The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1883-10-03
SELECT sIFTINes.

A man breathes about eighteen
times a minute, and uses 5000 cubic
feet of air per hour.
Inclosing waste lands and commons,
in order to promote agriculture, first
began in England in 1547, and caused
a rebellion.
English sparrows were first intro
duced into this country in 1858 by a
gentleman named Dubois in a garden
in Portland, Maine.
The ostriches in California have ex-
ploded the old story that the female
covers up her eggs and leaves them to
be Matched out by the hot sun. The
female sits on the eggs in the daytime
and the male assumes that duty at
night.
When fans were invented no man
can tell. There can be no doubt, how
ever, of their existence 5000 years ago,
for representations of these familiar
articles have been discovered on the
tombS at Thebes. Fans, therefore, are
the oldest articles in use by ladies, ex-
cept their tongues.
Barnum says that he lost $130000
in his vain attempt to bring two Sia-
mese white elephants to this country.
His agent bought the beasts through
the connivance of a priest, and after
the king had Indignantly refused TO
sanction such a sacrilegious sale, but
they died on being taken aboard a
ship, and the old Snowman believes
that they were poisoned.
The Japanese believe that ammon-
tiles are petrifed snakes. Fossil
brachiopods (lamp-shells) are called
"stone swallows" and are said to come
to life and fly from their hiding-places
at the approach of wind and rain,
changing again to stones on the retlrn
to fair weather. Fossil fish appear
and disappear at pleasure. Their ap-
pearance is prognostic of plentiful
harvest and prosperous times. The
stones if burned have a decidedly lishy
smell.
Minneapolis is reported to ship an
nually, beyond her local consumption,
l,65O,S70 barrels of Hour. "These,"
says the Tribune statistician, if piled
one above the other, end to end, would
reach 7S0 miles. The flour would
make about 493,255,000 loaves of
bread, the ordinary size of bakers
loaves. These, piled in a pyramid,
would make, roughly calculated, a
square pyramid with a base 800 feet
square and with a height of nearly
| 1000 feet"
From the earliest times there have
been laws in England enforcing a
proper respect for Sunday. The most
ancient of these, which is still pre-.
served, was made by Alfred the Great
in the ninth century. The second
dates from the time of Henry VI
Another was passed under James 1
The fourth, which is now the law OF
England, was made by the parliament
of Charles ii. This latter law has
been made the model of Sunday laws
in all our States except Louisiana; and
the decisions made under it now form
part of our common law.
Firecrackers, says Nature, play a
large part in the superst tious observ.
ances of the ordinary Ch nese. 1t is a
popular belief that the evil spirits
everywhere inhabiting the air are dis
persed by cracking noises attended by
fire and smoke. Accordingly, fire
crackers are used on all special occa
sions to frighten away the demons whC
are tormenting sick person, or whC
crowd around the people at the be-
ginning of the new year. Bamboo
which emits, when burning, a crack
ling sound, is also used for the same
purpose.