The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1883-05-03
GLEAHINGS.

Christine Nilsson, although a SWede,
speaks Spanish, French and English
with equal tinency and ease.
Russians drink their tea from glass
cups They love TO see as well as to
feel the amber liquid.
A Boston firm recently shipped a lot
of base balls to the students of Roberts
College at Constantinople.
The Cincinnati Gazette has had to pay
s. on libel suit for $4,000. 1t is this
sort of a thing that keeps newspapers
poor.
The Sultan says he has got tired of
purchasing goods of Europeans. They
are dishonest He is going to try his
luck among the Yankees.
A West Point cadet begins with
the same pay which a Prussian cap
tain receives after twenty years of SER
vice.
Gorfschakoff, who was a great lin
guist, once said, in reply to remark
relative to his power to keep State Sc
crets, that he knew how to hold his
tongue in six languages.
A Seventeen year old boy named AL
den, of Gaines. Mich, has been sent to
the reform school for ninety days for
cutting off few curls from the head of
little Miss Foster, aged thirteen.
1t is estimated that Florida's cigar
product this year will be about double
that of 1862 In that year, II, 1853, 1915
cigars were manufactured, upon which
tax was paid of 1851, l59, 20.
Russia, Norway and Austria have each
third of their surface forest; Sweden,
Hungary and Germany fourth; Italy
and Switzerland fifth; France and
Belgium sixth.
The Swedish Government has granted
a sum of $500 for this year to an entom-
ologist, whose duty it will be to advise
farmers as to the best means of destroy
ing injurious insects.
At recent execution in Japan it took
thirteen strokes of the sword to decapi-
tate the criminal. The edge of the in
strument had been purposely dulled, in
order to make the death agony as great
rs possible.
Mechanics who desire to produce a
deep brilliant black upon iron and steel
may try the following recipe: Apply
with a fine hair brush mixture of tur-
pentine and sulphur which had been
boiled together.
Persistent war continues to be made
in Cincinnati upon Italian fruit vendors
who sell decayed or frozen bananas.
Heretofore they have been fined So and
costs upon conviction, but Judge Highly
says that offenders hereafter brought
before him will not be dealt with so
ieniently.
Louise Michel, the French female
Communist, has a heavy, massive brow,
dark eyes, over which arch thick black
brows, a long, masculine nose, beneath
which is a very large, somewhat repul-
sive mouth, and short, but very promi-
nent and angular chin 1t is not an at
Gractive countenanee.
Wendell Phillips wife has been an in
valid for over thirty years, and during
all this time the great orator has been
Intiring in his attention to her. mo
Jne but you can know what it has been
co care for her, was remarked to him
recently. "Ah! No one but me knows
now good she is" was his heartsome
answer.
A powerful scandal concerning the
ate Prince Gortschakoff is that he left
1 mistress professionally named Lima
Braun, but who is no other than Jim
Fisk old pet, Josie Mansfield. Lima,
IT Josie, whoever she is, has begun suit
against the Princes heirs for q, 900
marks year, which, she claims, the
Prince promised her.
Mrs. Caleb Woods, of Cambridgeport,
las given $50, to the Stearns Chapel
Society OF that city for a new church
building on condition that it be called
he Woods Memorial, in memory of her
deceased husband. She at one time Of
cred the city $4,000 for hospital on
he same condition, and she has made
many donations to private and public
charities and enterprises.
About 5000 men are now employed
upon the Panama Canal. Most of the
work done has been temporary, but dig
ging upon the canal has now fairly COM
menced, as has dredging on the Atlantic
end. The company is now expanding
about $500, 900 monthly on this Isthmus,
and about as much more for machinery
and supplies.
In relation to wide tires for wagon
wheels, Mr.. Whitcomb, of Battle Greek,
Mich, discourses thus: If we con-
struct and nicely grade road to-day,
and then put on an engine of destruc-
ton, it would be no more destructive
than the fact of our practice. The mar
row tires OF our wagons cut up and de-
stroy roads as fast as they can be made,
while slight covering of gravel will
become compact by the passing of a
wide tire. -
A letter from Chill says: sometimes
you would see not unattractive Indian
woman with child tied to a board and
carried on her back. They say prop
Indian baby in Chill never
bowls; the reason is that at its first at
tempt the mother suppresses the out
burst by taking the nose between her
and thumb and holding her
palm over its mouth They cannot cry
without bursting, and soon learn that
discretion is the better part of valor -
An advertiser in the Vienna Neae
Eref PresSe announced his want of "a
man without eneumbrance, of middle |
age, willing to travel; must be a mis- |
with bitter experiences of the |
of mankind; pay and posi-.
ton good; everything found" A vast
of misanthropes responded, so |
many, in fact, that the advertiser had to |
hire secretary to deal with them.
Probably the largest mass of rock |
that has ever been transported, not ex-
cepting even the block in the Egyptian |
Pyramids, was that from which was cut
the pedestal of the statue of Peter the |
Great, in ST. Petersburg. Tt was block |
Of granite weighing 5000, 600 pounds, |
or about 1,500 tons, and was found iso-
lated on marshy ground about four |