; in another, a rusty bunch of keys was taken up in an eel-trap, and proved to have been flung in when the Abbey two fields above was dissolved. At a third, a burglar, trying to enter the mill when the wheel was stationary, accidentally caused it to revolve, and was taken off his treadmill in the morning half frozen by the constant stream which poured over him. Shakespeare speaks of two most prominent rural objects being "grange or mill," and the wandering angler rejoices at the appearance of the latter on his stream. At times, however, the miller can be provokingly illnatured to the fly-fisher when he has once passed the water-mill. A deluge of weeds comes down one day on the next, wisps of hay float onwards to entangle the flies; but the most aggravating of any miller's misdoings is when he lets off the water with a full head of bubbles, dead leaves, cabbage stumps, and the like one while, and after a little shuts his sluices again, and speedily leaves the wretched

angler nothing but wet gravel and a few rivulets in which to fish. A repetition of this manoeuvre at short intervals during the day is calculated to drive the completest angler frantic. It has been noticed, too, that the dog at a water-mill is invariably sulky, and makes himself, like his master, a nuisance to those he does not know, while what ought to be the peaceful precincts of golden flowered meadows are apt to be haunted by a wicked bull. On the whole, a water-mill is a place to be approached by strangers with becoming caution.

The melancholy Jaques must often have lingered by a mill. The monotony of its rushing streams and clacking wheel, the waters that help mankind to the staple of life one instant and the next are gone for ever, the persistent type of old-world engineering presented by the wheel, never improved, and seemingly incapable of improvement-these are but a tithe of the fancies which the moralist finds in it. The revolutions of the great wheel are regular as the seconds of time. Ariel, it will be recollected, when pinned into his pine, groaned "as fast as mill-wheels strike." The loneliness and yet the activity of the miller's occupation, type many of the employments of country life. Beside the mill-wheel and race the muscologist is always sure to find uncommon mosses. The naturalist is better pleased than the miller to see the water-rat sitting on the bank and nibbling arrowhead leaves. Indeed, this creature, so often confounded with the destructive grey rat, is one of the miller's greatest enemies. It not only attacks his peas and other vegetables in the garden, but, far worse, runs its holes under the banks which restrain the water, and lets it out over the meadows. For all these reasons the water-mill is a perpetual delight to every lover of rustic beauty, and is itself the cynosure of neighbouring shades and streams. Farms dot the glades around it, and there is sure to be a small village at no great distance. But the busy world knows nothing and recks less of its existence, although over the rush of waters on a summer evening may be heard the distant roar of the express train. Could there be a greater contrast than the two? And the latter speedily calls us back from rural studies and the leisure of the fields to the busy life of the nineteenth century, from reminiscence to reality, from dreams to work. Like Antæus, to touch mother earth and view the kindly joys of the country is ever to brace up the energies and acquire renewed strength for the conflict. Men rush to the Alps and gaze at the ends of the earth, while beauty, peace, and romance may be found in every valley of their own country. A mill is a humble object, but in its small way it can charm the poet, the philosopher, and the moralist.

M. G. WATKINS.

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KNIGHT. Through the study of the bodily differences between men and women, we arrive at a clearer knowledge of their intellectual disparities. Since these differences involve every tissue and every organ, not excepting, as I shall show you, the brain, they may be said to be at once universal and fundamental. My contention is that such intimate sexual differences cannot be disregarded with impunity, but ought rather, in every walk in life, to be fully recognised, and more particularly and imperatively in the education of girls. Yet, in high schools for girls, there is a growing tendency to ignore sexual distinctions, an anxiety to imitate the methods of boys' schools, and an ambition to rival their results, all of which express themselves in a mental over-pressure, productive of much evil. In a school with which I am acquainted, two-thirds of the girls complained, upon inquiry, of occasional, frequent, or almost constant headache, the majority having to work at their lessons as late as 10 or 11 P.M.

LADY DOCTOR. There can be no doubt that the over-pressure of which you speak exists, but I cannot admit that it is the cause of headache. Crowded rooms and bad ventilation are to blame for that.

