9
Items of Interest.-
In walking a mile a man uses 17 tons of
foot energy.
Englishmen spend over a million dollars a
year for silk hats.
The Netherlands now possesses nearly 1,000
miles of f.ca dikes.
The combined navies of the world contain,
over 1,500,000 men.
Twenty-six million dolls are manufactured in
Europe every year.
' In every 100 conscripts in the Italian army
there are 3G illiterates.
The skeleton measures 6ne inch less than
the height of the living man.
A cubic foot of cork weighs 15 pounds. A cubic
foot of gold weighs 1,155 pounds.
The year in Mercury Is 88 days long. Venus'
year is 225 days,, and Marks' 687 days.
The total value of the coffee imported into the
United States last year was $00,000,000.
Forty-five per cent of the cotton crop in 1809
was grown west of the Mississippi river.
New South Wales has in use 15,000 miles of
wire netting as protection against the rabbit pest.
Fran js consumes more wine than Germany,
the United States and the United Kingdom com
bined. The German love of music is indicated by the
fact that tho German army contains 10G00
musicians.
The Jargest pawnshop in the world is in Paris;
It is said that it receives in pawn an average of
3,000 watches a. day.
Tho first trans-Atlantic steamer started from
Savannah for Liverpool on the day of Queen
Victoria's birth, May 24, 1S19.
France has coined 2,300 tons of gold in the last
forty y.ea,s. Great Britain has coined lt400 tons
of gold during the same time.
Ice melts at 32 degrees; water boils at 212 de
grees; lead melt's at 594 degrees, and the" heat of
a common coal fire is i,140 degrees.
Helium is the costliest substance known. In
its natural state it costs about $1,000 a cubic foot,
or a million times as much as coal gas.
By the cyanide process it is possible to treat at
a profit gold ores carryings values less than $5 a
ton where they exist in large quantities.
Tho Salvation Army is working in. forty-seven
different countries. The organization prints seventy-five
periodicals In twenty-one languages.
A monument to Ole Bull, the great violinist,
designed by the Swedish sculptor, Stephen Sinding,
has recently been unveiled at Bergen Norway.
The school children of the country- responded
to the appeal from Calveston for funds to re
habilitate the public schools by contributing ?54 -270.45.
N
A. Chicago beggar was offered work in the
country and declined, saying he could live com
fortably on 90 cents a week in the' city, and beg
the 90 cents.
Cardinal Martinelli speaks English with a. de
cided Irish accent and explains it by saying that
lie had been taught English, by a County Galw ay
monk,, in Rome.
It is reported that the head waiter of a, leading.
New York hotel has- recently invested $100,000- in
the- stock of the hostelry, every dollar of the
amount being saved from tip he received from
guests.
Three hundred organ grinders leave Italy for
Londan at the beginnings of June and return to
Italy fa. October. In four months they maka
enough to live- comfortably during tha remaining,
eight months, of tie; year ,
The Commoner.
The South African war Is now costing Great
Britain $7,500,000 a week. Great Britain has 250,
000 men in the field against the Boers, and 14,000
mere In hospitals.
Tho longest sentence ever imposed upon a
criminal was imposed upon a forger in Naples.
Ho was convicted of sixty-four separate forgeries
and was sentenced to 1,088 years of solitary con
finement. In 1881 the largest Bteamer afloat was tho City
cf Berlin, 520 feet long'and a displacement of 8,000
tons. The City of Berlin is now the United States
transport Meade. In 1891 tho largest steamer
afloat was the City of Paris, 560 feet long and a
displacement of 10,000- tons.
A florist says that the natural color may be
preserved in pressed flowers by submitting them
to pressure for a day or two, then laying them in
papers heated In the sun, repeating until the
drying is complete. This plan is followed in the
New York botanical gardens.
A man who asserts that ho has made careful
investigation says the average business walk in '
New York city is a mile in twenty minutes, the
average church walk a mile In twenty-live min
utes, and fastest average walk that of the home
ward bound Brooklynites a mile in eighteen
minutes.
In the American Tongue,
To the traveler In a strange land, the sound of ,
his mother tonguo is like the upwelling of a foun
tain in the desert. Memories ot the distant home
fill the heart with hope, and gladden the eyes with,
the mist of tears And, assuredly, American pa
triots of. the. old school have every reason to know
that they are in "a far country," now that the
outworn creeds of tho Old World are in process of
restatement at the hands of our supreme tribunal.
