THE SCIENTIFIC PERIL

According to dispatches from Tokio, one Dr. Saike, of the Japanese Institute of, Nutrition, is about to startle the world with a discovery which will revolutionize human existence. Briefly, he has concocted a peculiar fish powder which he claims will add any number of inches to one's height.

The possibilities which this opens up are enormous. Inequalities of stature, which have hitherto been almost insuperable obstacles in the way of borrowing other people's clothes, will be smoothed out as though with a flatiron. Dress manufacturing will be standardized, and mail order hourses will be concerned only with width, style, and pattern. Even the annual parade of the street-cleaners will be orderly and level-headed.

At the same time, there are those annoying objections that insist on occurring to even the best disciplined minds. While it would be entirely delightful to be tall enough to see over the fences of football fields and baseball parks, going home to bed after the game would present difficulties of striking proportions. And if Mr. Ringling's giant, feeling about in the dark for the tooth powder, selected the wrong jar, the result would be colossal.

Decidedly, this most recent benefit of Science is not a thing to be left around where the children can reach it, or where it can fall into the hands of tiresome practical jokers. An overdose slipped into Aunt Emma's coffe, for instance, might make transportation almost impossible. In fact so delicate will be the business of applying Dr. Saike's remedy, that all operations might better be suspended until the ingenious inventor has had time to pound up another fish, equipped with reverse action.