Clever Man Research Articles

Alfred Yarrow: his Life and Work

THIS book of nearly 300 pages and nearly 100 plates details very fully the life and work of a remarkable man, who, though active and useful at the present day, is eighty-six years of age. Reading it conveys the impression that Sir Alfred Yarrow is not so much a remarkably clever man, as one who is guided in his actions entirely by common sense. Perhaps he showed this very early in life when he declined to take interest in languages, having neither voice nor ear for music, but made great progress in realistic studies, such as physics and mathematics. He showed the same spirit in his pranks when he pumped air into a gas main and put the lights out, and when he caused the cook with a tray of glass to get an electric shock from an electrically charged plate, causing her to drop and smash all the glass.