As a matter of fact, the deliverances of tho major
ity of the supreme court In the- "insular cases"
are well calculated to bring a contemptuous smllo ,
to the lips of laymen who have fondly believed
common law to be synonymous with common
sense. Mr. Justice Brown and Mr. Justice White
reach a like conclusion, and unite in laying down
the doctrine that territory may be foreign at one
moment and domestic at another, according to the
whim of the legislative branch of the government;
but each of the jurisconsults in question declares
that his brother's premises and reasoning are
utterly wrong. This is a new thing in logic. As
well might a physiologist declare that a man may
be both white and black, at one and the same mo
ment of time.
In such circumstances, It Is a consolation to
know. that liberty still has its dauntless cham
pions in the foremost forum of all the world. The
average American may maka bold to stand up for
his inherited or reasoned convicitons when he
hears that the latest charter of despotism was for
mulated by a majority of a single vote. More
over, one's courage is immensely strengthened by
the knowledge that the historic view of the con
troversy has been taken by a judge who, by his
antecedents and his mature convictions, is a re
publican of republicans. John M. Harlan is a
Kentucklan, and his robustness of belief is pre
cisely that of the. Vermont democrat who has
never in all his life gone to the poll with the slight
est hope of controlling' his state. Such men never
"palter in a double sense." To them truth is the
one thing, needful,, and they are willing to- follow
wherever she may lead. New Orleans; Times-Democrats
A Dog and a Wreck.
Many a life-haa been saved by a. Newfoundland
dog, but doff never did braver deed than one
brought to remembrance ty a. story in Our Dumb
Animals. Tha incident occurred some years agot.
A vessel wag. driven oa, the. beacli ot Lydd, ia.
Kent, England. The sea was very high. JDight
men clung to tho wreck, which was every moment
in dangor of going to pieces. No boat could bo
got off through tho storm to help the despairing
sailors, and it looked as if they would drown be
fore tho eyes of tho watchers upon the land.
Presently a gentleman came along the beach
accompanied by his Newfoundland dog. The gen
tleman directed tho animal's attention to tho vessel
and then put a short stick in his mouth. The dog
at once comprchonded his mnster's meaning, and
plunged into the sea.
Bravely he fought his way through the angry
waves, but he could not get close enough to the
vessel to deliver that with which ho had been
charged. Tho crew, however, understood what was
wanted, and making fast a rope to another piece of
wood, they threw the wood toward tho dog.
Tho intelligent animal at once dropped his own
piece of wood and seized that which had been
thrown to him. Then he started for tho shore.
Again and again he was lost under the waves, but
with almost incredible determination he held on
to tho stick and dragged the rope through tho surf
till he delivered it to his master. A line of com
munication was thus made with tho vessel, and
every man on board was saved. Youth's Companion.
London and Paris.
The contrasts presented by Paris and London
are rather amusingly put by Felix Pojat, in the
Matin, of the former city. He says:
"Paris does most things with the right hand
or at tha right side; London follows the left.
"Parisan coachmen keep to the right, those of
London to the left.
"Paris grows by absorption, London by ex
pansion. "Paris is, built of stone, London ot brick, '
"Paris has high Louses and narrow streets,
London's buildings are low and its; streets wide.,
"Tho windows of Paris open like' doors, those
of London a la guillotine.
"Paris is collectivlstic, it dwells ia houses
which, are really caravansaries; London is individ
ualistic, each family having its own house.
"Paris has its portier, London its night-key.
"Paris gets up early from its bed which is
against the wall; London arises late from its bed,
wblch is in the center of the room.
"Paris dines, London eats.
"London, said Voltaire, has ono hundred re
ligions and but one sauce; Paris has one hundred
sauces and no religion at all.
"Paris Is gay, London sad.
"London has too few soldiers, Paris too many.
The soldiers in Paris wear a blue tunic and red
pantaloons, while the London man-of-war Is clad
in a red coat and blue trousers.
"In Paris priests perform the marriage rites;
in London they marry themselves.
"In Paris the married women are free; in Lon
don when a woman marries she ceases to be.
"Paris has more suicides, London more homi
cides. "Paris works, London traffics.
"In Paris the street crowds fight by kicks, in
London by blows of the list.
"The proletralat of Paris refers to the pawn
shop as 'My aunt while in London they say My
uncle.' "Translation made for the Literary Digest.
Origin of a Celebrated Jest
When Mr. Evarts, who was my near relative
and a, man with whom I could take a liberty, came
ir-to the senate, I said to him that we should have
to amend the rules so that a motion to adjourn
would be in order in the middle, of a sentence,, to
which, he replied that he knew of nobody in this
country who objected to long sentences except the
criminal classes. Senator Hoar, in Scrlbner's.
"Bibulous says he's a college graduate."
"Yes;; I suppose he is. I believe the place
wnere. he took: the gold cure was called a college.
Philadelphia Record.
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