This is considered the crowning victory of the Exhibition. Our guide then led us to the Installation Hall, that we might see the various matters and articles, instruments, and we see a plate, which tells us that the machine can produce so many volt, so many ampères. These words to us suggest nothing. They were certainly not in the table-book of our childhood. Volt," we are told, represents the 'spannung "tools required by the electrician for his (tension) of the current; "ampère" the impact it acquires. The number of volts a machine gives depends, as we understand it, on the amount of electricity it is capable of producing, the number of ampères on the efficiency of the conducting-wire, and the comparative absence of friction. A third measure, "watt," which is the number of volts multiplied by the ampères, gives us the working force of the machine-its horse-power, so to speak. The force, whose production we have been looking at, is distributed by an intricate maze of telegraph - wires all over the Exhibition-for lights inside and out, to the workshops, to the signalling, telegraphic and telephonic systems, to the various electric tram-lines, to the artificial mine, to the electric-boats on the Main, to the big pump which feeds the boilers, to the monster captive balloon. You may command its services by "dropping a penny in the slot" of several of those machines so long associated in the public mind with chocolate and cigars. At one of these machines you can get a slight electric shock; at another you hear for a minute the performance of a musical instrument out of a phonograph; a third puts you in telephonic communication with the Exhibition officials. There is altogether, we are told, a force in activity which may be represented by four thousand seven hundred horse-power. This mass, however, is not all produced on the premises. To show off adequately the possibilities of a force which can fly ten times round the world in a second, one of the most important points to illustrate is that the force does not degenerate by transmission; that, in fact, an electromotor may receive its current from a dynamo at any distance. The committee have, therefore, placed three of their dynamos at the Palmengarten, a mile and a half from the Exhibition, another at Offenbach, five miles up the river, while a third enormous stream of twenty-five thousand volts-an ordinary "Güh" lamp requires only one hundred volts-is brought from a dynamo worked by water-power at Lauffen, on the Neckar, a distance of more than one hundred and twenty miles. work. We saw stacks of bamboo charcoal, coils of wire, gutta-percha, resin, asbestos, all the sundry and manifold parts of electric-bells, electric-telegraphs, electriclamps-of which there were dozens burning in tasty globes of all colours-there were conductors and isolators of all sorts. None of them interested us very much, though the whole impressed us with the notion that electricity must give a wonderful impetus to an incredible number of industries, and must therefore be a great joy to the earnest political economist. Before we enter the next department we take a long look at its exterior, which, together with one end of the boiler-house, is built to represent old Frankfurt-the Frankfurt where Faust set up his stolen printing-press; where Shylock bought the ring Jessica tole; where Goethe passed his childhood; and where the Rothschilds laid the foundation-stone of their colossal fortunes. The slated fronts of the houses, the high peaked gables, the narrow windows, the quaint turrets-above all, a reproduction of the ancient Holzpförtchen, with its battlements and portcullis, bring Auld Lang Syne into sharp contrast with the van of progress. There are a few of these picturesque corners still to be found in the older streets of Frankfurt; but they are fast disappearing. Something, naturally, must cede its place to electricity. The interior of the building is as interesting as the exterior. It exhibits such instruments as are required for the vertheilung (distribution) of electricity. The first thing our guide called on us to admire was a transformator, which he told us was at work. "At work!" we exclaimed, peering through the wire-netting which protected it. "Why, it is not only silent, but quite motionless !" "But do we not feel the heat?" asks our friend. Yes, it is true; a stream of hot air hovers over the netting. What work is it carrying on? It is transforming the current of a stream of electricity, we learnexchanging so many volts into so many ampères, or vice versâ, just as it is required; a most modest machine, we con sidered, to effect such a marvel with so little self-assertion. Further on we saw a splendid display of specimens of submarine telegraphic cables, each set labelled with the places it connects, its length, and the date of its laying. These are exhibited by Messrs. Siemens of London, together with the model of a ship which was used in laying a Transatlantic cable. Flanking this Vertheilungs Hall are two rows of workshops, in which electromotors replace the old motive forces-steam or hand. All the electricity is supplied from the dynamo, whose gyrations we were studying only an hour ago. The electromotor is a most unpretending-looking machine. The only moveable part of it is a spindle, which revolves between two uprights. There is no driver necessary nothing but an occasional dose of machine oil; it is perfectly noiseless, and gives out no heat. The workman presses his foot on a treadle, or pushes back a button, and his machine or instrument, however big, however delicate, is set in motion. There were needles being made; there were sewing-machines doing all manner of work; there was a big crane lifting heavy weights; and an optician polishing lenses; there was an electric dairy, and