The third plan of boring with bars resting in bearings is more extensively practised, and has the largest range of adaptation. A feature of this plan of boring is that the form of the boring-bar, or any imperfection in its bearings, is communicated to the work; a want of straightness in the bar makes tapering holes. This, of course, applies to cases where a bar is fed through fixed bearings placed at one or both ends of a hole to be bored. If a boring-bar is bent, or out of truth between its bearings, the diameter of the hole being governed by the extreme sweep of the cutters is untrue to the same extent, because as the cutters move along and come nearer to the bearings, the bar runs with more truth, forming a tapering hole diminishing toward the rests or bearings. The same rule applies to some extent in chuck-boring, the form of the lathe spindle being communicated to holes bored; but lathe spindles are presumed to be quite perfect compared with boring bars."I cannot tell you from memory. But I am going to ask you to find the address. You know the little bedroom I used to occupy at the top of the Lytton Avenue house. There is a cupboard in the corner, and the board next the fireplace comes up. In the recess you will find a little box full of papers. On one paper is my sister's address. The other papers I will ask you to burn unread."
FORE:You go. Dick was generous to the friend he admired, and who was almost a year older. It would need a cool, quick head to handle whatever you might find in the swamp. You go.Of course the police knew nothing. Sarcastic remarks were made at their expense. Other papers hinted at startling disclosures to be made at the adjourned inquest. There were many startling rumours contradicted as soon as they were made.
Hetty was deeply interested. Was this another mere coincidence or was Bruce acting here like a puppet in the hands of the mysterious person who seemed to be pulling the strings in the drama? Anyway, it strengthened her hands."I am a Netherland jour...."She crept on until the green door in the wall was reached. It was risky to peep out, but Hetty had to hazard that. The black motor car was in front of her, so that she was behind the gleaming lights. With a thrill Hetty recognized that motor. It was the same one that she had seen leaving the Corner House on the morning of the murder. She was destined to see more of it before long. But she saw other things; she saw Leona tear the skirt of her dress away; a wild cry of surprise rose to her lips, but she choked it down. Here before her was the Spanish woman of Gordon's story. The sudden flood of light set Hetty trembling from head to foot."As you like, madame," Prout said indifferently. "I have a warrant for the arrest of Leona Lalage on a charge of attempted murder. I can't say any more at present, and it will be as well for you to say as little as possible."The black edging of the gate-posts was fresh blacklead.After considering by what agencies the seeds of religious belief were carried from place to place, we have to examine, what was even more important, the quality of the soil on which they fell. And here, to continue the metaphor, we shall find that the Roman plough had not only broken through the crust of particularist prejudice, but had turned up new social strata eminently fitted to receive and nourish the germs scattered over their surface by every breeze and every bird of passage, or planted and watered by a spiritual sowers hand. Along with the positive check of an established worship, the negative check of dissolving criticism had, to a great extent, disappeared with the destruction of the rgime which had been most favourable to its exercise during the early stages of progress. The old city aristocracies were not merely opposed on patriotic grounds to free-trade in religion, but, as the most educated and independent class in the community, they were the first to shake off supernatural beliefs of every kind. We have grown so accustomed to seeing those beliefs upheld by the partisans of political privilege and attacked in the name of democratic principles, that we are apt to forget how very modern is the association of free-thought with the supremacy of numbers. It only dates from the French Revolution, and even now it is far from obtaining everywhere. Athens was the most perfectly organised democracy of antiquity, and in the course of this work we have repeatedly had occasion to observe how strong was the spirit of religious bigotry among the Athenian people. If we want rationalistic opinions we must go to the great nobles and their friends, to a Pericles, a Critias, or a Protagoras. There must also have been perfect intellectual liberty among205 the Roman nobles who took up Hellenic culture with such eagerness towards the middle of the second century B.C., and among those who, at a later period, listened with equanimity or approval to Caesars profession of Epicureanism in a crowded senatorial debate. It was as much in order that the De Rerum Natura should have been written by a member of this class as that the Aeneid should proceed from the pen of a modest provincial farmer. In positive knowledge, Virgil greatly excelled Lucretius, but his beliefs were inevitably determined by the traditions of his ignorant neighbours. When civil war, proscription, delation, and, perhaps more than any other cause, their own delirious extravagance, had wrought the ruin of the Roman aristocracy, their places were taken by respectable provincials who brought with them the convictions without the genius of the Mantuan poet; and thenceforward the tide of religious reaction never ceased rising until the Crusades, which were its supreme expression, unexpectedly brought about a first revival of Hellenic culture. On that occasion, also, the first symptoms of revolt manifested themselves among the nobles; taking the form of Gnosticism in the brilliant courts of Languedoc, and, at a later period, of Epicureanism in the Ghibelline circles of Florentine society; while, conversely, when the Ciompi or poorer artisans of Florence rose in revolt against the rich traders, one of the first demands made by the successful insurgents was, that a preaching friar should be sent to give them religious instruction. At a still later period, the same opposition of intellectual interests continues to be defined by the same social divisions. Two distinct currents of thought co-operated to bring about the Protestant Reformation. One, which was religious and reactionary, proceeded from the people. The other, which was secularising, scholarly, and scientific, represented the tendencies of the upper classes and of those who looked to them for encouragement and support. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many noble names are to be found206 among the champions of reason; and while speculative liberty is associated with the ascendency of the aristocratic party, superstition and intolerance are associated with the triumph of the people, whether under the form of a democracy or of a levelling despotism. So, also, the great emancipating movement of the eighteenth century was fostered by the descendants of the Crusaders, and, until after the Revolution, met with no response among the bourgeoisie or the people; indeed the reaction in favour of supernaturalism was begun by a child of the people, Rousseau. All this, as we have already observed, has been reversed in more recent times; but the facts quoted are enough to prove how natural it was that in the ancient world decay of class privileges should be equivalent to a strengthening of the influences which made for supernaturalism and against enlightened criticism.
