Stephens City star. (Stephens City, Va.) 1881-1883, 1883-02-17
CLIPPINGS FOR THE CURIOUS.

UOrS IN tne world. VI THIS number
$4,000 are in the United States.
The religious ceremonies of the
Egyptians were preceded by abstinence,
and the sacrificers were allowed neither
animal food nor wine.
An ivory armchair deliberately orna-
mented and presented to Gustavus
Vass by the city of Lubbock was sold in
1925 to the Swedish chamberlain for
$4,000 forms.
A type of antiquity in the vegeta-
BILE kingdom is that of fig tree in
Ceylon, planted according to documen-
tary and traditional evidence, 298 B. c.,
making it 2,165 years old.
There is a weekly sale in Paris of
toads, which are brought in casks filed
with damp moss. One hundred good
toads are worth from sixty to seventy
shillings. These are bought for gar
dens.
The Greeks held garlic in such alb
horence that those who partook of it
were regarded asprofane. The Romans,
on the contrary, gave it to their
soldiers, with an idea that it excited
their courage, and to their laborers to
strengthen them. a.a
Bret Harte once wrote poem for q
soap manufacturer, for which he was
paid an enormous sum but though his
name was signed to it no one believed
that he wrote it, so he got the money
and the soap man was only laughed
at when he paraded the authorship.
A Southern paper says that gen.
; tleman of its state has been presented
; with curiosity. 1t is an ordinary
walnut which either grew around a
nugget of gold or the nugget grew in
. it. At any rate the gold is there,
deeply imbedded in the kernel.
Ancient tribal law regarded the
stranger with great suspicion. He
could be tortured in Burgundy if he
came under suspicious circumstances
and among the Saljan Franks he was
not permitted the privilege of settling
in village if a single resident opposed
A pearl worth $4,000, now in the
possession of the Princess Youssopoff,
was brought from India in 1860 by
} Gongibus of Calais and bought by
Philip ~. The king asked the mer-
chant "How could you concentrate
your whole fortune upon so small a
thing?" and the reply was because
l knew that the world held king of
Spain who would buy of me-
The death of an English pointer,
aged fifteen years, at Newark, N. j.,
is recorded, with an account of a won
derful feat once performed by HIM
Joining in a chase after an escaped
c1nary, he leaped four feet in the air,
Y and caught the bird in his mouth
When he had carried it to his master it
was found that the bird was unhurt
and that its feathers were not even
ruffled
A rather curious specimen of French
ingenuity--a copy of lie Sour, of No
vember Is, compressed by means of
photography into sheet measuring
only three and a half by two and a
half inches, was received in London.
This liliputan journal nevertheless
presents the full contents of an ordi-
nary full sized number, and with the
aid of powerful microscope can be
read easily.
According to report, the Mexicans
must be among the politest people on
the globe. Even the robbers are gen.
tlemen, and when they are obliged to
rob, really put one under obligation for
their attention. An instance is given
of a pretty speech made by Mexican
robber in appropriating pair of ear
rings: Possessing such bright eyes,
sonora, what need have you of these
dull stones?''
The English law has always been
severe upon the gypsy, the thirty-ninth
of Elizabeth, repeating all former Va
grant Acts, laid down that all persons
wandering and pretending themselves
to be Egyptians, or wandering in the
habit, form, or attire of counterfeit
Egyptians, shall be taken, adjudged
and deemed rogues, vagabonds and
sturdy beggars, and further that they
should be openly whipped until COW
cred with blood, and then taken from
parish to parish to the place where
they were born, and there set at lib
erty, to be whipped again if they
strayed out of bonds.
The slaughter of plow OK is pro-
hibited by law in China, and viola
tion of the law is punished by two
months Imprisonment and 100 blows
of the heavy bamboo except in cases
where the offender is the owner of the
animal, when the Imprisonment is one
month and the number of blows
eighty. Mandarins who fail to take
notice of such offences are also pun