an electric laundry; a sawyer sawing planks, and a watchmaker at his lathe. In fact, there were more machines than we can possibly remember, working with a maximum of precision and a minimum of noise. Among so much sightseeing it was natural that we should require an interval for refreshment and rest. But where to seek it. The choice is so embarrassing. There is an American bar, with drinks of wondrous nomenclature; there is a pic turesque imitation of a Magyar country inn, where Hungarian wine can be drunk; there is a kiosk devoted to Californian vintages; there is a fine building to represent an Italian tower, where the grape of the Fatherland can be enjoyed; there is a Bavarian beer-hall, and a rival establishment from Pfungstadt. Our friend shakes his head at each of these in succession. "We want something cooler and more refreshing," he says, "than anything these supply. Have we," he asks, "ever tasted Sachsenhäuser cider ?" "No," we reply, "we have never even heard of it." This seems to him a terrible gap in our culture. Never heard of Sachsenhäuser cider! Why, its name and fame were As good a century ago. Frankfurt and the neighbourhood grow enormous quantities of apples; many of these are carried to Sachsenhäuser, on the opposite bank of the Main, to be there pressed and converted into cider. One firm alone uses annually more than forty-five thousand hundredweight of fruit, and produces upwards of a million-and-a-half litres. he tells us this he leads us to a pretty little building in the style of a Sachsenhäuser garden-house. A wreath of fir with an apple in the middle, which hangs over the door, suggests what we shall find inside. The interior is a good imitation of an old-fashioned German inn. The walls are decorated with humorous sketches; the chairs and tables are such as Frosch and his jolly companions were familiar with in Auerbach's Keller in Leipzig, when Mephistopheles and Faust came and disturbed the serenity of the social gathering. There is an old-world feeling about the whole thing. It seems quite an anachronism to look up and see electric lamps ready to give us light when the twilight comes on. The cider is really good; our electrician has made wiser and gladder folk of us. Our next move is to the department for telegraphy and telephony. Here there is an extremely good and comprehensive display. The Imperial Post and the Royal Bavarian Post exhibit machinery which follows out the whole history of the telegraphic system; so does the Eastern Telegraph Company (English). In the last-named collection we saw a model of Sir William Thomson's electro-magnetic syphon-recorder in its original form, and standing face to face with it the same machine in its present perfection. We also passed a most instructive quarter of an hour in front of a telephone station, such as would be used in a large town. In this department, for a small entrance fee, can be seen and heard the phonograph, the grammophone, and an operatic performance brought by telephone from Munich. There are two Edison phonographs for the entertainment of the enquiring mind: one repeats a speech made by an Englishman in German, reproducing with comic fidelity the well-known British accent; the other grinds out a short musical piece. This we found much more curious than edifying. We then proceeded to assist for ten minutes at a performance of "Tannhäuser," which had just commenced in the Opera House at Munich. When our turn | The name of this machine is worth recordcame to place the telephone to our ear, the ing. The author of the "Tramp Abroad overture was drawing to a close. The would certainly add it to his collection of effect of what Mark Twain is pleased to uniques if he came across it. It is call a musical insurrection, heard by elec- "Zug geschwindig keit registrir apparate." tricity, is very strange. The combined in- But the most interesting machine of all struments seemed to lose their balance en was one whose outward appearance is far route. The horns and trumpets exerted behind its historic importance. This is themselves amazingly, and the strings, the first electric locomotive ever conwhich play so important a part in the structed. Above it hangs the portrait of aforesaid overture, were almost inaudible. the engineer whose work it is-Werner When the first scene opened, however, one von Siemens, the head of the great firm of had no more fault to find. The voice of electricians at Berlin. It is a small, low, the tenor, Vogl, one of the greatest Wagner wooden construction, it was worked by an singers in Germany, came to us as clear accumulator inside, and a driver sitting and pure as if we had been sitting in the astride the top, which caused much merribalcony facing the stage. We could almost ment in the Berlin Exhibition of 1879. see him pleading with the enchantress Venus for his release from his unhallowed sojourn; but, alas! it was an enjoyment all too short. The conductor turned the inexorable handle, the voices trembled into silence, and Munich was once more removed to a distance of one hundred and seventy miles. After a long look at this interesting relic we leave the hall, hesitating, as we go, in a choice between two voyages of discovery: one into the artificial mine, where every detail of work is carried on by the help of electricity; the other into the air by means of the captive balloon. The question decides itself, for the entrance to the mine-so little like the pit mouth of real life-is closed; so we cross the Kaiser Strasse to the space set apart for Captain Rodeck's monster aerostat. While it is being prepared for the ascent, we gather some details concerning its build and working. It is the largest, it appears, that has yet made an ascent in Germany. Its captain and crew, sixteen in number, are all gallant tars, and