Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-09-29
FOREIGN GOSSIP.

The immense creamatory in Rome
b In almost daily use. Cremation is
daily becoming more popular.
AT a fair in Agram, Austria, where
the privilege of kissing the handsomest
woman in town was put up at auction,
tho highest bid was but ten cents.
The South Sea Islander who slew
the English missionary, John Williams,
of Erromanga, left a son who has laid
the first stone of the monument erected
to the momory of that martyr.
--Marwood, the English executioner.
can say with the late lamented Arte-
mus Ward that he never let's his bust
ness interfere with his drinking. He
has blundered outrageously at two
hangings of late, and an investigation
reveals the fact that he was drunk.
"A writer to a London newspaper
says that, after spending months among
the poor of the city. he has come to the
conclusion that large numbers of them
have a hatred and ferocity toward
wealth and aristocracy which could not
be surpassed by any Russian nihilist Or
French communist.
Earl Cairns was once quite a poor
man; so poor that Disraeli refused to
make him Lord Chancellor until he
could raise a sum of money sufficient to
sustain the dignity of the office. His
brother-in-law, Mr.. McCalmont, fur
nished him 100000, and he secured
the appointment. Now Viscount Gar
molye, a son of Earl Cairns, has mar
ried a handsome and popular young ac-
tress who is without fortune, and his
lordship is raising a row about it.
The average longevity in England
is increasing. Not many years ago a
celebrated author denied the existence
of such a thing as a ce%ntenarian. The
statistics for 1881 record n%inety-one per-
sons who did not die until they had
completed 100 years and upward. OF
these twenty-five were men and sixty
six women. The oldest man was 112
years of age; the others ranged between
that and 100. Three of the women
were 107. three 1O6, two 105, six 1O4,
five 103, eight 102, and the rest were
100 and upward.
The French papers tell a quaint
story of an old woman of Ischia, who
was hedged in in a cellar of a house by
a number of beams which had fallen
about her without injuring her, but
which had prevented her moving more
than a step or two either way during
the three or four days of her imprison-
'ment. When the soldiers who were
clearing away the rubbish reached her
and had succeeded in making q pas
sage one of them. holding out his hand
Ito help her up to the light and air, she
placed in them a hen which had par
taken of her captivity, and said to the
man: Get this to a place of safety
first and [ will look out for myself.
"A striking instance of animals
adapting themselves to their environ
:ment is afforded by the night parrots of
Australia. But a few years ago they
We're apparently confirmed v%egetarians,
but now appear to. have entirely alb
jured vegetables for mutton. They
,alight in numbers upon an unfortunate
sheep and mutilate it unto death with
their tough, sharp bills and vigorous
pecking, meanwhile enjoying the feast.
On n sheep station two hundred fine
wethers out of a flock of three hundred
were so injured that all died, and on
another nineteen out of twenty valuable
rams were killed outright. Four per
cent. is estimated to be the general av-
'erage of loss from these birds in the
Australian focks.