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the promotions fill seven and a half, while there is an

appendix of five more. It can be claimed as a whole

for the latest award of honours and distinctions that

these have been freely bestowed. So large an army

has been engaged for so long a time over so hugean area that it is impossible that all exceptionallygood work wherever done can have received recognition.Legitimate disappointment will undoubtedly be felt in somequarters, but with one notable exception the Gazette is a

generous one. The exception leaps to the eyes. The name

of the head of the Army Medical Service is conspicuous byits absence. As if to accentuate the fact we find

that Sir HENRY BRACKENBURY and Sir C. MANSFIELD

CLARKE, the Director-General of Ordnance and the Quarter-master-General respectively, receive the Grand Cross of the

’

Bath. We are at a loss to conceive how the omission is to

be explained. The Director-General made every provisionin his power for the hospital service in South Africa. It

was no possible fault of his that the war attained the

magnitude that it did and assumed a character which neitherthe military authorities nor the nation, indeed, foresawit would assume. He did not fail to point out before-

hand any shortcomings that existed, and the Royal Com-missioners in their report expressly acquit him and thestaff of officers associated with him of all blame in the

matter. We are consequently, as we have already said,entirely at a loss to understand the omission of his

name from the Gazette and fail to see any justification for it.Even apart from all other and higher considerations theunwisdom of such partiality at the present time must

be obvious, and it is, in our opinion, greatly to be

deplored in the interests of the army and of the State.

It can hardly be expected that the Royal Army Medical

Corps will be other than an unpopular service when its

officers and the medical profession see the representa-tive head of it studiously ignored in so marked a way.

Speaking generally, the Army Medical Service and its officersin the field, and those who have been connected or who havedone duty with it in South Africa, have, we are glad to

notice, had their services recognised. It is needless to repeathere all the names, which will be found in another column,but we may select for special notice those of CaptainNICKERSON, R.A.M.O., and Captain INKSON, R.A.M.C., who,as previously chronicled in our columns, have received theVictoria Cross, making with Lieutenant-Colonel BABTIE,R.A.M.C., and Captain DOUGLAS, R.A.M.C., a total of fourVictoria Crosses gained by their corps in the South AfricanWar. We are glad to observe also that Captain DUKA, of theArmy Medical Corps, Queensland Defence Force, whose conduct at Elands river was lauded by all the defenders of that post, has been awarded a Distinguished Service Order.

’

We sincerely congratulate all the recipients upon their well-earned honours ; but we cannot congratulate the authorities upon the Gazette as a whole because its fairness 1

is so grievously marred by the omission of the name of the t

Director-General of the Army Medical Service. t

THE GROCERS’ RESEARCH SCHOLARSHIPS.&mdash;Applications for the Grocers’ Livery Company’s Medical ResearclScholarships (value JS250 each) should be made by letter t<the Clerk of the Oompany, Grocers’ Hall, Princes-street, E.C.during the present month.

Annotations."Ne quid nimis.

THE QUALITY OF TEA.

IT is being pretty freely stated that unwholesome tea isbeing imported into this country in large quantities and itis urged that steps should be taken to check the importationof inferior teas by closing the doors of the Custom Houseagainst their sale. The deterioration of the quality of teais said to be owing to the introduction of machinery fortea-making, a process which produces a very inferiorarticle compared with hand-made tea. ’ Thus there is

very little machine-made tea now which can be com-

pared with the old finest quality China tea. The ex-

planation of this lies, according to a tea-planter,in the inefficiency of machinery in its earlier stages ofdevelopment to imitate the finesse of a skilful handcraftsman in carrying through a series of delicate opera.tions. The difficulty arises, of course, from the fact thatit is one thing to make a specimen article at a high pricefor the few and another to make it for the masses by the ton,and the grower is sure to be in favour of producing quantityrather than quality. It is said that millions of pounds ofdecomposing leaf are made into tea simply because manyfactories are insufficiently cquipped. Tea undoubtedlyrequires delicate handling during the progressive stagesof its manufacture. The methods of treatment, unless

