they may be heard—­for the higher they go the less they understand each other—­but simply to acquire the art of screaming at receptions.  If half a dozen ladies meeting by chance in a parlor should converse quietly in their sweet, ordinary home tones, it might be in a certain sense agreeable, but it would not be fashionable, and it would not strike the prevailing note of our civilization.  If it were true that a group of women all like to talk at the same time when they meet (which is a slander invented by men, who may be just as loquacious, but not so limber-tongued and quick-witted), and raise their voices to a shriek in order to dominate each other, it could be demonstrated that they would be more readily heard if they all spoke in low tones.  But the object is not conversation; it is the social exhilaration that comes from the wild exercise of the voice in working off a nervous energy; it is so seldom that in her own house a lady gets a chance to scream.

The dinner-party, where there are ten or twelve at table, is a favorite chance for this exercise.  At a recent dinner, where there were a dozen uncommonly intelligent people, all capable of the most entertaining conversation, by some chance, or owing to some nervous condition, they all began to speak in a high voice as soon as they were seated, and the effect was that of a dynamite explosion.  It was a cheerful babel of indistinguishable noise, so loud and shrill and continuous that it was absolutely impossible for two people seated on the opposite sides of the table, and both shouting at each other, to catch an intelligible sentence.  This made a lively dinner.  Everybody was animated, and if there was no conversation, even between persons seated side by side, there was a glorious clatter and roar; and when it was over, everybody was hoarse and exhausted, and conscious that he had done his best in a high social function.

This topic is not the selection of the Drawer, the province of which is to note, but not to criticise, the higher civilization.  But the inquiry has come from many cities, from many women, “Cannot something be done to stop social screaming?” The question is referred to the scientific branch of the Social Science Association.  If it is a mere fashion, the association can do nothing.  But it might institute some practical experiments.  It might get together in a small room fifty people all let loose in the ordinary screaming contest, measure the total volume of noise and divide it by fifty, and ascertain how much throat power was needed in one person to be audible to another three feet from the latter’s ear.  This would sift out the persons fit for such a contest.  The investigator might then call a dead silence in the assembly, and request each person to talk in a natural voice, then divide the total noise as before, and see what chance of being heard an ordinary individual had in it.  If it turned out in these circumstances that every person present could speak with ease and hear perfectly