The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1876-07-21
TIMELY TOPICS.

TIMELY TOPICS.
PEANUT-oII, first made in the south
during the war, is now in large demand.
1t supplies the place of almond and olive
oil for various uses, and is lower in price,
retains its purity and flavor for a long
time, and is less susceptible to the effect
of light than olive oil. The oil is
extraced entirely from the meat of the
nut by pressure, the refuse being used
as cattle feed or a fertilizer.
Miss MULoCK mentiont four profes-
sional pursuits in which women can
now support themselves in England
teaching, painting or sculpture, itera-
ture and public entertainment. In Amer
lea we have added the medical profession
to the list, as has been done also in
France. The university of Michigan
and some other institutions graduate a
lawyers also each year.
THE carrier-pigeon is likely to come
into favor again. Tegetmeier, the cele-
brated pigeon trainer, has perfected a
plan for employing them to establish
communication between light ships and
the shore in case of shipwrecks. By
using the marine cone of signs he is con-
hdent that information as to the need of
assistance can be conveyed from points
which otherwise would be cut off from
all communication.
IT is profitable sometimes to own fast
running horse. NJ. Balthazzi the owner
of the three-year old colt Kisber, which
has already won the English Derby and
the Grand Prix de Paris, has netted good
sized fortune through the victories. The
stakes alone were more than $50 900, and
an enormous SUM was won on outside
bets. If NJ. Balthazzi were a prudent
man he would retire from the turf as
soon as Kisber ceased winning. The
probability is, however that, elated by
his success, he will plunge heedlessly and
recklessly into racing ventures and rae
ing speculatiOns, and that in the course
of a few years, at most, he will be no
better off in this worlds goods than he
was before he owned horse that carried
off the "blue ribbon" of the English
turf
ITALY thinks she can make some
pretensions as military and naval
power, and that her vie Ware entitled to
some weight in Europ, The nominal
strength of her army is upwards of
100000 men, of whom 265, 900 men have
had fifty days drill, 10000 men have
had six months drill and 465,000 men
are we'll disciplined. The Diritto,
semi-official journal, says that an active
force of 100000 men, well drilled and
perfectly furnished with material, can
be placed in the field within two weeks
from the day an order for concentration
and mobilization may be given. The
Infantry are armed with breech-loading
rifles, One-half of each cavalry regiment
with lances and revOlvers and the other
half with sabers and breech-loaders.
There are sixty vessels in the navy,
mounting 400 guns, and with crews
numbering s, S,115 men, One of the iron
clads-the Duilio-which has Just been
launched is the heaviest armored ship in
the world and will carry guns of the
enormous calibre of 100 tons each.
A WRITER in Macmillan's Magazine
presents some interesting statistics to
show that battles are not near as sanguin-
ary since the comparative recent great
Improvements in arms und munitions of
war as they were when weapons were of
a more primitive type. Thus in the
great battles which occurred between
1853 and 1915, the loss in killed and !
wounded ranged from One-eighth to two |
fiths of all the combatants engaged. At |
Zorndorf, in 1853, 800 of $4,000 COM
Waterloo, the loss was one-fifth of those
engaged; at Marenge, one fourth at
Leirsic, nearly One-third, and at Eylau,
more than One-third. At SolferinO, in
1859, only oRe-eleventh of the combat
ants were placed hOrS de combat; at Ko-
niggratz, one-ffteenth and during the
late Franco Prussian war, the proper
tions in the most important engagements
were as follows: Woerth, Ill; Grave
lotte, 1-12, and Sedan, 10.
IT is proposed in Great Britain to take
the management of the prisons in the
country into the hands of the genera
government, and to largely reduce their
number. There are now 116 prisons in