efficiently conducted, are necessarily hazardous to the

quality of the final product. The leaf, of course, has tobe plucked, then withered, rolled, and finally" fired" ordried. It is obvious that any one of these processes mightinvolve injury to the quality of the tea, and the enormousscale on which tea is prepared for the market would have atendency to introduce inefficient treatment at some stage orother. It is the same story as in so many things-themachine-made article can never compare with that made byhand. But any deliberate tampering with tea should be

instantly stopped. It is said that modern processes fre-

quently set up secondary fermentations, the true aroma oftea being thereby lost and replaced by the musty smell ofmucic fermentation. We should have thought thatthese changes would have made the tea so nasty thatno one would drink it. There can be no question, how-ever, that we hear much more frequently than hithertothe expression, "I cannot drink tea," and whether or notthis is connected with the enormously increased output oftea and the necessarily rapid means employed for its manu-facture is an interesting and important question.

THE BUDGET.

IT is without doubt being brought forcibly home to thepeople of this country that war is an expensive methodof settling disputes. Into the question of who is

responsible, and therefore who should pay, for the presentwar, we shall not enter, but the fact is that money hasto be found somehow, and those who have to findit naturally do not like the process. Income-tax pressesheavily upon many of us ; in fact, if we may believethe statements made by correspondents in the columns ofthe Standard, such a tyrannical tax has never existedsince the day of ship money. On the other hand, a corre-spondent of the Daily News of April 24th sheds bitter tearsover sugar. "Are Jingo and bully synonyms ? The

sugar tax does not affect the working man....... It means thatthe women will have to pay at least ls. to 2. more a weekwhile the little ones will have to do without their sweeties,

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in many cases the only thing to brighten their little lives."This letter gives a wonderful picture of the working man’shome. We believe that the new duty on sugar will add onehalfpenny per pound to the retail price. According, therefore,to the Daily News correspondent the average working man andhis family consume from 24 to 48 pounds of sugar, includingtreacle and jam, per week. No wonder that the out-patientdepartments of hospitals are crowded with dyspeptics. As

to income-tax, it may be allowed for certain, we think, thatincomes arising from inherited property should be taxed at amuch higher rate than a man’s earnings.

THE TRAFFIC IN OLD HORSES.

IN another column will be found a letter from Mr. John

Colam, the secretary to the Royal Society for the Preventionof Cruelty to Animals, dealing with an annotation on theabove subject in THE LANCET of April 13th, p. 1095. Mr.Oolam’s letter is somewhat elliptical, but we presume thathe wishes to imply that the order of the Board of Agricul-ture which we quoted does not apply to horses while on theway to the boat, but only when they are at the wharf

or on board. Otherwise why does not his society pro-ceed under an order by which heavier penalties can

be exacted than under the Cruelty to Animals Act? qIs it because persons convicted of travelling lame or infirmhorses through the streets, albeit such horses are on the

way to a boat for shipment, cannot be punishedunder the order in question ? It is always a periloustask to try to put a meaning to Acts of Parliament or toorders of Government departments. But to our minds theorder of the Board of Agriculture concerning the exportationof horses certainly considers them while in the streets of theport of arrival. The order distinctly lays down the illegalityof conveying in a vessel from any port in Great Britain"any horse which ...... cannot be so conveyed without crueltyduring the intended passage and on landing " (the italicsare ours). Surely these last three words must mean con-veyance or passage from the ship to the slaughter-house orsausage factory. Surely, then, the order would also

refer to the conveyance of horses from the market or other

starting place to the ship at the port of departure.

EPILEPSY AND CRIME.

