Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1873-03-15

And q happier family, when they had
exhausted their power of surprise,
amazement and pride in the beautiful
Mar'on never gave thanks over sup
per table, Woman's Journal.
The LAUGHING PLANT. Palgrave's
work on Central and Eastern Arabia
furnishes something new for botanists
A plant is described under the name of
laughing plant" the seeds of which
produce effects very much like laughing
gas. It grows only in Arabia, attaining
q hight of only about six inches at
Kaseem, while at Oman it rises three
or four feet, with wide spreading
branches, being woody and the leaves
green. It's flowers, in tufts, are yellow
Two or three black seeds, much like
French beans in size and shape, are
produced in soft, woolly kind of a
capsule. They have sweetish taste,
with slight favor of opium. The odor
from them is rather offensive, producing
q sickening sensation. The essential
property of this extraordinary plant is
in the seed, which, pulverized, and ad-
ministered cautiously, soon begins to
operate in way to create astonishment.
The person begins to laugh boisterously,
then he dances, sings and cuts fantas-
tic capers of ludicrous character
Such an extravaganza of manner was
never witnessed from any other dosing.
1t is uproariously funny for about an
hour. 1t is common amusement to
charge food with the powder for the
harmless enjoyment of his capering
antics. When the excitement subsidies
the exhausted exhibitor falls into pro-
found slumber. In another hour, on
waking, he is totally unconcious of what
has occurred. 1t is common express
sion that there is nothing new under
the sun. Surely to men of science
this is something new, demanding their
careful investigation of such extraordi-
nary properties of vegetable growth
that exercise such potent influence over
the brain. But it is morally certain
that this recently discovered vegetable
growth, SO extraordinary in it's po-
tent influence on the human brain, is
something new to science, demanding
the attention of dispensatory makers,
as we'll as those professors Of Materia
Medica who are supposed to know all
that is to be known of plants, from the
cedars of Lebanon 70 the hyssop that
springs out of the wall. f-
A CARAVAN OF DEATH. fearful pill
grimage is described by the great East
ern explorer, Vambery, who met it
once on his travels and was deeply i'm
pressed by its weird and dread appear.
ance. It was q procession of the dead,
and not of the living, and yet stretched
as far as eye could reach across the
vast plain. There, in distant Persia,
the followers of Ali, falling in strange
ly enough with the belief of the Chinese
heathens, fancy they cannot rest in for
eign soil, and, if they can at all scrape
the pittance together, provide for their
bodies resting place at Kufa, where
their great chieftain lies buried. Hence
every year this fearful procession of cof-
fms slung OH the backs of camels and
asses starts from the uttermost confines
of Persia, and swelling by additions in
every town and hamlet, gradually
reaches gigantic proportions, till at last
vast army of horrid decaying pilgrims
reach the burying ground. The un-
fortunate Arabs who undertake the dis
NAL task, with their heads enveloped in
thick shawls and faces of deathly pallor,
not infrequently succumb long before
they reach the end Of their journey, and
countless coffins are simply cast down,
till huge pile rises like terrible mau-
soleum on the immense plain. It is
not without reason therefore, that trav-
elers and physicians have looked upon
this awe-inspiring place as the very
cradle of the cholera, when it has made
it's fatal journey round the world and
demanded its periodical number of VIC
tins. .t......... -... fam. ...,
A Water TELEGRApu.-A French en-
gineer and inventor named Tommasi