Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1884-07-31
sQUIBs.

The grain crop of Texas is the finest
for years.
There are 500 vacant dwelling
houses IN Minneapolis.
The British Museum has an aerolite
weighing five tons.
There arc 10000 varieties of beetles
waiting to be named.
A Swede, John Lehnke, dropped
dead In Austin, Tex, from sunstroke.
The heat of the body three hours
after death was found to 5e 100 de-
grees.
A negro woman in Clark county,
IS. O., gave birth to three children
last week. She is thlrty-fve years
old and is the mother of twenty-six
children.
August Beckman told Washing
ton judge he had signed verdict
not because he thought it right but ia
order to get away and go home. He
paid $50 fine for contempt of court.
In one of number of eggs that
Mrs. Patrick Sullivan, of Sheboygan,
was breaking for breakfast omelette,
a minnow two inches loGg was found
imbedded between the white and the
yolk.
Seats in the New York Stock Ex-
change which used to sell for $35. 900
can now be got rid of for $50, 600.
Philadelphia is almost ready for
cable propulsion of street cars, hav-
ing Is miles of cable ready to put
down.
The gold imports for the year to
July IL amount to Sc, 964, 224, redu-
cing the loss by exports from $37, 9O5, :
779 to $50, ,041, 552.
A young woman in Toledo vino
tried with a horsewhip to teach a
slanderer the art of holding his
tongue, had to pay $50 for the privi-
lege. 1t is hard to teach by example
The annual manufacture of beer ia
this country is about 10, 900, 900 bar
rels. Counting 1000 glasses to the
barrel, no extravagant estimate, we
have about $50 glasses per annum to
every inhabitant of the United States.
The natives of the southern coast
of New Guinea. having no iron,
shave themselves with a piece of
glass. Formerly they shaved with a
piece of flint, which they could
sharpen quite well, and used with
considerable dexterlty.
In Queensland immunity from
punishment induces the white man
to think nothing Of taking the lives of
natives, and the latter are killed for
stealing a few pieces of tobacco, as
was the case with a skipper at Dufaure
Island. For trifing theft he shot
three men whom he suspected.
While a negro was plowing near
LAGRANGE the other day he turned up
humble bees nest. The mules did
not linger long, but took to the
woods The plow caught in the root
of tree, holding the mules fast until
the bees stung them to death. The
negro was SO badly stung that he
aved like madman for two days.
Blasting paper is recent Austrian
invention. 1t is, described as being
unsized or ordinary blott:ng paper,
coated with mixture of prussiate of
potash, of charcoal, saltpeter, potas-
sium, chlorate and wheat starch. On
it's being dried it is cut into strips,
which are rolled into cartridges.
The once despised saw palmetto of
the South is likely to become a very
useful tree. The fiber obtained from
the inner lining of the bud is manu-
factured into a substance closely re-
sembllng human hair. Paper fiber,
hats, fans, can be furnished by this
tree, hitherto considered only an en-
cum branco to the soil.
The summer idlers at Richfeld
Springs, n. Y, are guilty of some
very elaborate fooling. One of the
current attractions is tournament, !"
in which spurious knights on real
horses try to bear off hanging rings
with imitation lances, after which a
''queen of love aud beauty" dispenses
the prizes to the winners.
The Chief of Ordnance, United
States army, has just made a contract
with the West Point Foundry Asso-
citation of Cold Spring, n. Y, for the
construction of the eight-inch steelgun
authorized by Congress year ago.
All the heavy fixings came from the
Whitworth's Works, and
the work upon it will
occupy about one year. making
the time from the action of Congress
to the completion of this single gun,
two years.
Philadelphia has five establishments
where plaster of Paris casts are made.
They turn out chiefly Venuses and
Apollos and sometimes Minerva and
a Bacchus. Lifesize figures Of these
classic creatures cost $50 A fair bus
mess is done in the busts of Socrates.
Webster, Shakespeare and Byron,
costing 81 each When a man orders
his own bust. the charge is $3.50, which
will only pay a small profit on the
cost of making the cast and the mold
The mold once made, a hundred
busts can be turned out, but the per-