display the usual naval briskness and smartness. The envelope consists of nine thicknesses of a material woven of wool and silk. It kept forty sewing-machines at work for six weeks, and used thirty pounds' worth of thread in its making, besides breaking four pounds' worth of needles. The cable which holds it to terra firma is six hundred and fifty yards long, and is paid out by an We then went into the hall devoted to the use of electricity in connection with railways. Here, as in the telegraphy department, the State has done much for the Exhibition. The railway directorate of Frankfurt exhibits in miniature the whole of its original system, historically. The models look like the most enchanting toys. Our guide, who is quite at home among them, with the kind assistance of an official, shows and explains the whole to us. He runs a miniature train through a network of miniature lines, stopping it when the signals are against it, and finally brings it safe into port. He shows a clock, which has an automatic electric connection with the points, and registers the exact moment of the train's passage. What an unimpeachable witness against a negligent or reckless engine-electric machine. It will stand a strain of driver! We also saw an automatic machine for displaying in the waiting-room the names of the places for which trains are about to start. We uttered a devout hope that the clever invention might be universally adopted at least in Germany-to the abolition of the rapid and unintelligible official who performs the function at present, and who has caused us many a moment of panic. There was also an automatic machine for registering, in the station-master's office, the speed of a train at the moment it passes over a certain spot of the rails. twenty-eight thousand pounds. Nevertheless, in one of its first flights it managed to escape from its moorings, and took the one passenger it contained at the moment for a fairly long trip. This casualty, however, is not likely to recur. We mount the natty ladder into the car with great confidence, and at a word from the captain the enormous wheel which controls our flight is in slow, steady motion. As we gently mount, the Exhibition buildings lie beneath us, as neat and trim as an architect's plan, and the notes of the band come up softly through the evening air. The sun has set, and the sky is cloudless and clear. When we have reached the level of the highest tower of the city, we come to a halt; below us lies Frankfurt, well-favoured, well-situated, a vast sea of houses, girdled round by the broad, green Anlagen. There is the Main with its busy quays, and the enormous Central Railway Station-a train gliding along the rails looks like a tiny snake. Then we go on upwards. The surrounding chains of hills, the Spessart, the Odenwald, even the Schwarzwald come into sight, while the Taunus hills, beloved of the Frankfurt excursionist, are so near and clear that we feel as if we could touch them. A little higher and we see a still more beautiful sight-another glimpse of the sun, already set for Frankfurt, behind the Feldberg. It was well worth making the ascent to see the wonderful contrast between the already darkening plain below and the bright glow beyond the hills. But the rope is paid out; before it has begun to be wound up the sun has disappeared once more. Then comes the crowning sensation. The light of the great reflector-lamp on the upper deck of the balloon-where Captain Rodeck and his officers manipulate the ascentis turned on. The silvery ray falls far across space on to an old ruined castle in the wooded hills. Every stone is as clear as if we were within a stone's throw of it. Another minute, and the light has changed its direction; it touches the rich red tower of Frankfurt Cathedral; then, as we sink, the dazzling flood streams on to the colossal railway-station. "The romance is over," we exclaim. "That depends," rejoins our professional friend, "on the point of view from which we see things." For him, he maintains, no romance is so thrilling as the story of the struggle between mind and matter, of the slowlygained victories of genius and perseverance over time and space. He is waxing eloquent, when, lo! he is interrupted by a slight concussion, as when a train suddenly stops. "Ladies and gentlemen," says the aëronaut, "I hope you are pleased with our excursion." We assure him that we are; and well satisfied with our day's achievements, though we have left much unseen, we take our way back to our hotel. It is no wonder if that night, in our dreams, we return on electric wings, without the least exertion on our own part, to our native land, conversing as we journey, through silvery-toned telephones, with our absent friends of all the wonders we have seen at the International Electric Exhibition. SUNDAY IN HOSPITAL. A HOT, breathless Sunday afternoon, with no shady sides to the streets, and arid stretches of burning pavement to cross; more oppressively hot from the people who are strolling along in their Sunday finery, or crowding the omnibuses and cars that, with three or four horses apiece, are making for some place of holiday resort. It is hot enough, too, by the hospital gates, where a crowd of people have gathered, awaiting the striking of the hour which will admit them to the interior of the building. Within, the expectation is perhaps even more intense. It is a good thing to be an in-patient in one of our magnificent hospitals. Many people, children especially, could never have imagined that such care and kindness as meet them in the hospital were ever to be exercised in their behalf, while the comforts of cleanliness and order, and the happiness of regular and sufficient food, are some counterpoise for the uneasiness and suffering of their condition. "Such a 'E'vnly