The Women Of Our Time.

for one maintain to-day , that our young women are more sinned against than sinning . That they commit follies , and are often a little wayward and " entetees " fond of men , dress , fashion , society , who is not ?

Certainly many of those very persons who attack them to-day , were in their time equally blamed by their elders . Indeed after all , as I have observed before , the dying generation always finds fault with the living one , such is the way of the

world . Taking the girls all round , as a bachelor and sporting friend of mine says , Avhether they are " fine upstanding fillies , ' ' or " plain about the head , but likely to make useful animals , " they constitute a "tidy lot" !

Dropping jokes and chaff , I venture to repeat that I for one believe in their virtues and their truthfulness , their good intention and their kind hearts . Knowing what I do of the laxity of private life among our younger married men , and those young Joseph Surfaces and

dilapidated old rakes who declaim against the extiuvagance and the Avickedness of Avomen , I sympathise deeply with this well-abused class of the community . Sure I am , if Society is ever to be raised from its open deterioration , it must be done , and can only

be done by our younger women . And when I talk of " open deterioration , " I do not wish to exaggerate anything , but to make this article as realistic as well may be . Society is probably not much better , nor not much worse now , than Society has

been and always Avill be . As then , I repeat , I for one believe in our youug Avomen , I Avish them from the bottom of my heart , happy homes and good husbands , and above all a brighter future than to my limited vision , and perhaps hyper-alarmist mind appears just now either probable or possible .

How Railway Materials Are Tested.

HOW RAILWAY MATERIALS ARE TESTED .

VERY few of the travelling public know with what care and Avatchfulness a railway engineer inspects and tests the quality of the materials used in the construction of his works . A few particulars may be interesting , and some insi ght gathered from the following brief extracts of a paper

read before the Civil and Mechanical Engineers' Society , of Westminster Chambers , by Bvo . R . M . Bancroft of the Engineers ' Staff , Great Northern Railway , King ' s Cross : —

Portland cement should weigh about 1151 bs . per bushel , or 901 bs . per etibie foot , and the average tensile strengh of 6 briquette tests should give 350 lbs . per square inch of section after seven days' immersion in Avater . Another test is , that 80 per

cent , of the cement should pass through a sieve of 2 , 000 meshes to the square inch . The Metropolitan Board of Works have had their briquettes made in moulds of bell metal having a sectional area , at the breaking part of 1 | inches squareand

, they have estimated that the testing of cement costs them about a penny farthing per ton . Roman cement , although about twothirds the cost of Portland cement , is only about one-third its strength , and is ,

therefore , double the cost , measured by strength . Roman cement is very ill-adapted for being mixed with sand . Mr . Parker , the first to make this cement in England ( now about 80 years ago ) called it "Roman cement " because the Romans were known to have used cements made from similar substances , viz ., clay nodules . Frost ' s , Atkinson ' s , and

Medina cements are all similar to Roman . Testing Limes . If the application of acid to a limestone entirely dissolves it , and leaA es no residue , the material , Avhen burnt , will only ghv a pure lime , most unfitted for building purposes ; if on the other hand it leaves a residuum of very

fine clay , quite impalpable to the touch , it is probably capable of being manufactured into a more or less h ydraulic lime . Muriatic acid or nitric acid may be used , but muriatic acid is preferable on account of it doing less damage to one ' s clothes . The

term " limestone" is generally applied to those stones containing at least 50 per cent , of carbonate of lime , and the existence of this can easily be detected by the ajiplication of the acids above-mentioned , and by the effervescence which folloAvs ,

caused by the escape of the carbonic acid gas from the carbonate of lime , when pure lime is left behind . Testing Railway Steel Axles is usually done by taking cue out of each hundred axles , placing it upon supports about five feet apart , and testing it by impact of a