The daily gazette. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1874-1883, 1880-10-04
TIMELY TOPICS.

STUN dreams are made. NotWithstand-
Ing the unbelief of those who disclaim
all superstition, strange cases of occult
biography constantly come to the sur
lace: That was curious one brought
out by the death of Miss Faulkner. of
Chicago. Her aged mother lives in
ottawa, Canada, and when asked by a
correspondent If she bad daughter la
Csn,cago, she burst into tears 0 ying:
lei me what is the matter. dreamed
last night she was dead" On being in
formed that the dream had indeed been
fulfilled, she wept distressingly. Can
all the schools explain what pictured
the girl as dead in her mothers mind
when her body lay uncared for in a
Chicago tenement house.
"The time that is saved be hurrying
to meals ahd elsewhere comes out of
mans life sooner or later" says phil
osophic paragraphist. 1t is true, vet
in spite of the knowledge the American
people go through life on the Jump, and
boast of it Any town whose citizens
incline toward deliberation in their
business is considered "dead." Only
the places where they all hurry and
"splurge are supposed to be "alive."
The popular idea of being alive is being
in hurry. That goes by the name OF
business" though absurd haste would
be more appropriate name for it.
There is no time saved by hurrying.
Titles is clipped off at the end of life in a
solid piece.
Women and children are employed In
tolerably large numbers in the English
mines. Out of 10, 1876 persons enga ged
above ground about the metalliferous
mines, Q, 1893 are women and girls, and
in addition there are 3l7 males of the
tender ages of between eight and thir-
teen. OF girls thirty-six are employed
between eight and thirteen years old.
thirty-two of whom are in the Cornwall
and Devon district. OF girls between
thirteen and eighteen years there are
employed 1872, Cornwall and Devon en-
ploying GAS and the North Wales dis
trict LOG, the only other largely-employ-
ing district being that of Ireland. where
twenty-seven are at work. OF girls
above eighteen years old, there are
1865 employed.
The London World made the startling
discovery that kleptomania was COM
mon in fashionable society, and that
y
frequent in the ball rooms and cloak
rooms of the West End. Instances were
given, names and places being sup
pressed. I}uth followed in the same
strain, and told how light-fngered
lady of title stole sable cloak from
ducal mansion; also how another lady
of title lost diamond necklace. 1t was
said that these conveyances of property
could not have been inadvertant, seeing
that expensive overcC ats, costly lace
shawls and other pro- er y were invari.
ably replaced by shal By articles. In
several cases the thievt we're caught in
the act, but protesting error, were per-
mitted to go on restoring the plumber.
Time is now supplied to street clocks,
public offices, hotels and private dwell
lings in Paris, like gas or water, from a
central station, by means of compressed
air conveyed through underground
pipes. At the central station there is q
reservoir of compressed air, and for the
first twenty seconds of every minute, az
given by standard timepiece, a current
of the compressed air is allowed to flow
through the pipes to the receiving
clocks. By means of a small bellows,
whic is expanded by the transmitted
air, the works of these clocks are kept
going at practical uniform rate. The
street mains are of wrought iron, about
l-l6 inch in diameter, and these are
connected to service pipes of lead LIS inch
in diameter, while the different stories
of building are supplied by rubber
tubes one-eight inch in diameter. Any
number of clocks can be actuated in this
way within radius of two miles from
the central station.
Professor Forbes, of Illinois, gives it
as his opinion that at least two-thirds OF
the food OF birds consist of insects, aver
aging at the lowest reasonable estimate
twenty insects per day for each individ-
ual of this two-thirds, giving total for
the year (Which is surprisingly low OF
1900 per acre, or $50. 900, 000, 600 for the
State. This number placed one to each
square inch of surface would cover an
area of 40, 600 acres. In connection with
these figures the following estimates by
Mr.. H. ID. MinOt, one of the Boston
naturalists, are interesting. He states
that in Massachusetts alone there are
annually destroyed not less than so, 900
partridges, 80, 900 woodcock, Is, 900 quail
and 5000 snipe, or 100000 game birds
while in the same State 100000 wild
birds Counting their eggs) are placed
uOTS uu COuDdC. NAT. MluOL places Ll6
number of birds annually destroyed in
the United States at 200, 600, 900 roughly
estimated. According to the american
Naturalist a young mocking- bird, raised
from the nest, has been known to eat
940 red-legged grasshoppers in day,
equivalent to at least 480 average in
sects.
The Massachusetts board of health
reports that authorizations of staple gro
ceries are not as common as the public
have been led to suppose. For the pur-
pose of test, the expert of the board
took samples of flour, sugar, bread soda,
cream of tartar, and baking powders,
in stores in forty cities and
towns. The flour was found in all in
stances to be wholly free from all
foreign substances, and, with the ex-
ception of one or two coarse varieties of |
brown sugar, no adulteration was per-
ceptible in that article; and in these |
isolated cases there was reason for |
thinking that the defects were due to
in the process of manu-
Il ii