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
