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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 25, 1898)
i The Conservative. i vi upper story of the northeast corner or tbo building and is approached by four doors and finally by a narrow passage. It is a small room , only about 18 feet long and 12 feet wide , with two small windows , and is tbo place where the emperor spent most of bis time when not officially employed. It is tbo room in which be died , some say by poison } administered by himself in a fit of inol- f ancholy induced by the outcome of the Crimean war. The room remains just as he left it. Near the center is a plain iron bedstead. Some chairs and a few cheap pictures adorn the room , and a dilapidated , down at the heel pair of slippers complete the furnishings of the attio room in the palace. The Ashantees See Sights. The natives of these .Tamau villages had never seen a white man before , and I noticed at first with some surprise that those of our actions which inter ested them most were the simple and commonplace ones. To such matters as eating and dressing they gave the clos est attention. Every morning when I emerged from my tent I found a largo audience waiting patiently for the per formance to begin , and when I took my place at the wasbstand a crowd closed round , forming a large circle. They fol lowed the whole process with the great est enjoyment , discussing and explain ing to one another the various details and now and again raising shouts of applause as some peculiarly amusing feature of the performance ( such as the use of the nailbrush ) occurred. When I produced my toothbrush and proceeded to put it to its natural use , there was much anxious discussion , and when I brushed my hair up and made it stand on end they yelled with delight. As for the opening of a bottle of champagne , whicb occurred on one oc casion after an unusually long march ) it simply brought down the bouse , al though the spectators somewhat abrupt ly dispersed and viewed the remainder of the performance around the corners of adjacent huts. "Freeman's Travels and Life In Ashanti. " A Long Walk. The longest walk one could take in a straight line on solid laud would be from the eastern side of the Red sea , not far from Mecca , to the Bering strait , a promenade of about 6,600 miles. In the western hemisphere the walk would not exceed 4,600 miles , owing to the ir regular shape of the American conti nent. . * * The English Army. In the 40 years that elapsed between the battle of Waterloo and the fighting in the Crimea the British army attain ed a maximum of inefficiency. It is only now , when the chief actors in the great drama of the struggle witb Russia are dead , that the public is beginning to learn the extent of the incapacity and inefficiency of the men responsible for the equipment and training of the Brit ish army. But for the courage of the Br tish private the Crimean campaign would have been a disastrous failure. Indeed but for the accident of a fog on the morning of the battle of Inkerman , which enabled a handful of British troops to impress 40,000 Russian sol diers with the idea that they wore more numerous and better supported than they really were , the English army would have been driven into the Black sea and the subsequent history of Eu rope altered beyond recognition. Lou- don Standard. Manilla Hemp. Every engineer knows what manilla hemp is , but few are aware that it is tbo product of a species of banana which is cultivated in certain localities in the Philippine islands. The plant , called by the natives "abaca , " throws up a cluster of cheating leaf stalks to a height of 20 or 80 feet , which spread out at tbo top into a crown of huge un divided leaves. When it is 8 years old , it is cut down and the stalks are torn into strips. These strips , while still fresh , are drawn between a knife and a wooden block , and the soft cellulose matter is removed. The' fiber is then hung up to dry in the open air until it is fit for use. Each stalk gives about a pound of fiber , and two natives will turn out about 25 pounds a day. The inside fiber , which is thin and weak , is used by the natives for making articles of dress. The familiar manilla rope is made from the fiber of the outer layer , which is bard and strong. The whole supply of mauilla hemp practically comes from the Philippines , and the United States consumes 41 per cent of it. Picturesque Description of Arizona. We live in a laud of high mountains , high collars and high taxes , low val leys , low neck dresses and low wages , big , crooked rivers and big , crooked statesmen , big lakes , big drunks , big pumpkins , big men with pumpkin heads , silver streams that gambol in the mountains and pious politicians who gamble in the night , roaring cataracts and roaring orators , fast trains , fast horses , fast young men , roses that bloom the year round aud beautiful girls with rosebud mouths , sharp lawyers , sharp financiers aud sharp too shoes , noisy children , fertile plains that lie like a sheet of water and thousands of news papers tlat lie like thunder. Yuma Sentinel. \ , * f * " * - Where" fiearing Ceases. Lord Rayleigh , in a lecture , said that experiments had shown that a vibration of sound having an amplitude of less than one-twelve-milliouth of a centi meter could still affect the sense of hearing. Such a vibration would be so short that it would have to be enlarged 100 times before the most powerful micro scope could render it visible , supposing that it were susceptible of being seen at all. all.Old Old people , he said , do not hear high notes which are audible to young per sons , and there is reason to believe that babies hoar noteu which are inaudible to their elders.London Mail. A Singular Calculation. In a recent number of Power a singu lar calculation ia presented by J. A. Ronio. It would require , according to Mr. Ronie's figures , the power of a 10- 000 horsepower engine about 70,000- 000,000 years to lift the earth a foot in height , and to do this work , allowing * a pounds 01 water per horsepower per hour , would require some 10,000,000- 000,000,000,000 gallons of water , or more than would bo discharged at the mouth of the Mississippi in 60,000 years. This would bo enough , the writer estimates , to cover the entire snrfaco of tbo earth to a depth of about 800 feet , to convert which into steam , using good boilers , would require some 4,000,000- 000,000,000 tons of coal. If Uio latter quantity of the mineral was loaded on cars of 20 tons each , it would demand 200,000,000,000,000 such cars. If the latter were 80 feet long and all coupled together in one train , it would reach around the earth 45,000,000 times and , if running 25 miles per hour , would consume 25,000,000 years in running the length of itself. So much for "fig ures. " A Deadly Gas. Millers and the owners of grain ele vators look upon the bisulphide of car bon as one of their most useful agents. When a mill , an elevator or a granary becomes infested with weevil , bisul phide of carbon is the cheapest and most effective thing to exterminate the pest. So deadly is the gas , however , and so rapidly does it act that the ut most care must bo taken in applying the bisulphide. It is usually sprinkled over the grain from watering pots. The liquid is rapidly converted into a gas , and the latter sinks through the grain , carrying death to the weevil and even to the uuhatched eggs. So long as the persons applying the liquid stand above She point of applica tion they are pretty safe from the fumes , but occasionally the workmen breathe a little of the gas and have to be removed at once to the open air , as the heart is quickly paralyzed by the action of tbo bisulphide. It is usual to treat the lower floors of a granary first , BO that those employed in the work may keep constantly above the gas. Any animal , as a cat or a dog , shut up in an apartment whore the bisulphide is do ing its work is found dead when the place is opened. Chicago Inter-Ocean. * i'ii Japan is just now on the eve of an other political change which fully con summates what she began when the mikado emancipated the country from the old feudalism of the Daimios. She has instituted a directly representative system like that of England. In other words , future ministries will stand or fall with the success of important meas ures , and , if need bo , the country will be appealed to by a dissolution of par liament. , A * % * > An Invincible. When Alcibiades was teid that his countrymen had passed sentence of death upon him for being at the head of a conspiracy to overthrow the religious and political constitution of Athens , he said , "I will show them I still live. " Ho obtained from Sparta assurance of personal safety and went hither. He de lighted and charmed the Spartans , as ho had the Athenians in his earlier years Ho adopted their ouatoms and dress and was the strictest Spartan of them all. He wore his hair short , bathed in the ioy waters of the Eurotes and ate their