Page ix INTRODUCTION THE ABC OF IRON AND STEEL In spite of all that has been written about iron and steel there are many hazy notions in the minds of many mechanics regarding them. It is not always clear as to just what makes the difference between iron and steel. We know that high-carbon steel makes a better cutting tool than low-carbon steel. And yet carbon alone does not make all the difference because we know that cast iron has more carbon... more...

CHAPTER I The Elephant Herd a Republic An elephant herd is a kind of republic, something like the United States of America, only much smaller and much simpler. So its leader is a sort of president. He is usually the wisest elephant in the herd. You may like to know how the elephants choose their president. I shall tell you how they do that. But you must first consider how the people of the United States choose their President. They find out... more...

PREFACE One of the great thinkers of the world has said that all the sciences are embodied in natural history. Hence natural history should be taught to a child from an early age. Perhaps the best method of teaching it is to set forth the characteristics of animals in the form of a narrative. Then the child reads the narrative with pleasure and almost as a story, not as a tedious "lesson." I have followed that method in the Wonders of the... more...

CHAPTER I. STATE OF WOMEN AMONG THE ARABS OF THE JAHILIYEH, OR THE "TIMES OF THE IGNORANCE." In that eloquent Sura of the Koran, called Ettekwir, (lxxxi.) it is said, "When the girl buried alive shall be asked for what sin she was slain." The passage no doubt refers to the cruel practice which still in Mohammed's time lingered among the tribe of Temîm, and which was afterwards eradicated by the influence of Islam. The origin of this... more...

CHAPTER I THE TIMES AND THE MEN There was rejoicing throughout the Thirteen Colonies, in the month of September 1760, when news arrived of the capitulation of Montreal. Bonfires flamed forth and prayers were offered up in the churches and meeting-houses in gratitude for deliverance from a foe that for over a hundred years had harried and had caused the Indians to harry the frontier settlements. The French armies were defeated by land; the... more...

CHAPTER I. MY INITIATION AND CRIME Guilty! This word, so replete with sadness and sorrow, fell on my ear on that blackest of all black Fridays, October 14, 1887. Penitentiary lightning struck me in the city of Leavenworth, Kansas. I was tried in the United States District Court; hence, a United States prisoner. The offense for which I was tried and convicted was that of using the mails for fraudulent purposes. My sentence was eighteen months... more...

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INTRODUCTION. Since the revival of the bath of antiquity, and its introduction into this country under the name of the Turkish bath, this method of bathing has become very generally adopted; and although onward progress is rendered less rapid than it might be, by the wide-spread popular ignorance that ascribes an element of danger to the bath, erroneous impressions are being gradually removed, and the continual building of new baths testifies to... more...

PREFACE These chapters were begun the day after I got back to New York from the Atlanta penitentiary, and went on from day to day to the end. I did not know, at the start, what the thing would be like at the finish, and I made small effort to make it look shapely and smooth; but the inward impulse in me to write it, somehow, was irresistible, in spite of the other impulse to go off somewhere and rest and forget it all. But I felt that if it were... more...

WEST AND NORTH OF CHARING CROSS Beginning at the extreme westerly limit of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, on the south side of Hyde Park Corner, we find ourselves in the Green Park. This is a triangular piece of ground, which was formerly called Little or Upper St. James's Park. It has not much history. In 1642 fortifications were erected on Constitution Hill, and at the end of the seventeenth century this same spot was a noted place for duels.... more...