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Items of Interest.
There are 8,000 tons of gold coined or In bars.
The British brew 35,500,000 barrels of beer a
year.
A Qerman infantry soldier's outfit weighs over
sixty pounds.
The great Scottish universities are said to bo
in need of money.
Eighty-three per cent of the pure Hawaiians
can read and write.
Tho manufacture of silk was introduced into
Spain by tho Moors.
A white disc a foot across can be seen 17,000
feet in bright sunlight.
Germany is experimenting with acetyline gas
as ah illuminant for lighthouses.
' The United States produces three-fourths of
"all the cotton grown in tho world.
The first comic opera was written in 1240 A.
. D. The author was Adam de la Hale.
Patti says the "best "way to preserve the voice
Is to take daily walks in the open air.
Carbon making for electric lamps is one of tho
main industries in tho Virginia gas belt.
Farm hands are scarce in England. The glor
ies of war have tempted tho laborers away.
The biggest sailing ship in the world is be-.
Irig built in Boston. It will carry six masts.
Electric windlasses are now being used to load
and discharge cargoes hy great steamship lines.
' The Illinois bird league has 30,000 members.
The ohject of the league is to protect the birds.
The record height lor a kangaroo jump is
eleven feet The deer record is nine feet bIx inches.
A New York florist declares that 6,000,000
palms decorated American churches last Easter
" Sunday.
Lee Tricket of Glennwood, "Wis., claims to be
tho heaviest man In the world. He weighs 500
pounds.
The German postal authorities are consider
ing the idea of .forcing the use of envelopes of cer
tain sizes. '
' The voluntary contributions or'ered ia the
Church of England last year amounted to nearly
$40,000,000.
Prospectors claim to have found a mountain
of almost pure copper within forty miles of Dead
wood, S. D.
The new Theatre do Prancais, Paris, is tho
largest in the world. It covers three acres of
ground space.
Central America and tho West Indies sell
about $J,O00,000 worth of bananas to the United
States each year.
. A lamp chimney is a small thing, but 11,000
- people are employed in making lamp chimneys in
the United States.
Some man with nothing else to do has figured
out that 1,000,000 dollar hills will weigh 2,176
pounds avoirdupois.
Peterboro, N. H., established the first free
library in the United States, the library having
been founded in 181 J.
Africa has an area of 11,500,000 Bquare miles
thrje times larger than the United States and her
- "colonial possessions."
An Omaha newspaper man says the hignest
ambition of his life is to have Jwo good pairs of
suspenders at one time.
. France has taken the lead in sub-marine boat
: building, having fifteen In commission and eight
in course of construction.
In Prussia last year 641 couples celebrated
golden and diamond weddings. The government
gave each couple a gold medal.
The Commoner.
. The battleship Maine will be launched on Me
morial day.
Tho highest known tides are in tho Bay of
Funday. Tho lowest are at Panama, where tho
rise and fall is less than two feet.
The number of libraries in tho United States
has more than doubled during the last twenty
years. There aro now about 5,000.
The Amazon rTver Is the largest in the world.
Tho longest waterway in the world is made up of
tho Mississippi and Missouri rivers.
Two dozen of the leading bankers, business
and professional men of Richmond, Mo., celebrated
May Day by parading in shirt aists.
Four hundred years ago Manhattan island was
bought for $24. The other day a garden patch on
Manhattan island sold for ?1,000,000.
The largest single Iron deposit In the United
States is Iron Mountain, Mo. It is considerable of
a mountain and is 80 per cent pure iron.
A Georgia jury called to try tho case of a man
charged with assault returned the following ver
dict: "We find the prisoner almost guilty."
A statue 6,000 years old has been discovered in
an Egyptian village. It is the representation of a
chief of the domain in which it was erected.
Miss Anna Lyle has been teaching school in
Philadelphia for fifty years. For forty-one years
she has been the principal of a primary school.
Great Britain has one small comfort In tho
Boer war. Enlistments in the army and navy have
reduced tho number of tramps about 75 per cent.
The ancients had the art of tempering copper,
but the art has long been lost. The man who can
rediscover It will be able to ride in his private
yacht.
Italy and Spain have the fewest number of
houses in proportion to population. The Argen
tine Republic has most, with Uruguay a close
second. '
The government's new mint at Philadelphia
will be the largest, costliest and finest money
making establishment in tho'"i.orld. It will 'cost
$2,000,000 exclusive of the furnishings.
The second son of Rajah Brooke of Sarawak
was a member of the Cambridge, England, boat
crevf last year. His name Js B. W. D. Brooke, but
his classmates call him "the rajah." He is very
popular.
