Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/24

14 other are characterized by a spirit of thrift and a desire for equitable and low taxes.

Such, then, is the situation which confronts any one who proposes to discuss broadly the great subject of taxation with a view of effecting reforms in the existing system. It exacts, on the part of him that is to attempt it with any prospect of success, a familiarity with theory, not merely gained from the study of books, but theory based on extensive practical administration. It requires, on the part of both the teacher and the taught, what Herbert Spencer has declared to be the conditions of success in all departments of scientific research, namely, "an honest receptivity and willingness to abandon all preconceived notions, however cherished, if they be found to contradict the truth."



N the rocks near Mentone that go by the name of Les Rochers Rouges there was discovered, on the 12th of January, 1894, another human skeleton. It is that of a man about six feet two inches in height, but, owing to the head having been crushed, accurate measurement is difficult. M. Adolphe Mégret, however, has calculated the height of the living man to have been 1·984 metre. This he does by multiplying the length of the phalangine of the medial finger, 0·031 metre, by 64, a method that in every case proves successful. The first account of this find, in the local Anglo-American, mentioned two skeletons, and in spite of it being now affirmed that only one was discovered, we rather suspect that there was truth in the first statement, especially as the leg bones of another are admitted to have been found beside it; and all the more, knowing as we do how the skeleton of 1872 was accompanied by two others, the existence of which was kept a secret, as they were too imperfect for the scientific discoverer to describe conscientiously at the time. This skeleton of 1894, as we must hereafter call it, lay on its back, inclining to the left side, the body slightly bent, the legs stretched and crossed below the knee, the right arm bent and with the hand lying open over the left breast,