Ball

(William Platt), b. at Birmingham 28 Nov. 1844. Educated at Birkbeck School, London. Became schoolmaster but retired rather than teach religious doctrines. Matriculated at London University 1866. Taught pyrotechny in the Sultan’s service 1870–71. Received the order of the Medjidieh after narrow escape from death by the bursting of a mortar. Upon his return published Poems from Turkey (1872). Mr. Ball has contributed to the National Reformer since 1878 and since 1884 has been on the staff of the Freethinker . He has published pamphlets on Religion in Schools , the Ten Commandments and Mrs Besant’s Socialism , and has compiled with Mr. Foote the Bible Handbook . Mr. Ball is a close thinker and a firm supporter of Evolutional Mal thus i an ism, which he has ably defended in the pages of Progre . He has of late been engaged upon the question: Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited?