Arizona weekly enterprise., 1881-12-24
BITS OF INFORMATION.

CHECKERS is the oldest game recorded in history, it being 4,000 years old.
 THE longest bridge in this country spans the Ohio at Louisville. It is few feet less than mile in length. The cost was $2, ,016,S
 IT is probable that there were no playing cards before the year 1890. They were then invented, the story goes, to divert Charles w., of France, who was fallen into melancholy disposi- tion.
 PREVIOUS to 1881 nominations for State officers were made by members of the State Legislatures, while nomina- tions for President and Vice President were made in caucuses of members of Congress.
 MARY ANDERSON, the actress, was born in Sacramento, Cal, July 28, 1859. Atan early age she went to Louisville, Ky, making that city her home. Her father, Charles Anderson, lost his life in the Confederate army.
 ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY TWO varieties of postage stamps have been issued by the United States, thirty-two varieties by Great Britain, and sixty varieties by France. In this country 127 have been in use at one time.
 IT is estimated that there are AGO, ,000,- 900 Mohammedans in the world; 360,- 900, GOO Buddhists, and 195, ,000, GOO Ro- m n Catholics The Mohammedans are oy at laAst 100, 00o,00O the most numer- Jus sect in the world.
 | THE discovery of trichinae in the hog was made about thirty-five years ago by | n member of the Phiiadel phia Academy of Natural Sciences. The temperature | If boiling water will kill trichine, as well as all other parasitic worms, so that ny cooking meats well all danger Is re- moved.
 TEE wooden tables on which the Greeks wrote their laws were fastened together at one end, and, as they were large but roughly hewn,- they had much | the appearance of the trunk of a tree cut into blanks, andwere therefore called 'codex, which means stump of tree IT part of a trunk, and hence our term "code."
 THOMAS PAINE, just before hi1 death, rquested to be inferred in Quaker burial ground, but, the Quakers refusing to permit this, his mains were taken to New Rochelle and buriedon his farm In 1919 William Cobbett, the English reformer. took h.s bones to England. A monument was erected to his memory iu 1889 within few feet of the spot where he was originally buried.
 TOBIAS HoBsoN was a carrier and inn keeper at Cambridge, Eng, where he built a handsome conduit, and settled "seven lays" of pasture ground toward ts maintenance. "He kept stable of forty good cattle, always ready and fit for travelling but when man came for a horse he was led into the stable, but was obliged to take the animal which stood nearest the door so that every customer was served according to his chance, and every horse ridden with the same iustice." Hence the phrase 1; "Hobson's Choice '1this or none.
 AN English paper thus compares some of the words used Ill England and Amer ica pertaining to railway travel: In America the carriage is a " car, bag gage van "baggage ear, a station IS depot" booking office Is ticket oflice," your portmanteau Is "valise, " ond your box trunk" the lines are described as the track" the facing points are switches," the driver is the engineer" the stoker is the " fire man." and the guard is the "conduc- tor" Pretty much the only word con- mon in England and America is the word train but the goods train is over there "freight train" When you leave the train to go to your hotel you take not a cab but hack, or if you are haunted by the demon of economy you go by the !" horse car" but not by the " tramway.