DR. JOHN BAKER, deputy superintendent of the Broad-moor Asylum for Criminal Lunatics, has published an

interesting paper on Epilepsy and Crime in the April numberof the Journal of Mental Science. Regarding epilepsy as afunctional degenerative neurosis, characterised by motor,sensory, or psychical convulsions, the following typesof epilepsy are recognised-viz., epilepsia major (grand mal)and epilepsia minor (petit mal), either of which may beassociated with abnormal mental states occurring in closeassociation with the fits or independently ; and psychicalepilepsy without motor convulsions. With regard to theco-existence of epilepsy with perfect sanity it is noted thatwhereas nearly half of all cases of epilepsy are sane, yet atendency to mental enfeeblement is always threatened evenin these cases. Epilepsy is common among the criminalclasses. Thus Ottolenghi found that out of 265 criminals80 were epileptic. Of these no less than 78 are describedas cases of psychical epilepsy and they were variouslydenominated-vertiginous, unconscious, and automatic withor without violence. Dr. Baker thinks that pure psychicalepilepsy, without any kind of motor convulsions, is so rarethat its employment as a defence for crime must be regardedwith great suspicion. Since the opening of Broadmoor

Asylum in 1863 the number of patients admitted has been2435-viz., 1860 males and 575 females. Of these 139 malesand 26 females are described as epileptic. The crimes andoffences committed were in order of frequency as follows

murder 66 instances, attempts to murder 41, larceny 28,arson seven, and burglary six. The remaining crimesincluded manslaughter, rape, forgery, and other offences.A marked disproportion exists between the epileptics of bothsexes as regards the tendency to crime. The proportion ofmale epileptics who commit crime is much above the pro-portion of females. This may be due partly to the fact thatthe psychical activity of man is greater than that of woman,or, as Lombroso avers, to the tendency which the disease,when existent in women, has to assume the form of wanton-

ness, which, however reprehensible in itself, is. less dan-

gerous and does not lead to sensational crimes requiringimprisonment. Moreover, as Tonnini remarks, epilepsy inwomen has a greater liability to cause imbecility and mentalenfeeblement rather than the more active and dangerousform of insanity. Thus out of the small number of female

epileptics present in Broadmoor Asylum in 1890 more thanhalf display this tendency to mental enfeeblement withoutviolence, not because of age and infirmity, but simply as acharacteristic of the disease. The remainder retain their

impulsive and dangerous propensities. Homicide is mostlycommitted during post epileptic automatism or post-epilepticfuror, and there may be total or partial amnesia as regardsthe deed when normal consciousness is regained.

GARBAGE-MONGERS.

WALTER PowELL of Taff’s Well, Caerphilly, is a butcher,and according to his own account is a young man in

business, newly married, and has his character to make.Unfortunately, Mr. Powell’s methods of character-makinghave brought him into contact with the law, for recentlyhe was summoned at the Llandaff Police-court for exposingfor sale meat unfit for human food, and also for sellinghorsefiesh without giving proper notice to the public. A

quantity of meat, both beef and horseflesh, the whole

weighing 187 lb., was seized in the defendant’s shop, andupon being condemned by a magistrate was destroyed. Itr was all unfit for food. Defendant’s brother was seen to fetch) the horsefiesh from the knacker’s and bring it to the shop,r where the defendant took it and carried it into the shop. It

must be said in defendant’s favour that when the police andthe medical officer arrived that he made no attempt to hinderthem from inspecting his meat. The magistrates, we are

glad to see, did not inflict a fine but sent defendant to prison1 for three months. For this period of time he will, at anyr rate, be fed with wholesome food despite his anxiety toa poison his fellow creatures. We do not know what the occu-

pation of Mr. Brinley Powell, the brother, may be, but hecertainly aided and abetted his brother in his iniquitousaction, and we trust that the authorities will keep an eyee upon him. We may add that defendant confessed that he

e gave 2d. per pound for the horseflesh and sold it for 5d. perpound, thus making a handsome profit.

THE DEPOSIT OF THE THERMAL SPRINGS ATBATH

THE chemistry of the thermal springs of Bath was discussedat some length in the report of THE LANCET AnalyticalCommission of Oct. l4th, 1899, p. 1068. In this report aseries of analyses of the three historic springs was given andour Commissioners obtained some fresh results, showingamongst other things the presence of two constituents nothitherto recorded. We have since received specimens of adeposit found in the main pipe of the spring known as I I theHot Spring." As this pipe has not been opened for about 20years the examination of this deposit should be of interest.The deposit presents the appearance of the ordinary incrusta-tion obtained in boilers. Here and there the deposit wasstreaked with green which proved to be due to copper, anobservation which would tend to confirm an analysis mad,