The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-04-30
GENERAL.

81 Iu6 ulBueSb dllUlLlOH VI q WOlnaL,
according to Worth, should be to look
jaunty under plain hat. W
Brush had hard work to borrow S.
when he was working at his electric
light. Now his income is 1000 per
day.
Tom Thumb has run through with
the comfortable fortune he retired on
eight years ago, and must now take to
the road to earn his bread and butter.
Among the curious articles in the
Indian court of the Melbourne Exhibi-
ton are two hollow elephant tusks, fitted
with a gold cover. They were sent to
the Viceroy of India by the Rajah Of
Burmah, who used them as an envelope
for an official communication. They
are valued at 81 900.
In the first week of last January
was constructed the first section of rail-
way built by Americans in Asia, running
from the Otarunal Harbor to the Paronio
coal fields via Lupparo, the capital of
the northern island Yezo; and the Japa-
'nese officials are said to be highly
pleased with the prospect of an Ameri-
con system of rapid transit.
Robert M. Cutter, member of the
Legislative Council of Nova Scotia, is
one of the veterans, being now in his
ninety-seventh year. He travelled near
ly two hundred miles to reach the Leg
islative Chamber. He was amember of
the House of Assembly sixty-two years
ago, and has been for forty years a
member of the Legislative Council.
In China literary property is on the
same footing as any other property. A
person printing and selling the works of
an author without his permission is liza
BILE to punishment of 100 blows of the
bamboo and three years. deportation. If
his has stopped short of printing and has
not begun to sell, the penalty is fifty
blows, together with the forfeiture of
books and blocks from which it is in
tended to print. a'i
Germany must be the paradise of
such as frequently have to make use of
the telegraph, In England the uniform
charge all over the kingdom is one shil-
ling for the first twenty words, and the
people are now seeking to obtain a re-
duction of this. A German correspon-
dent of a London paper says that the
uniform charge in Germany for mes
sages sent TO any part of the Empire is
one cent word, and that under this
system the wires are sources of profit,
whereas under the old system of receiv-
ing no message for less than % cents,
they were continually the source of loss.
In Persia they bottle up their tears
as of old This is done in the following
manner; As the mourners are sitting
around and weeping, the master of cere-
monies presents each one with piece
OF cotton wool, with which he wipes off
his tears. This cotton is afterwards
squeezed into q bottle, and the tears are
preserved as powerful and eflieacious
remedy for reviving dying man after
every other means has failed. 1t is also
employed as charm against evil infu-
ences. This custom is probably alluded
to in Paslm lvi., verses 8: "Putt thou my
tears into bottle. ~ The practice was
once universal, as is found by the tear
bottles which are found in almost every
ancient tomb, for the ancients buried
them with their dead as proof of their
affection. r<hHtsI
a Safe blowers in Philadelphia have
hit upon a new plan. Two men work
the game. They enter offices and ex-
hibit patent lock, resembling safe
lock, and request the loan of safe key
Just for a second, becausea they have
lost their own key. They are such we'll
dressed, bland fellows that the request
was generally complied with. A man
with lock takes borrowed safe KEY,
inserts it, twists it around little, and
in a minnie remarks, "Confound it, it's
too bad, it won't fit," and then returns
the key to the owner, with many thanks,
and departs. The lock is a dummy,
and is ingeniously contrived, so that a
wax impression of the borrowed safe
key is taken in the operation of attempt
ing to unfasten it. The office is visited
by night soon afterward, the safe opened
and robbed, and relocked, in the most
mysterious manner. There have been
two robberies reported to the police al
ready. ls, a.t.a o
The terrible Oriental plague known
as the "Black DEATH" that in former
centuries caused such devastation in Eu-
rope, and that in 1874 made its reap
pearance in Tripods after men had long
ceased to fear its visitations, is still alive
and has recently appeared in Armenia
and ON the borders of the Caspian Sea.
In 1876 it showed itself in Mesopotamia.
In 1878 it crossed the boundary line OF
Russia, and cases that were detected in
Nishni- Novgorod, Moscow, and other
places, spread uneasiness throughout all
Europe. Germany and Austria closed
their boundaries, and cut off all com.
munication, railway as well as other,
with the empire of the Cars. The
dread disease did not spread in Russia,
and finally disappeared from the Euro.
pean domain, some say on account OF
the energetic sanitary and quarantine
regulations of Loris Melikoff, Others be-
cause the atmospheric conditions hap
pened to be unfavorable TO its extension.
But the Black Death has continued its
work ever since, and has just given a
sign of renewed activity by annihilatine
a whole party of pilgrims from Mecca
and crossing the Euphrates to show it
self once more in Mesopotamia.
The Body OF the Gear Lying in State