CAUSES OF IDIOCY.--Dr. T. Langdon Down, inquiring into the causes of idiocy, has found that intemperance of parents is one of the most considerable factors in producing the affection. His view is confirmed by some French and German investigators, one of whom, Dr. Delasiauve, has said that in the village of Careme, whose riches were in its vineyards, ten years' comparative sobriety, enforced by vine-disease, had a sensible effect in diminishing the cases of idiocy. Nervous constitution and consumption exercise important influence. Of the professions, lawyers furnish the smallest proportion of idiots, while they are credited with the procreation of a relatively very large number of men of eminence. With the clergy, these proportions are more than reversed. The influence of consanguineous marriage, _per se_, is insignificant, if it exists.--_Pop. Science Monthly_. A POWERFUL TEMPERANCE ARGUMENT.--A most powerful argument for temperance is furnished by the records of the British army in India for 1886, showing the comparative amount of crime, disease, and death among 12,807 soldiers, of whom 3,278 were temperate, and 8,828 were drinking men. The number of cases of crime among the abstainers was 172, among the drinkers 3,988, a difference of one to twenty-three in number, or more than ten to one in percentage. The temperate had but 4.32 per cent. of crime, the drinkers 45.17 per cent. The percentage of sickness and death was more than twice as great among the drinkers. Liquor, therefore, _more than doubled_ the proportion of disease and mortality, and increased the _criminality more than tenfold_. Of the numbers tried by court martial there were 120 times as many proportionally among the drinkers as among the temperate. The destructive effects of drink are far greater in hot climates, and perceptibly greater in hot weather. The Southern States of the Union are in advance of the Northern on the temperance question. The legislature of Georgia has passed a bill by a large majority which taxes wine rooms in prohibition counties $10,000. At present this covers nearly all the State. The forty-fifth annual report of the Registrar General of England shows that estimating the average mortality of males in England at 1,000, that of brewers is 1,361, of innkeepers and publicans 1,521. Scotch reports show the mortality of males engaged in the liquor business to be 68 per cent. above the actuaries table for healthy males, and 49 per cent. over the English life table.