place," says Maggy, in "Little Dorrit." And how many children from unkind, unhappy homes would say the like? Yet whatever the home may be, an affection for it survives a good deal of rough usage; and in the quiet, unvaried routine of hospital life, a visit from one's own friends brings in a bit of the variety and charm of the outer world. If the patients inside, and their friends outside the hospital, feel an eager kind of interest in the coming meeting, the nurses have also their preoccupations. That the wards shall look cheerful and pleasant is in the general order of things; but extra touches here and there, a rearrangement of flowers and shrubs, and a general brushing and brightening up, give witness to the desire that everything shall be seen to the best advantage. The crush in the doorway suggests the passage to the galleries "at the play"; but there are stronger shades of character here, and more striking contrasts in appearance. Here stands a stout, brawny woman, in the coarse dress and apron of everyday wear. She has come to see her Bill, who cut his own throat last night, but was luckily too drunk to cut it very deep. And there are half-a-dozen specimens of the ordinary British matron and mother, such as this one with the red, smeary face, and dull, fish-like eyes. Two of her boys are in a home, and her gal is in the 'orspital. At both places "they look after 'em fine," she informs a friend and neighbour; and she abandons her responsibilities to the good gentlemen and others with the lightest heart imaginable. Her friend and neighbour is younger and fiercerlooking, a hard worker, and not a mere drifter among public houses. come to see her father, who was took bad She has with the horrors. "Oh, they treat 'em well enough," she admits; "but they don't get their little comforts, neither." Polly means to supply one little comfort to her respected parent, anyhow, and laughs and smacks the bottle in her pocket. There is a comradeship about this young woman that has its engaging side, although it is too evident that it leads to her partaking of, as well as dispensing, comforts of the kind contained in her black bottle. Yet there are pleasant family groups, too, by the dozen. The young wife with her baby, whose elaborate costume-the baby's, not the wife's-suggests the care bestowed upon the first-born; the three or four motherless children in black, yet not quite motherless with that clever little chit at the head of them, all come to see father who has tumbled off a scaffold and broke his leg. Then there are three or four boys under the guidance of a father who looks distracted enough, poor fellow, with sadness lurking in his eyes, and sorrow in the corners of his mouth. young people bring flowers-flowers of the Many of the market, not of the garden, though here is a rosy-looking countryman, who brings as an offering a spreading fern in a big pot, while another carries, not a palm-branch, but a whole tree on a small scale. And these will be as gladly received as the offerings of the magi, and will hold places of honour in the decorations of the ward for months, and perhaps years to come. But now the doors, the great entrance doors, are thrown open, and we are borne onward in the crowd. Surely the greatest man in a hospital, not excepting the visiting physician or the treasurer, is the hall porter, that is, if he be fully equal to his position. Affable to the authorities, polite but dignified with the nurses, [Conducted by friendly with the patients. Condescending to their friends, but with a keen eye, notwithstanding-" Now, Polly, what have you got there in your pocket? turn it out," and the black bottle is confiscated. But Polly gives a nudge to her friend. She always carries two, and the forfeited one was cold tea; no harm in cold tea, if not strictly in accordance with regulations. But the porter's eyes can't be everywhere, and a good many forbidden dainties are smuggled in by visitors who can't believe that this or the other should do any harm to anybody. Who does not know the interior of a governors sit in state, or the medical hospital? The board-room, where the officers meet in council, and where at or in moments of expansion play leap-frog other times students entertain their friends, over chairs and tables; the dispensary, crowded with drugs and bottles; the accident ward, where sufferers may arrive at any moment from the streets; the theatre, with the operating-table displayed in the centre, a place familiarly known hospital language as the slaughter-house. carbolic acid, suggestive of surgical knives Then there is the general perfume of and bandages; the wide, open staircases, the cheerful roomy wards. in Here is the surgical ward of which we sides of the room, a stained-glass screen are in search-the beds ranged round three running down the middle, with cots for children on either side; growing plants and ferns give a cheerful appearance to the long room, and prints and chromos on the walls have the same effect in the general estimation. Over each bed is the tablet which records the name and number who has the case in hand, with the dietary of the patient, and the name of the surgeon table, and perhaps a brief diagnosis of the case, which, if it be complicated, the patient regards with considerable pride. A small low press holds the patient's personal belongings and such small rations as sugar and butter, which, sometimes, friends from outside are allowed to furnish. Over each bed swings from the roof a chain, furnished sufferer may help to move himself in bed. with a miniature trapeze, by which the Here and there a screen placed round a bed indicates that a patient is passing away beyond the reach of human aid, or that he may be wandering among delirious fancies. there gathers a little levée of visitors. But, |