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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 13, 1901)
k. The Commoner. 9 IE ;" L- I-' for . Items of Interest. are no plucked by pneumatic .air de- 4 "H The governor of Ohio has no veto power. The 1901 salmon pack will he the largest in history. Fowls vices. - The largest ships using the Suez canal fly the German flag. Sidney, Australia, kitchens are usually found on the top floor. A rainfall of one inch means a weight of 100 tons to the acre. In greater New York there are nearly 100,000 tenement house;. The average rise and fall of the tides at Panama is two feet. More than 7,000 people earn a living by fishing in , the Mississippi river. The University of Oxford was founded by Al fred the Great in 886. In Spain nearly 1,000,000 women work In the fields as day laborers. Electricity will soon be the motive power on the Swedish railway system. The Municipal Art Society of Cincinati has de clared war on the bill boards. American, made bicycles are the fashionable mounts for wealthy Germans. Wireless telegraph stations are being established all along the gulf of St. Lawrence. ' Jarrow wood, a product of Australia, is the only known wood that insects will not attack. John B. French has. been city clerk of Galena, Ills., for forty years. He is eighty years old. It is stated that the eye of an educated person travels 2,500 miles of reading in a life-time. "Self-denial week" of tho British Salvation Army resulted in a collection of over $200,000. England spends upward of $40,000,000 a year on lier paupers. France spends less than $6,000,000. """ It is 15,260 feet to the snow line on tho equator. It is about 5,000 feet in the latitude of Denmark. The railways of the world carry 2,000,000,000 passengers and 950,000,000 tons of freight In a year. j Expert railway men aver that the limit of speed has been reached with the present style of loco motive. The total population of Malta is 185,000, includ ing troops. This is an increase of about 8,000 In ten years. A kangaroo has been known to clear eleven feet at a jump. The best record of a deer is nine feet and six inches. ,Tho number of resident foreigners in Switzer land has been increased by 155,000 during the past twelve years. Joseph Gaspard Chaussgros de Dery, a French engineer, is said to have made the first maps of Detroit in 1749 and 1751. In France during the month of June, last, there were fifty-seven strikes. The total for the first six months of the year -was 306. A statistician avers that one in every six of Chi cago's population leaves th- city on a vacation during the summer months. Three varieties of dogs are known not to bark the Australian dog, the Egyptian dog and the "lion-headed" dog of Thibet. Washington farmers are suffering from an in vasion of crows and are establishing "crow hunts" to rid themselves of the pest. Belgian newspapers are gravely discussing whether women have a right to smoke in rail way carriages reserved for women. There is no such thing known to horticulture as a really black flower. The men who can produce a black rose can name his own price. The combined population of New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia is about one-twentieth of tho total population of the country. The population of New York and Pennsyl vania exceeds the population of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Louisana, Ala bama and "Texas. There is a burning mountain In Aveyron, France. It is often mistaken for an active vol cano, but It is In reality only a burning mine. There are seventeen volumes of the "Rogues Album" kept by tho Berlin police. Tho album contains tho photographs of over 20,000 criminals. Tho boring of artesian wells is becoming a prominent industry in Washington. Water Is reached at 1,200 feet and hag a temperature of 70 degrees. The trees now growing on the farm where Dan iel Webster was born are to be cut down and manufactured into friction matches. Tho match company paid $2,800 for tho standing timber. Tho Pension building at Washington is overrun with rats and the women clerks are talking of going out on a strike until government rat catch ers are appointed and perform the necessary work. Scientists declare that in a comparatively short time the Bermuda islands will sink from sight. The subsidence within a short time, compared with the age of the governments on the Western Hemisphere, .ias been from 80 to 100 feet. A Toledo, Ohio, judge has issued an order re straining forty ducks belonging to Louis Gould from quacking. The order was issued on petition oi a man who said the quacking of tho ducks prevented him from sleeping late in the morning, and as ho was a night worker ho was entitled to protection. When Portland, Ore., was a young city the in habitants planted poplar trees because they grew rapidly and soon made good shade. But the onco popular poplar is now marked for slaughter. Its roots grow to such a length that they trespass on the sewers, entering the smallest cracks and soon choking up the pipes. The problem of the payment of King Edward's debts has been solved by Lord Farquhar, a mem ber of the banking firm of Herries & Farquhar, who has accepted the post of comptroller of tho royal household. When a multitude of tho obli gations of the Prince of Wales came due upon his accession to the throne, Lord Farquhar formed a syndicate to liquidate tho debts, stipulating that they should control tho royal income and make such retrenchments as were desirable in the royal expenses. The first payment on an obligation of $1,250,000 has been made by the Farquhar syndi cate to the Prince of Wales hospital fund to liqui date tho debt to tho late Sato Lewis, tho money lender. Lord Farquhar says that in less than ten years he will save, despite the expenses of the coronation, a sufficient sum to reimburse the syn dicate for its advances and pay 5 per cent interest without the king being made to feel the retrench ment. Champ Clark, congressman from tho Ninth dis trict, and Walter