and it is feared that the strikers will then become violent and riotous. Up to the present time they have been very peaceable.

The Governor of Indiana has asked the Governors of Ohio, Illinois, and Pennsylvania to meet him, and discuss plans for arbitrating the difficulty.

England also has her labor troubles. A great strike is going on in London among the engineers.

It is a struggle for an eight-hour working day.

The men do not insist that they shall only work eight hours a day, but that eight hours shall be considered the full day's labor, and all the work they do over that shall be regarded as overtime, and paid for.

The strikers have a large fund in reserve to fall back upon, from which they will each receive a certain weekly sum to give them the necessaries of life until the trouble is adjusted.

The fight promises to be a long and bitter one, for the employers declare that they must hold out till they win, as defeat means ruin to them.

The ship-building trade will be the one most seriously affected by the strike.

G.H. Rosenfeld.

INVENTION AND DISCOVERY.

Detachable Shelving for Windows.—The scent and the sight of flowers are the source of so much enjoyment to most persons, and the means of keeping them in our houses, as a rule, is such a puzzle, that the "detachable shelving for windows" ought to find favor with everybody, young or old.

This shelving is an apparently simple arrangement of three shelves connected by strong braces running from one to another, and attached to the sides of the window in two places by screw-eyes and nuts which are securely fastened in the outer frame of the window. Simple as it appears, it is very ingeniously contrived, and forms a most desirable substitute for the window-ledge itself, which is seldom wide enough for flower-pots to stand on with any degree of safety.

Station-Indicator.—We remember once travelling in the winter in almost the last car of a long train, where we could not see the names of the stations; the conductor shouted out the stopping-places in a way not easy to understand, and we had no time-table and did not know when the train was due. It was the most uncomfortable journey it is possible to imagine. A station-indicator in each car would forever prevent the recurrence of such discomfort and anxiety. Curiously enough, two have been invented within six months; the later one has an endless roll with the names of all the stations on the route, and, by the movement of a simple bar, after passing one station the name of the next one appears in its place.

SIMPLE LESSONS IN THE

STUDY OF NATURE

By I.G. OAKLEY

This is a handy little book, which many a teacher who is looking for means to offer children genuine nature study may be thankful to get hold of.

Nature lessons, to be entitled to that name, must deal with what can be handled and scrutinized at leisure by the child, pulled apart, and even wasted. This can be done with the objects discussed in this book; they are under the feet of childhood—grass, feathers, a fallen leaf, a budding twig, or twisted shell; these things cannot be far out of the way, even within the stony limits of a city.

Nor are the lessons haphazard dashes at the nearest living thing; on the contrary, they are virtually fundamental, whether with respect to their relation to some of the classified sciences, or with reference to the development of thought and power of expression in the child himself.

The illustrations are few, and scarcely more than figures; it is not meant to be a pretty picture-book, yet is most clearly and beautifully printed and arranged, for its material is to be that out of which pictures are made. It will be found full of suggestions of practical value to teachers who are carrying the miscellaneous work of ungraded schools, and who have the unspeakable privilege of dealing with their pupils untrammelled by cast-iron methods and account-keeping examination records.