The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1880-06-24
Items of Interest.

There is a London .'craze" against ~.
senic in carpet-dyes.
Kite-fying is sport with the grown peo-
| Pile of Southern Asia.
The Egyptians made glass and colored it
beautifully 1900 years before Christ.
1t is estimated that seventy years and ST.
| cavatiOns at Pompeii.
Ira Curtis, an oysterman of New Haven,
has taken more than sixty drowning per-
| SONS from the water
| A man in st. Helena, Cal, makes living
| by the manufacture of fishing lines from
the fbres of the century plant.
Gold Is found in fifty-six counties in
| Georgia. silver in three, copper in thirteen,
irou in forty three and diamonds in twenty
| six.
A Chester Valley young lady is the owner
of several Gala Lilies, the roots of which
| Were procured for her great grandfather
from the banks of the Nile.
The new gambling law for Arizona re-
quires each house where gaming is carried
on to pay quarterly license of $500, one
half to go to the school-fund
A man in Naugatuck, CT, has invented
new india-rubber shoe, called the Zephyr"
which weighs less than two ounces, and
can be carried in q lady's pocket.
An Ohio woman, before drowning her
self in a shallow trough, strapped her head
down in the water, for fear that her cour-
age might fail her when she began to
smother.
The power of plants to force their way
through a resisting medium is very remark
able. writer in foreign journal asserts
that he has known dandelion to grow
through two inches of asphalt which had
been spread over it.
From bank in the sand Newfoundland
dog belonging to Boston man takes PEN
nies and goes to bakers daily and buys
warm rolls fora his breakfasL-Th nei1h--
bors give him pennies, which he buries in a
place seooped out under the stoop.
that $500, which they had saved by many
years of industry and economy, had been
stolen. He was mistaken, for within an
hour he found the treasure where he had
mislaid it but the wife had already died of
heart disease, in consequence of the shock.
A gentleman from Berlin put up at a
hotel in Paris and wrote home, giving his
address. He then went to look at the city,
and, having walked himself weary, forgot
the street and number where his trunk had
been left. He telegraphed home to Berlin,
and within half an hour learned the number
of his hotel
mentally placed in the Inman line steamer
City of Berlin, has given such general salts
faction to all classes of passengers that it has
been permanently adopted for lighting the
saloon, steerage and engine-room of that
vessel, and will soon be supplied to the other
vessels of that line.
1t is said that Norwegian botanist who
explored Greenland in 1870 discovered a
species of alge which grew in and among
the clefts of ice, and which by its internal
heat rotted the ice away 1t is pronounced
to be dangerous enemy to the ice, even
when in blocks many thousands of feet in
thickness and miles in extent.
The anglers theory that fish does not
suffer much physical pain from hook in
its gills, or mental agony either, for that
matter, is supported by the recent expert
ence of a Stratford (Conn. fisherman. A
large trout tore two hooks in quick succession
from the line, and was finally pulled up on
the third, with the first two in his stomach.
Matthew Mckay, of Oswego, n. Y, had
been bothered at finding his clock stopped
mornings. He had it examined, but the re-
pairer could find nothing wrong. He watch
ed, and discovered the family cat to be the
cause of the mischief. Attracted by the
ticking of the clock, she climbed up to the
shelf, pulled open the door, and paved the
hands around the dial till it stopped.
A firm in Calcutta has in its possession the
butterfly in brilliants which once formed
part of the Spanish crown jewels, and cost
f2O OOO The ex-Queen Isabella took it
with her to France, and it was lately sold
with many of her other jewels at Paris.
The two stones pendant from the head and
tail of the butterfly are remarkable for their
size and brilliancy, and the whole is rare
specimen of the jewelers. art.
A curious fact in natural history is no.
ticed at the depot in Wiliiamsport, Pa,
where two sparrows have built their nest
and are rearing their young inside the gong
which announces the departure of trains.
The gong is about eighteen inches in diam
ete,. and when struck by its hammer has
deafening sound, but notwithstanding its
racket and the roar and rattle of engines and
cars. the birds are mmoved, the male, in
deed, being frequently observed sitting upon
the iron knoclzer itself while it is striking.
A romantic case of suicide occurred re-
Gently at Melbourne, Australia A lad of
fifteen poisoned himself for the love of a
girl of twelve. 1t seems that the girl, not
requiting the boys attachment, pettishly
told him he might kill himself, perhaps
after he had threatened it The lad was
employed by a photographer, and destroyed
himself with cyanide of potassium, which is
used in the Photographic business. Having
taken sufficient for the purpose, he laid
down TO die opposite the girls residence,
having previously addressed her note.
DIR. Calling, invenW of the famous gun,
has Just perfected another instrument of
war that is said to be most complete in its
deadly properties. 1t is capable of firing
LOCO shots in a minute; and by the use of
the instrument three men can do the work of
300 1iiiemen Ii is capable of killing q
man or horse one mile away. 1t is some
what in the form of the present Gatling