The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-12-20

front rank of students and following with intense at
tention the operations going on. There are also five
young Japanese medical students attending the lee.
lures and classes of Prof, Billroth.
THE following anecdote is from John Wilson
Croker's Notebooks: One day an officer came very
late to dinner at Talleyrand's, an unusual negligence
in France, where everything is exact. He made a
kind Of impertinent apology, alleging that he had been
delayed by a pequin, a nickname which the French
soldiers give civilians, NJ. Taley rand, himself a
pequin, asked what a pequin was. 1--WE call a pequin,"
replied the officer, superciiously, everything that is
not military" "Ah, yes" said Talleyrand, quickly,
Just as we call military all that is not civil"
Mr.. RUsKIN has begun q fresh crusade against
Philstinism in English society. He thinks that the
ideal of young people now is to marry as soon as
possible, and live in the most fashionable part of the
largest town their incomes will allow, And he finds
that huge p~late-glass windows, patent everythings
going of themselves everywhere" together with the
intellectual environment of "a few bad prints, a few
dirty and foolish books, and a quantity of photo
graphs of the people they know" take the place, in
their minds, of a just conception of the real honor of
human life and beauty of the visible world"
DR.. Mains, in a recent lecture at Birmingham,
said that the brain requires twelve hours of sleep at
four years, gradually diminishing by hours and half
hours to ten hours at fourteen, and thence to eight
hours when the body is full grown and formed.
Goethe, in his most active productive period, needed
nine hours and took them; Kant-the most laborious
of students-was strict in never takingless than seven.
Nor does it appear that those who have systematically
tried to cheat nature of this chief right have been in
any sense gamers of time for their work. 1t may be a
paradox, but it is not the less a truth, that what is
given to sleep is gained to labor.
RATES for living were never higher in Washington
than they are now. A senator who has to live upon
his salary went to one of the Uptown hotels and asked
for rates for himself, wife and daughter. He wanted
a sitting room and two bedrooms. The amiable hotel
proprietor said he could accommodate him with the
room and board desired upon the fifth floor for $40
a week. 'But that is more than my salary" II
can't help that, said the landlord. 1--WE have no
trouble in getting these fgures.". The same senator
tried for rooms in a fashionable fiat, and found that
on the top floor he could get -four small rooms for
$3.50 a month. This did not include board
II SUPPOSE few drinkers of whisky" said a whole
sale dealer in the fluid, realize how little of original
value they get for their money. The cost to the
distiler of making the best possible whisky is only
about forty cents a gallon. Now, a gill is a fair guam
tity for a drink, the charge for which at the most styl-
ish bars is twenty cents. That is to say, a thing cost
ing the producer a sixth of a cent in Kentucky, is re-
tailed at nearly forty times as much. Of course, the
government tax taxes some OF the enormous profit,
and the wastes of storage another portion. The gains
Of the handlers remain astounding. l know of no
more solid temperance argument than the ridiculously
high prices charged for liquors by the glass"
THE majority of houses in Abyssinia have a second
story, or at least an attic, terminating in a matched
roof. The walls are invariably of mud. Within live
the occupants, with their cattle, fowls, dogs, cats,
and aNoah's ark of insects, which the natives foster
with the greatest care by not touching soap, and by
using very little water. There is plenty of water,
however, and the soap grows on trees, but an Eth
opian will tell you without a blush that he is neces-
sarily washed at birth, washes himself on his mar
riage morn, and hopes TO be washed after death.
When he feels hard and uncomfortable, he will anoint
himself with mutton fat till bis head and body glisten
in the sun.
DANIEL WEBSTER, when he pronounced his eulo-
GUM in the Senate on John O. Calhoun, said, half
wonderingly and half admiringly, He had no recrea-
tion-never seemed to feel the necessity of amuse-
ments." So it was with Governor Anthony, says the
Washington correspondent of the Providence Jour
nal. He never, while here as Senator, went on fish
ing or shooting parties; he never kept or drove fast
horses, or attended the Jockey Club races; and al
though he was a member of the Metropolitan Club,
he was never to be seen at its card tables or in its
billiard room or bowling alley. Occasionally he
would, while waiting to go out to dine, take a pack Of
cards and occupy a few leisure moments in a game of
solitaire, but don't believe that he understood the
first principles of poker or euchre, those favorite
games of many congressman.