LEONARD SCOTT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 1104 WALNUT STREET. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY. By some unaccountable means there has been handed from generation to generation two very erroneous ideas concerning castile soap. One error is that the materials of which it is composed are invariably of the best; the other, that it is beneficial to the skin, and consequently desirable for the toilet. These two errors have so taken hold of the popular mind that it is customary to provide a piece of "white castile soap" to wash the new-born infant, and this is usually done by the advice or sanction of the family physician, who, has imbibed the prejudice from his preceptor, and recommends it as a matter of course, without using his own judgment. It is, now, however, becoming a doubt among physicians and nurses as to whether the favourable opinion about castile soap is not entirely at variance with the true facts of the case, and it is a settled opinion with some that castile soap is really responsible for many skin diseases that are prevalent even among persons whose occupation should cause them to be free from such unwelcome and annoying complaints; ministers and lawyers, bankers and artists, and men and women whose occupations (or want of any occupation) would seem to preclude almost any possibility of such ungenteel diseases as salt-rheum, tetter, etc., still in spite of their apparent exemption from exposure are as likely as any, not only to have these or worse skin troubles, but to suffer with them for years. Infants, even the children of the wealthy, surrounded by all that money can provide, are seen afflicted with eruptions and sores, or rendered hideous by ugly scabs, that seemingly cannot be either accounted for or relieved. We advise the blame to be put in such cases to their favorite soap, where it usually properly belongs, for in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, skin diseases will be found to arise solely from soap, and no matter how highly any particular kind of soap is regarded, a person with a skin trouble should at once make a change. It is really very doubtful if any vegetable oil is adapted for a soap intended for the skin, even if the oil is fresh and sweet, but there is very little doubt that even the very best brands of white castile soap are made from rancid olive oil, which being of too poor quality for table use is used for making soap. The best imported castile soap costs the importers only from 10 to 12 cents a pound. all over that paid by the public being profit to the importer and retailer; and pure sweet olive oil brings too much to enable it to be made into castile soap and sold at any such price. We trust this article will induce physicians to give this subject the consideration that it deserves, and we feel confident that the result will amply repay them for their trouble. I.-I. A History of London. By W. J..Loftie. 2nd edition. 2. Municipal London. By Joseph F. B. Firth, London, 3. L'Organisation Municipale de Paris et de Londres. 4. A Bill for the Better Government of London and and others. London, 1884. Harcourt II.-I. Histoire de la Littérature Contemporaine en Espagne. 2. Memorias de un Setenton. Las Escenas Matritenses. manos. 3. Obras Completas. Mariano José de Larra (Figaro). 4. Obras Poéticas. José Zorrilla. Paris, 1852. Segunda 7. Pepita Jimenez. Las Illusiones del Dr. Faustino. Page I y 40 III. 2. The Manual of the Statistics of Railroads, &c. New 1. Poor's Manual of the Railroads of the United States, 79 IV. Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia: A Study of 1884 105 ART. V. I. The Expansion of England. By Professor Seeley. 2. Balance Sheet of the World, 1870-1880. By Michael London. 3. Burke's Select Works. Edited, with Introduction 4. Article on Federation. By H. G. Parsons in the 5. Further Correspondence concerning New Guinea. 6. Correspondence respecting Affairs of Basutoland. VI.-I. Lycidas. By John Milton. 1637. 2. Adonais. By Percy Bysshe Shelley. 1821. Page 134 162 VII.-I. The Parthenon; an Essay on the Mode by which 2. The Temple of Diana at Ephesus, with special re- 3. The Cambridge Chronicle and University Journal, VIII.--1. Report of the Royal Commission appointed Decem- 2. Papers relating to the proposed Change in the form Correspondence respecting the Commercial Conven- And other Works IX.-Return of Electoral Statistics in County and Borough X.-I. Parliamentary Papers, Egypt; No. 23, 1884. 2. Debates and Questions in the House of Commons on 184 212 229 267 t ART. I.-1. A History of London. By W. J. Loftie. 2d edition. 2 vols. London, 1884. 2. Municipal London. By Joseph F. B. Firth. 3. L'Organisation Municipale de Paris et de Yves Guyot. Paris, 1883. London, 1876. Par 4. A Bill for the Better Government of London and other purposes connected therewith. Prepared and brought in by Secretary Sir William Harcourt and others. London, 1884. IT un T might seem, for more reasons than one, and to others besides merely fanciful persons, that the time for writing a comprehensive and yet not unwieldy history of London had come within the last year or two. Ever since the accession to power of the present Government, changes in the municipal constitution of London have been imminent; and for many years before 1880 changes in the outward and visible form of the City and its suburbs have been going on at a rate and in a manner known to any former generation, except those distant generations which have witnessed the rare and secular phenomena of siege, fire, and plague. At all times, for more centuries than can be counted with any exactness, London has expanded itself with more or less energy: and especially for the last century and a half or two centuries the process has gone on of turning adjacent villages into suburbs, of filling up the deltas between the great roads leading to the country, of substituting many small houses for a few great ones, of straightening streets and limiting open spaces. But, until a period within the memory of all Londoners who have reached middle life, this process went on with a certain slowness and without any sweeping or destructive changes. The London of thirty years ago was far larger, far more populous, than the London of sixty years ago; the London of sixty years ago than the London of a hundred and twenty. But in each case the later London would have been Vol. 158.-No. 315. B |