Men who smoke "Egyptian cigarettes" think
they are smoking tobacco raised in Egypt Tobac-co-raisfng
has heen prohibited in that country for
upwards of forty years. The only thing Egyptian
about the "Egyptian cigarette" is the 'name.
An English newspaper saya that the largest
block of stone ever quarried weighs 1,400 tons and
was used in the construction of the lighthouse on
Bleachly Head. The statement in not true. Blocks
of stone much larger and heavier are in plain
sight in the pyramids of Egypt.
A Blair, Neb., boy recently tried to enlist in
the navy at the Omaha recruiting station. He
stood the physical examination, but when aBked
to pick certain colored cards from a basket he
failed lamentahly. To him the colors gray, or
ange, yellow, light green and dark blue appeared
to be brown.
In Sweden the state cares for and owns over
18,000,000 acres of forest lands. Schools of forestry
are maintained, and as a result of wise foresight
the proceeds from the sale of the lumber product
pay all the cost of the schools and the caretakers,
and the net profits are four times greater than the
expenditures.
The Burt mansion at Abbeville, S. C, has been
offered for sale. It was in this mansion that the
final session of the confederate cabinet was held.
At the close of the meeting the great seal of the
confederacy was hidden away so .-ell that it has
never been found. It was reported that it had
been thrown in an old well on the place, but if it
was It did not stop at tho bottom, for every well
on the place has been closely searched.
Great Salt Lake's level Is rapidly lowering, ow
ing to tho drain made upon it by Irrigation canals
that tap its feeders. It Is pr posed that a ral
be cut from Snake river to tho lake for the solo
purpose of keeping the lako from ging dry.
For the first time in history, a suit has been
brought which involves an alleged trespass on
the part of a dead man. Mrs. Mary Clyborn,
mother-in-law of Alien Gregory, now dead, has
commenced proceedings in the Chicago courte to
obtain a decree for the removal of Gregory's body
from its grave in Mrs. Clyborn's lot.
The civil service commission will make an ef
fort to Indict Representative Charles R. Dick, of
Ohio, in the courts at Washington for alleged vio
lation of the law prohibiting tho solicitation of as
sessments for political purposes from employes, of
the government. This step is rendered necessary
because a federal grand jury at Cincinnati refused
to bring in a true bill. Representative Dick, while
in chargo of a recent gubernatorial campaign in
Ohio, sent letters to all tho employes in tho exe
cutive departments here who hold legal residence
in Ohio, intimating that they were personally in
terested in republican success and should contri
bute toward that end. Under the interpretation
of tho civil service law made by Attdrney Gen
eral Olney the letter was not a violation of the
statute. The commission has never been satisfied
with Mr. Olney's construction, and is anxious to
have a test case made to decide the question. Hav
ing failed in Ohio, an effort will be made to bring
the matter into court here.
A dispatch from New Orleans to the St. Louis
Globe-Democrat says: General Pearson, the Boer
agent, who, with E. Van Ness, the New York at
torney, brought the suit for injunction to restrain
further shipments of mules by the British from
this port for army use in the Transvaal, which
suit was yesterday dismissed, last night gave out
a most significant interview, in whlcix he practical
ly said that privateers would be fitted out in tho
Interest of the Boers to accomplish what the law
had denied. He was much disappointed over tho
action of tho court, and when asked for a state
ment as to his ideas over the outcome of the suit,
he said: "I am not as much surprised as disap
pointed. You can say this for me British com
merce will, in the near future, receive a great sur
prise." Gen. Pearson went on to talk of the situa
tion at length, and there was but one inference to
-bo drawn from what he said that the Boers had
friends who were willing to pay for fitting out
privateers for the purpose of capturing all vessels
.containing further shipments of mules, and injur
ing British commerce in general' as much as pos
sible. An important discovery made during the past
week is that the placer mining district in the Big
Salmon country are on American territory, and
not on the Canadian side as has been supposed for
tho past two years. In a report, Assistant Surgeon
Fraser, commanding the Dalton Trail Detachment
of the Northwest mounted police, says: "A good
deal of country which has hitherto been recognised
as part of Alaska, U. S., became Canadian territory
by the establishment of the provisional boundary.
Tho line commences at a peak west of Porcupine
Creek and runs in a northeasterly direction to
wards another peak to the Klehini River, thence
following its right bank to the junction with tho
Chilcat River, about a mile and a half above
Kluckwan, an Indian village. The boundary
thence runs to the summit of peak east of Chilcat
River. This places Porcupine, McKinley, Calhoone
and other creeks within the United States terri
tory; but Glacier, Boulder, Slate, and a few others
which were staked under United States laws, are
now in British Columbia, part of what Is known as
the Porcupine district being in United States and
another part, holding the same name, in British
Columbia."
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