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Itemsiof Interest.
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There are 732 Salvation Army corps In the
United States.
The King of Denmark celebrated his 80th
birthday April 8th.
In England 232,821 women and 147,245 men are
employed in cotton factories.
Five wire and glass companies have united
under a capital stock of $1,500,000.
Tuberculosis is responsible for 10 per cent of
the- deaths among Maryland negroes.
General Chafee has announced that the Ameri
can troops will evacuate China by May 1st.
Sidney, Australia, kitchens are generally on
the top floor. Clothes are dried on the roof.
A delver into history has found more than 250
references to Shakespeare by his contemporaries.
At Capetown the bubonic plague has developed
and many persons have already perished from the
dread disease.
A rebellion is on in Mongolia. Goneral Tung
Fuh Siang and Prince Tuan are said to be the lead
ers in the revolt.
The Massachusetts legislature has refused to
pass a law permitting the playing of golf and other
sports .pn Sunday.
Miss Josephine Newcomb, who recently died in
New York, bequeathed $3,000,000 to Tulane Uni
versity at New Orleans.
It is said that the Mississippi river levee sys
" tem has resulted in raising the channel of river
above the surrounding country.
Mormons declare that the organ now being
placed in the Tabernacle at Salt Lake City is the
finest in the world. It will cost $120,000.
Peru has adopted a new military law. Every
raale citizen is liable to compulsory military ser
vice between the ages of 19 and 50 years. '
E. P. Gaus of Williams county, Ohio, is now a
v believer in forestry. The other day he sold a black
walnut tree standing on his place for $4,000.
A California judge has decided that smoking
cigarettes is good ground for a divorce that is, if
the wife smokes them and the husband objects.
Visitors are so numerous on the Buffalo expo
sition grounds that the workmen are being hamp
ered. Sometimes as many as 15,000 visitors are on
'hand.
A number of gas light, traction and water
power companies throughout the United States
have combined with an estimated capital of $35,
C00.000. New York is setting a new model for sky
scrapers. The latest one. goes up into the air
sixteen stories and down into the earth four
stories.
A conference was recently held at Pittsburg
for the purpose of forming a combination of all in
dependent furnace men with a capital stock of
,$12,000,000.
Famine is reported in various provinces of the
Chinese empire. In one place it is estimated that
three thousand persons are dying daily from
starvation.
In Arkansas it is proposed to license all who
want to drink liquor. It will be illegal to sell to a
.customer who cannot show a "drinker's license,"
which is to cost $5.
t A large number of mills and factories in New
England havebeen closed because of the floods.
At Lawrence, Mass., 20,000 persons are in idleness
because of these disasters.
The postofllce department has decided to allow
letter carriers to discard their hot coats in summer
and wear blouses or shirt waists, provided each
city's carriers adopt a uniform style.
Miss Anna Lyle, of Philadelphia, recently cele
brated the completion of the 50th consecutive year
The Commoner.
of her service as a public school teacher. Miss
Lyle is 65 years of age and began teaching at the
oge df 15 years. Three generations of her pupils
were the guests of Miss Lyle on her 50th anni
versary. Kansas and Nebraska are .running a unique
race. Each claims the lowest percentage of il
literacy of any state in the union, or in any other
country on the globe, Belgium alone excepted.
Henry J. Eaton, chief of the Hartford, Conn.,
Are department, recently celebrated the 50th an
niversary of his connection with the fire fighters
department of Hartford. For 33 years he has been
chief.
Members .of the next congress will sit at new
desks. Most of the old members have bought the
desks they used in the last congress, agreeing to
pay the average price realized from the sale of the
others.
James It. Campbell, former democratic con
gressman from the 20th Illinois district, who took
the stump for the republican ticket in the cam
paign of 1900, has been made a brigadier general
of volunteers.
Miss Elvira Sydnor Miller has been appointed
passenger agent of the Louisville, Henderson &
St. Louis railway. Miss Miller is a newspaper
woman and is the first of her sex to occupy this
Important railroad position.
Dr. James Sanford of Bennington, Vermont,
has practised medicine in this country for sixty
years. Within a few days he will celebrate his
85th birthday, and yet he Is engaged in the
active practice of his profession.
. The birth rate of Milwaukee, exceeds by 20 per
cent any other city of equal size in the United
States. In Milwaukee the births average 26.28 per
L000 population. In Detroit, a city of practically
the same size, the birth rate is only 11.97 per 1,000
population.
Judge Dixon of the New Jersey court of ap
peals recently delivered an opinion in which he
held that a stockholder of any industrial com
bination incorporated in New Jersey may restrain
the issue of stock, if it Is in excess of the real value
of the property.
On April 8th the secretary of state delivered to
the Mexican ambassador a draft for $2,000, paid
"Out of humane consideration, and without ref
erence to the question of liability," as indemnity
to the heirs of a Mexican citizen who was lynched
in La Salle county, Texas, in 1895.
