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368 public storehouses, but these storehouses were not to contain wheat, but microbes. In time of war sundry air-tight vessels containing a carefully selected assortment of the most deadly microbes known to the faculty were to be conveyed in balloons to the neighbourhood of the enemy; when they were to be scattered broadcast over every encampment, with the result that within a week every soldier in the hostile army would be either dead or dying. For this purpose he strongly advocated that special attention should be paid to the cultivation of the cholera germ, that particular microbe being able to do more incurable mischief in a given time than any of his destructive species. Though the United States Government persistently turned a deaf ear to the voice of this charmer, Doctor Cantle still hopes that in a more enlightened age his great invention may be appreciated at its true worth. He has actually gone so far as to obtain a patent for the receptacles for his death-dealers. These to the ordinary observer look exactly like the hand-grenades for extinguishing fire one sees in most hotels; but Doctor Cantle, by some peculiar process of his own, has rendered them absolutely air-tight—a most necessary precaution, as an aperture a thousand times smaller than a pin’s head would be quite sufficient to let loose enough of the contents of his flagons to exterminate ten generations of war cranks. If it were

not that the war crank seldom troubles his head about mere facts, it might have occurred to the scientist that microbes are no respecters of persons, and the flagons would be as fatal to friends as to foes.