Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1884-03-14
IN GENERAL.

The reduction of postage to two cents
has materially reduced the demand for postal
cards.
Matthew Arnold is said to have cleared
about so, 600 in this country.
Mr.. Spurgeon, the eminent Baptist
preacher, has fallen heir to a large fortune,
left by the late Joseph Pool of Leicester.
The name of Reservoir Square Park,
New York, has been changed to Bryant Park,
iu honor OF William Cullen Bryant, statue
of whom is to bO erected there.
The Catholics of Great Britain have built
1922 churches and schools during the last 40
years, and claim that their numbers are in
creasing three times as fast as the popula-
tion.
Jumbo, Barnum's big elephant, is said TO
have grown five inches in height since last
season, and his keeper thinks he has not yet
done growing. He is in the 23d year of his
age.
The freeing of slaves in Cuba has been
progressing for several years very quietly un-
der the law for the gradual extinction of slaY-
cry. Within about year the last slave will
have boen manumitted.
A respectable couple in Belmont county,
o., who had been married 40 years, the hus-
band being rs and the wife "a, applied for
divorce the other day on account of incom-
patibility. The judge gave them talking
to and sent them home
Sir Walter Scott made more money out
of his literary work than any other author
who has ever lived. He received $500 for
''Waverly," " and for the succeeding eleven nov
els he was paid $780, 900. Then he wrote
other novels at from $4,000 to $50, 900
each. His Life of Napoleon" brought him
800, 600.
The temple of Jerusalem, writes Paris
correspondent of the Boston Pilot, is to be
rebuilt by the combined efforts and contribu.
tions of twelve American millonaires two Of
whom have already gone to Palestine to study
on the spot the most efficient means Of put
ting into execution their gigantic and costly
project.
The year 1900, although evenly divisible
by, four will not be a leap year. In order
TO keep square with the movements of old
Father Time the Gregorian calendar drops
three leap years out of every four centuries.
The year 1000 was a leap year and the year
1000 will be, but the years 100, 1900 and
1900 will have 3G5 days only.
The self-aeting sewing machine comps-
ny of London has taken out and is working
patent which will save the necessity for the
use of either hands or feet A motor drives
the machine by clookwork-neither bulky
nor GOnpLChL6us luo luOtOE BON0A 10 VIM
pletely under control, so that while it can be
made to drive a needle at the rate of about
thousand stitches q minute, 1t can also be
worked slowly.
The use of natural gas as fuel through
the region where the deposits are scattered
from Lake Ontario to the eastern parts OF
Kentucky and Tennessee-is rapidly increas-
ing, and manufacturers who once get wells in
operation find it better and very much cheap
or than coal can possibly be. The wells are
usually 81 inches in diameter, and the gas
has a pressure of from 40 to 1900 pounds u
square inch. 1t is sometimes carried 20
miles in pipes.
Jenny Lind once went to hear Father
Taylor preach in Boston, but the preacher,
ignorant of her presence, paid a glowing
tribute TO her powers of song As the Swe-
dish nightingale leaned forward with delight,
drinking in this unexpected praise, tall man
who sat on the pulpit stairs began slowly to
unwind himself, and when he had done 30,
wanted to know whether any one who had
died at Miss Linds concerts would go TO
heaven? Father Taylor said: "Sir, Chris
| tian will go to heaven wherever he dies but
fool will be fool, even though he be on the
pulpit stairs. ="
The immediate stoppage of machinery Is
now effected by an ingenious application OF
electricity, the result pelhB ins'an'ahooue an ~
complete. A wire rope, ooiled around the
stem of the throttle valve of the engine, car
ries a weight, which is held in place by a
rest and the whole arrangement is 80 placed
that the passing of an electric current along
a wire releases this rest, and causes the weight
to fall The tension thus thrown upon the
wire rope acts upon the throttle valve, cuts
off the supply OF steam, and, consequently,
stops the machinery. Buttons with wire
connections are placed In different parts OF
the works, and, on pressing any one OF these,
the passage of an electric current acts a.
above mentioned These buttons can be
placed in every apartment of a factory II re-
quired.