Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/584

568 right with employers to "determine" of men who are ready to destroy the establishment if it does not discharge its most faithful hands or overlook the transgressions of its unfaithful ones at their bid, will have to stand in the background till workmen have learned the duties they owe to one another and to society.

The "Profits" of Silk-Culture.—We published an article, last month, entitled "An Experiment in Silk-Culture," in which the writer made it very apparent that the business in this country, even when conducted with the most painstaking care, is likely to prove anything but a paying venture. Here is more testimony to the same effect, from a correspondent of the "Chicago Inter-Ocean": "Had I a pen of fire, and the sky for a scroll, and could I fly on the wings of the wind, I would at once start on my 'mission of mercy,' and, soaring through space from our blue Susquehanna to the mighty Pacific, I would inscribe in my flight in burning letters across our land, 'Let silk-culture most severely alone!' I know whereof I speak. I tried it to perfection under the most auspicious and exceptionally favorable circumstances—with every means and appliance at hand for 'clearing' two hundred dollars in the six weeks required to attend to the 'crop.' Within thirty miles of a market for the cocoons, with every surrounding the most encouraging, my hopes were high—but it was all a dead loss of time and money and work. It all ended in just forty-five cents worth of cocoons! I know how plausible it looks and reads. I know the inducements held out by silk-culture associations. I know, too, that the whole thing is as empty as a last year's bird-nest, and I, who have been so severely 'burned,' would fain caution others about going near the fire." The "Boston Herald" takes the same view, and is equally emphatic. It says: "The pleasant romance about the money made by girls throughout the country in raising silk comes to us every spring in an Associated Press dispatch, stating that the Agricultural Department is distributing silk-worm eggs to sanguine and enthusiastic applicants. When these worms are taught to look after their own sanitary arrangements, and, like the industrious ant, to garner food for their ravenous appetites, then the question of giving them the use rent free of some deserted shed or barn, in the hopes of getting a slight return for such worthless real estate, may be considered. Until the habits of these helpless and hungry paupers are improved, however, we advise all those who place the slightest value on their time and patience to shun the industry (an industry it is, with a vengeance!) as they would the advice of a quack advertisement. A few eggs will give one an entertaining and instructive lesson in natural history; an ounce of eggs will lead to trouble and vexation of spirit, an exasperating expenditure of time and patience, and absolutely no return, even for the rent of a wood-shed."

Parsee Children.—According to a writer in the "Westminster Review," when a child is born in a Parsee family, the exact time of its appearance is recorded, to a second. On the sixth night of its life, paper, pen, and ink, with some red powder and a cocoanut, are placed at the bedside of the child, so that "the goddess who presides over the infant" may record its destiny. In a few days an astrologer—it does not particularly matter of what religion he may be—is called in to cast the babe's nativity from the carefully recorded date of its birth. By the light of this sort of horoscope, he announces the names from which a choice may be made for the child, according to their affinity with the stars that were in the ascendant at the time of its birth. The Parsees having no fixed surnames, the son adds the name thus given him to the name which was similarly given to his father, dropping the grandfather's name which the father had assumed. If he be named Ardeshir and his father was named Framji, he becomes Ardeshir Framji. If his child, again, be named Pestanji, he is distinguished as Pestanji Ardeshir, and his son, in the following generation, might be Jehangir Pestanji. The Parsees possess in all about forty-nine names of Persian and twenty of Hindoo origin; hence there are always many persons bearing identical names. Further to distinguish between them, it has become customary to take as an atak, or distinguishing suffix, the name of a man's calling. So we may have Manakji Kavasji