KNIGHT. In our profession, madam, we are familiar with that line of argument; it was the lobster salad that did it. In the school of which I speak, the rooms are spacious, airy, and well ventilated. The main defect of the high school system is that preparation, the hardest part of the girls' work, involving unaided effort in opening up new ground, in surmounting obstacles, and in making an advance upon what has been previously learned, has to be done in the evening when their brains are worn out and least capable of exertion.

LADY DOCTOR. I quite agree with you that evening work at home is an evil, and that mothers do not, and very often cannot, prevent their girls from working later at preparation than is wholesome. It is certainly one of the defects of the day-school system, that the girls escape a certain amount of discipline by the division of authority between the mothers and the mistresses.

KNIGHT. So far, then, we are at one. It is a remarkable fact that during the school age, girls are attacked in much larger proportion than boys by disorders which, at all other ages, are far more prevalent among the male than among the female sex. Especially is this the case with nervous disease, the most frequent cause of which, undoubtedly, is mental over-pressure.

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MEDICAL LADY. Is it not a fact that functional nervous disease is on the decrease among educated women, and that the "vapours' of our grandmothers have disappeared?

KNIGHT. It is not a fact, madam, that nervous disease is on the decrease among women, but the contrary; and the "vapours" of our grandmothers still haunt our households under new names and fashionable disguises. But I wish to offer you some anatomical evidence of my assertion that, as regards the brain, there are certain physical differences between the sexes; that there is, in short, a female type and a male type of brain; and that these types are sufficiently distinct to warrant the conclusion that both may not be equally fitted for the same kind, or for the same amount, of work. The first, though by no means the most important difference, is that of weight. Among the most varied races, both savage and civilised, it has been found that the male is heavier than the female brain. To put this matter of general observation upon a firm basis, I have examined and weighed the brains of one thousand six hundred male and female lunatics, dying at ages ranging from ten to eighty years, and have found the average weight of the male to exceed the average weight of the female brain by four and a half ounces.

SURGEON. Of course you are aware that there is a relation between the stature of the body and the weight of the brain, and that men, being taller, naturally have heavier brains than women.

KNIGHT. Very true, sir, and bearing that fact in mind, I have made a correction for the difference between the average heights in the sexes. The average height of males in this country being five feet seven inches, while that of females is five feet two inches, the average difference is evidently five inches. On correcting the absolute difference in brain weight by these figures, I find that there remains a relative difference of one ounce in favour of the male.

MEDICAL LADY. But it may be argued with reason, that the deviations from the normal brain are so marked among lunatics that the deductions drawn from experimental observation of such brains can scarcely be applied to the normally healthy population.

KNIGHT (blandly). You seem to suggest, madam, that it is the big-headed men and the small-headed women that are liable to insanity. The theory is, at least, ingenious. Without pausing to examine it, I may say that observations upon lunatics tend to strengthen my case, and not to weaken it, because, as every tyro knows, men are more liable than women to diseases of the brain which involve loss of substance, and, therefore, diminution in weight.

LADY DOCTOR. Assuming that men's brains are heavier than women's, I should say that this arises from the fact that men have had a better school education than women, and that, in addition, they have had the education of responsible work and independent life.

KNIGHT. I have already said that the same difference in brain weight has been observed among savage races. I may add that my cases were drawn mainly from the labouring and artisan classes of the West Riding of Yorkshire, among whom there is no great difference in the education of boys and girls.

SURGEON. Permit me, sir, to point out an error into which you have fallen. In order to correct your observations upon the brain weights of lunatics you have taken the average stature of healthy people.

KNIGHT. Your view is, apparently, that lunatics are constructed upon a different scale from that of the general population from which they are drawn ; no doubt you have some ground for such an opinion.

SURGEON. Very good ground indeed, for I have myself measured 341 male and 51 female lunatics, and have found the average height of the males to be 5 feet 5 inches, and that of the females to be 5 feet 1 inches. So that the average difference is four, not five, inches, as you assume.

KNIGHT (repressing a smile). I shall be glad to know what inference you draw, unfavourable to my argument, from your measure

ments.

SURGEON (busily figuring out decimals in a large note-book). As soon as I have finished the necessary calculations, which are rather intricate, I shall give you my answer.

KNIGHT. In the meantime, I go on to say that there are other VOL. CCXXIV. NO. 1945.

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