As a result of negotiations between Secretary
of Agriculture Wilson and the Canadian minister
of agriculture an agreement has been reached be
tween the two administrations by which Canada
is to have a veterinarian stationed in England to
test for tuberculosis all British cattle shipped to
this country via Canada.
Dr. W. H. McEvers, i veterinary surgeon of
Chicago, recently delivered a lecture on the horse.
Dr. McEvers pleads for better care of the horse.
He says the loads should be in accordance with
the strngth'of the animal drawing them. He
declared that 3,000 pounds was enough for any
horse to haul.
Minister Loomis, the American representative
to Venezuela, has arrived in Washington for the
purpose of giving the state department informa
tion concerning Venezuelan affairs. Recently the
United States protested against the arrest of a
Danish subject by the Venezuelan government.
The protest was ignored. The asphalt controversy
is perhaps the most conspicuous of the differences
between this country and Venezuela, and it is ex
pected that a serious discussion between the repre
sentatives of the two governments will follow.
The Chicago Tribune gives the details of a new
invention, the purpose of which is to save life at
sea. The Tribune says: "Captain Bolt, a master
mariner of Newcastle, England, lias invented a
new form of deckhouse, or life saving cabin, which,
in cases of sudden founderlngs from collisions or
wreckage, will with the turn of a wheel, float oft!
tho doomed vessel In its entirety and ride the wa
ters like any other ship. Captain Bolt's new in
vention has received tho approval of the Trinity
House. In the cabin arc berths and seats and
storage places where water and provisions are al
ways kept. The only thing that remains to be
dene when the ship strikes a rock Is to collect all
the passengers and crew within the deck house."
A dispatch from El Paso, Tex., to the Chicago
Tribune says: "Another lot of Porto RIcans
passed through here today, en route for the Sand
wich Islands. There were two trainloads, contain
ing nearly 1,000 of the most poverty-stricken that
have yet been shipped to Hawaii. Some had died
on tho Journey and many others were in a dying
condition when the train left El Paso. Nearly
every one of the party had dysentery, and many
had succuml"" to this disease. They were careful
ly guarded and not allowed to get off the platforms
of the cars."
The London County Council hns decidod to
buy 225 acres of land on which to build work
men's houses to accommodate 42,000 persons. The
cost will be 1,500,000. The nouses will be erected
in Tottenham, a northeastern suburb of London,
where considerable building land Is available. It
is proposed to erect 5,770 cottages, accommodating
42,500 persons. Tho rents will range from six shill
ings a week for a cottage of three rooms and a
kitchen to half a guinea for five rooms and kitchen.
Workmen can obtain railway tickets in this dis
trict at one-fourth the ordinary fares. The scheme
does not involve a removal of the London slums.
It only touches the slum problem Indirectly, but
the tenants of the slums will succeed to the tene
ments vacated by those who occupy the new cot
tages. The plan, once started, will be self-supporting
and probably will pay a small dividend.
A student at the University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor, has been stricken with a strange disease,
wh'ich some have diagnosed as the bubonic plague.
Dr. Frederick Novy, the expert Jn bacteriology,
when interviewed on the possibilitlegijOf the case
said: "I am as yet in a quandary,(a o the exact
nature of the disease. Indeed, it Is an extremely
puzzling one to diagnose accurately,- I -am experi
menting in the bacteriological laboratory since the
case came under my notice, but as yet have come to
no definite conclusion. I am obliged to treat small
animals with the germs which I have cultured from
the blood of the patient, and as soon as sufficient
evidence has been adduced by these means I will
give out a full statement of the facts. Barring one
symptom, I would pronounce the case -the 'black
death.' Under ordinary conditions, however, Its
victims are subject to a scorching fever or, at least,
on extremely high temperature."
The Chicago Tribune presents some interesting
figures on the growth of divorce In the United
States as follows: In 1870 3 per cent of all mar
riages in the United States ended in divorce courts.
In 1881 the percentage had risen to 4.8. In 1890 It
was 6.2, and in 1900 It was 8 per cent. In other
words, the percentage of divorces to marriages in
this country has more than doubled since 1870.
The total number of divorces in the United States
for a given year was 23,427. During the same year
20,111 divorces were granted in all tne world out
side of the United States. There was an excess of
3,361 divorces In this country as compared with the
remainder of the world. Of foreign 'countries the
smallest number of divorces in the'gfven year was
in Canada, where only twelve were granted. Next
to the United States the largest number was in
France, with 6,245 in the year. Germany was a
close second with only 100 less. From a religious
standpoint there are about 73 divorces to every
100,000 Catholics, while divorces for the same total
unong Protestants are 283. More than 40 per cent
of all divorces granted in the United States Is on
the ground of desertion, and divorces are five times
as frequent in the city as in the country districts.
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