The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1872-08-31

AH "a ifiAStNtEABst iAtltOH3EN. ana EaII .
" We'll, what Of it," said we. We never
charge editors muffin. " Bat, my woolly friend, +"
We continued, f" there are a good many editors
travelling nowadays. and such liberality on your
part Will prove u ruinous business .'Oh,
nehcr mind, replied tho barber. we make il
up II de gesh9s3
We have often beard Of legislative bodies and
municipal authorities Offering u reward, or bounty,
for the Scalps, pclts, or wings of such wild beasts
Or birds as are pests and nuisances about the
country iarIn-yards, bat never until now have we
known a similar offer to be made for human
skeletons. This novelty is reported from San
francisco, where, il is said. the city authorities
offer a bounty Of $40 for every dead body picked
up and recovered from the waters of the bay.
Here is an opening now for the unemployed-at
least for such as have no eompuuctions about
committing murder for the fc Of ten dollars, and
doubtless many such can be found.
THE TERMINUS or TUE y. p. RNLRoAD.-The
Pacific Tribune has reliable intelligence from the
agents Of the y. p. Railroad Company that the
line OF road will run 70 the East Side of Budd's
Inlet TO the Billings or Nylie donation claims,
said claims being in sections 25, 26, IS and 30,
IN township No. 10 y, Range , west, in that ter
rItory, and a point will be selected on one of Said
claims for freight and passenger depots where said
line will terminate. This decision knocks the
claims of Port Townsend and all the ambitious
towns ON that side Of Puget Sound into Il cooked
hat. Seattle, Steilacoom and all towns on the
other side may now hold up their heads.
The famine in Persia, which now seems to be
drawing near its close. has been productive of an
amount of misery almost unparalleled in modern
times. Captain Pierson, an Englishman who has
recently travelled IN that unhappy country, de-
scribes the last stage of the famine as worse than
the FIRST. On his journey from Shiraz to TeIeran
he found the road strewn with halEeatcn corpses
aFnthalRsp kcn a. r-apalnnf ana ,~.Cf
had aroused the usually peaceable inhabitants TO
despair, and brigandage and other crimes of vio-
lence were rife all along the roads. In the capt.
tai alone, ont of n population of eighty thou
sand, at least twenty thousand had fallen victims
to the famine and its attendant diseases.
1t has generally been assumed that China had
$50 900 900 inhabitants, aud Japan 30, 000, 900
but we perceive these figures are questioned by
intelligent persons residing in those countries.
1t is said that the rehellions in the Middle King
dom have caused a great reduction in the popula-
tlOn of many provinces within the last twenty
years, amounting IN some cases TO over fifty per
cent. or more and a late British review estimates
the entire Celestial population now at 200 ,0O0,-
900. The Japan Mai of Il late date insists upon
a similar reduction in the population of Japan.
1t says that : the estimates given by those best
on the subject range from Is, 900 900
to % ,000, 600 +" but it is admitted that this
estimate is not accepted by the educated Japan
and is not sustained by any official docu-
ment though "a census was taken in 1871, when,
according to report, the total was 35 900 900.
SAVING WooD BY ELECTaIcITY.-The latest
novelty in the electric line is the employment of
battery current to saw wood, without n saw.
1t is well known that the resistance to the passage
of n current is inyersely as the sectional area of
the conductor. In fine wire, for instance, this
is very great, and the arrested force
being transformed into heat, may be sufficient to
render the wire while hot. This is the principle
Of the various gas-lighting and iuse-firing electric
apparatus, in which the gas is lit or the fuse
exploded by the white-hUt wire. Ii has also
been employed instead Of the knife in certain
surgical operations, the wire being found to burn
its way rapidly and smoothly tin ough flesh, etc.
The latter application, according TO the Scientific
american, has been extended by DR.. George
OF this city, to cutting wood also, the
electrically heated platinum wire proving as
without any expenditure Of manual
strength. as Il saw in the hands of a strong man.
The surface are slightly charred.-Er.
TRAVELLING MADE EAsY.-In England there is n
being named Cook, whose grateful
mission it is to provide suitable EXCURSIONS for
who have not the originality, or the time,
Or the patience to think them out, and attend to
them in person. For example, a London trades
man or attorney desires to spend three weeks or
I month in n trip on the Continent. lie goes to
MIR. Cook, he mentions his limit as to time and
money, and selects from a long list of tours to
or to Malta, to Copenhagen, the one
which takes his fancy. lie pays n stipulated
amount has his baggage sent for on the stipu-
day, and then from the moment he gets
INTO the railway car, or the steamboat until he
returns home he has not an atom of care or
responsibility, OF expense. HIS hotel bills are
paid Tor him, bis luggage looked after by some
yoOd-natured invisible sprite all tile trials and
lnISIlppS that VeX and WORRY the ordinary fra Vplpp .
ire carefully smOothed from his path. He dimes
It the best hotels he sees all the places Of
interest he travels, IN a word, like a Prince Of
airy tale, with Mr.. Cook as his tutelaTy genius.
s it any wonder that all travelling England CRATE
ully puts itself under the guidance of this accom-
Jlished man, whose combinations now embrace
he entire world, or that Peers and Archbishops
asst year, were glad to travel under bis protection.
EFFECTS OF REMOVAL OF FoREsTs.-At one
eason the earth parts with its warmth by radia-
ion to an open sky-receives, at another, an
mmOderate heat from the unobstructed rays of
he sun. Hence the climate becomes excessive,
md the soil IL alternately paTched by the rigors
# winter. Bleak winds sweep unrcsisted over
is surface, drift away the snow that sheltered it
rom the frost, and dry up it's scanty moisture.
The soil is barred of it's covering of leaves, Jroken
nd loosened by the plough, deprived Of the
ibrous ~rootlets which held it together, dried and
by sun and wind and at last exhausted
" new combinations. The face of the earth is
10 longer n sponge, but a dust heap and the
Ioods which hurry swiftly along its slopes, car
ying in suspension vast quantities of earthly
articles, which fill the beds of the streams,
ivert them into new channels, and obstruct
heir outlets. The rivulets, wanting their former
egularity Of supply, and deprived Of the protect
ng shade Of the woods, are heated, eyaporated,
nd thus reduced in their summer currents, but
wollen to raging torrents in autumn and in
pring. The earth, stripped of it's vegetable
lebe, grows less and less productive, and conse-
uently less able to protect itself by weaving Il
ew network of roots to bind its particles together,
new carpeting of turf to shield it from wind,
nd sun, and scourging rain. Gradually it
ecomes altogether barren.
The Discovery OF THE Norm PoLE.-It is
carly four hundred years since the first effort to
-. nnd ,rna made hu the pnrf1rnnese Cnrtn Pei