Williams, editor of tho Columbia (Mo.) Herald, have in preparation and nearly ready for publication "The Story of Missouri.'' Tho volume will be in the best sense a Missouri story book. It will recount the life and incidents which make fascinating the history of the com monwealth, will abound with personal sketch, an ecdote and reminiscence, the flesh-and-blood side of great Missourians and the underlying causes which made the state a potent factor in the de velopment of the broad-bosomed west. It will not be a history nor a collection of statistics, but what its title indicates, a story-book which Its authors hope will prove more readable than th most delightful novel as truth is ever more charming than fiction. Beginning with the trans Mississippi country before the Louisiana Purchase "The Story of Missouri" will tell of that purchase, the most far-reaching real estate transaction In all history. Reference will be made to the striking but almost forgotten fact that in reality the fate of Missouri was settled by Wolfe's splendid achievement on tho plains of Abraham. With htis for a beginning there will be traced Missouri's political influence which began before her admis sion into the union and continues to this day; Missouri's wealth and development; Missouri's educational and religious growth; tho character oi Missouri's population especially of the pioneers who were of the salt of the earth; the life of Mis souri In peace; Missouri's part in war. The vol ume will seek to tell the truth about Missourians dead and alive and in a way that every Missourlan at home and abroad wilj recognize himself in tho mirroring pages. Of course the volume will havo portraits other than the pen-pictures, it will be issued in appropriate binding and typography, and it will be accurate as to historical statement and statistic. The distinctive feature of "The Story of Missouri," however, that which it Is believed will make important and entertaining the publication, is that It is to be a story-book, a narration in vivid form of the days and deeds of an heroic people and a giant land. Points About People, Edward Vil has been notified by his physlclaa that ho must stop smoking. Count Von Walderseo Is occupying public at tention just now. His wifo is an American woman. Ex-Congressman J. Proctor Knott has resigned ao head of tho law department of Center college, Danville, Ky. Tho Ameer of Afghanistan is a korse breeder on a largo scale. His stud now comprises upwards of 2,000 animals. Tolstoi's health is not good and his physicians want him to spend tho winter in southern France. He refuses to leave Russia. George W. Breckenrldge, of San Antonio, Tex,, has given $20,000 for tho erection of a school for the negro children of that city. Tho crown prince of Slam has written a book. It deals with the war of Polish succession and is soon to be published in London. Admiral Sir Edmund Freemantle has served in the British navy for fifty years. Ho has just re tired, having reached tho ago limit. Anton Lang who has received world-wide fame because of his presentation of Christ In the pas sion play, recently visited in London. When a school boy Pasteur gave no sign of gen ius. Ho stood fourteenth in a class of twenty threo, and in chemistry was marked "weak." A. J. Balfour has just celebrated his 53rd birth day. He entered parliament at 25, became a cabinet minister at 38, and was leader of tho house at 43. Tho farmer's national congress will meet In Sioux Falls on October 1, and. Captain R. G. F. Candage, of Brooklino, Mass., will deliver tho principal address. Princess Frederick-August, who will some day be queen of Saxony, is taking a regular course of training as a trained nurse in the Lutheran hospital in Dresden. William Rollins, who died at Dogue, Va re- t contly, was the ferryman who carried John Wilkes ' Booth across the Rappahannock after the assas sination of Lincoln. Tho Grand Duchess of Mccklenburg-Strelitz is the last surviving granddaughter of George III. Her brother, tho Duke of Cambridge, is the last surviving grandson. John D. Rockefeller, jr is said to be an excel lent judge of horse flesh. Just now his specialty is tho breeding of cobs and has imported several valuable animals from England. Tho Mikado of Japan is much glven to poetry writing. It is said that h$ writes dally from twenty to thirty of the thirty-one syllabled cou plets known in Japan as "wa-ka." S. Yang! Wara, a Japanese student who has completed his education in American universities, ia soon to become professor of chemistry at the Missouri State University, Columbia. Enough ex-confederates live in Seattle to organ ize a camp of United Confederate Veterans and General George F. Alford is there for that purpose. A camp is already in existence at Spokane. Queen Alexandria has ordered an automobile of the spider typo for presentation to the dowager empress of Russia. It will be of eight horse power and furnished in the most luxurious manner. Major James Geddes, a division superintendent of the Louisville & Nashville railroad, has just celebrated fifty years of continuous service with that corporation. Major Geddes' homo Is in Nashville. In addition to being a leading member of the Royal Arcanum, Admiral Schley is a leader in tho Junior Order of United States Mechanics. The last named order recently presented him with a handsomo badge. Until recently the city of Paris paid tho detec tives who guard the president of France. The city . now refuses to assume tho burden and the presi dent wrill bo guarded by detectives who will be on the national pay roll. When the municipal councilors of Paris endeav ored to put a memorial plaque on the house where tho late Felix Faure was born they were stopped by the owner of the property. He said ho did not vant the house "desecrated." Austin Dobson, the English man of letters, has resigned his post as principal of the fisheries and harbor department of the London Board of Trade and after a visit abroad will devote him self to writing a life of Samuel Richardson.