The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-10-19
NUGGETS OF FACT AND FANCY.

49, SGGN ~ "NN AONNN
young oysters in the course of a year.
A dead whale found in the bay of Santa Cruz,
California, yielded over seven hundred barrels
of oil.
In Australia, English rabbits are fast becom-
ing as great a nuisance as are English sparrows
in this country.
An ordinary spiders thread, Just visible to the
naked eye, is a union of a thousand or more fine
and delicate threads.
A man at White Lake, N. Y, was rendered
blind and helpless by being stung by a hornet at
the base of his brain.
In his recent work on hygiene, DIR. Arthur
Newsholme authoritatively declares that tea is
one of the very best domestic beverages.
The history of the Rothschilds is being writ
ten by a membe of the house, who is well
known in Paris for his literary tastes and talent.
Newspapers are frequently printed at sea.
The practice was inaugurated on the steamer
Great Britain, which started for Australia in
1852.
The New Maid of the Mist" whose keel was
laid, sometime ago, at Niagara Falls, is now
all planked, and ready to receive her machinery
at once.
In Germany kilograms can be thrown into the
letter boxes with the proper stamps affixed and
marked telegram and they are promptly for
warded,
Salt loaded on cars is worth only S. per ton
in Utah. 1t is collected from sloughs, where it
is left by evaporation. The silver mills consume
about $4,000 tons annually.
The brewers metropolitan district, which com
prises New York, Brooklyn, Queens, Westches-
ter, Staten Island and Jersey City, produced
$50, 0O0, 600 gallons of beer last year.
Boiled peanuts are a favorite dish with the
Chinese. After being boiled in water for some
time the oil is extracted and a dough left, which
can be used the same as that made from -four.
Fishing for rats is a popular sport in Red Bluff,
Cal. The hooks are baited with little pieces of
meat and thrown under the edge of the sidewalk,
where the rats soon seize them. and are pulled
out kicking and squealing.
Mr.. H. c. Wheeler, one of the vice presidents
of the Iowa State Agricultural lSociety, has 5. 800
acres in cultivation. He has 1000 in timothy,
200 in clover, 600 in wheat and oats, 1900 in
corn, and 1900 acres in flax.
General Hazen has directed that the names of
the lakes, capes and mountains in the Arctic
regions, which were named after Howgate. be
erased from the charts, and that Lieutenant
Greedy be requested to designate other names.
A block of silica four feet in height and thirty
inches square was recently cut out, near Vir-
ginia, New, and will be taken to the New Or
leans Exposition. Silica is much used as an alb
sorbent in the manufacture of dynamite, giant
powder and similar explosives.
Chloride of lime should be used with care. A
young lady recently put a large quantity in a
clothes press where there was q musty smell.
The bad odor was entirely destroyed by the
ISltlSd u "a olih u PdlC blut OOIOI Neo
bleached to a dirty gray hue, and rendered
almost useless.
Partisan horse-cars are allowed to carry only q
certain number of passengers. Ten on each
platform and as many inside as there are seats.
When a car has its complement the gates are
closed and a sign hung out to that effect. Those
inside pay 90 confines 10 cents) and those out
side % centimes.
The latest thing in swell English weddings is
the employment OF q page. At the marriage of
Mr.. Shirley with Colonel MeDonald's daughter
in London the other day the bridegroom's
nephew, Master Hugh Chafy, acted as page. He
wore q costume of black velvet, with a large
Irish point lace collar.
General I. l.. Clingman, of North Carolina.
continues steadfast and enthusiastic in his faith
in tobacco as a panaeea for the ellis that flesh is
heir to-, and reports several new cases in which
remarkable cures of dropsy, sore throat, corns,
warts. etc, have been effected by the applica-
ton of tobaecoleaf congresses.
Twenty-Five thousand men are building ships
in the United States. Twenty-Five million
dollars are the shipbuilder's capital; $40, 900, 900
q year is the product. And in the
transportation trade-for our railway trains
are also our ships-we employ nearly ,, 900, 900
people, or half as many as in all our manu-
features.
Men have many vicious habits-tippling smok-
ing, playing billiards and freqenting pool rooms.
fhe chief feminine vice consists in looking in at
store windows and yearning for that which she
is unable to purchase. 1t has been estimated
that it requires 100 hours hard shopping for a
woman to buy a calico dress that is worth $1.I2
when made up.
According to the Samarski Gazette there is
living in the town of Sysran, in Russia, an old
man aged 1877. His age is Individually attested.
He was wounded in the battle of Borodino, and
afterward entered Paris with the allied army.
This veteran, who is still in the possession of all
his faculties, now subsists on the preearious
charity of his neighbors.
A cholera patient in the lazaretto of Fuori-
grotta, near Naples, was seized with terrible fear
of his fate and escaped. The guards started in
pursuit, and only overlook him after a hot chase
of nearly two miles. When brought back it was
found that the patient, from the combined
action of excitement and strong perspiration,
had entirely got rid of his cholera attack.
Hitherto it has always been taken for granted
that the North cape, on the island of Mageroe,
at TIE extremity Of Norway, was the most north
ern point of Europe. But observations lately
made by Captain Knivesjaerodden, on the same
island, to the the west of North Cape, lies still
more to the north. The latitude Of North Cape
is set down at 10 1O 45|, and that of its rival at
70o 40 l21, being a difference of nearly thirty
minutes in favor of the new claimant of extreme
northern honors.
The W tailed rat has again made its appear
ance in the dime museums. The animal is not a
lusus nature, but the victim of antiseptic sur
gerry. The tail of a healthy rat is cut off and
inserted in a V-shaped cut in the nose of a
second. Antiseptic dressings are applied, and
the four limbs tied to a little frame to prevent
scratching the new appendage. The second tail
sets in twenty-four hours, and in four days
nervous connection is established. Thereafter
the rodent guards its front tail as zealously as
the other.
The late Bishop Colenso's residence near
Maritzburg, recently destroyed entirely by fire,
was a long matched building, surrounded by
trees, with mealie fields and patches of Kafr
corn stretching away on either side. A little
distance away stood the stables and the printing
office, where Magama, the intelligent Zulu, pur,
sued his craft. 1t was a very unpretentious
abode, and so simple was the life the Bishop led
that probably nothing of great intrinsic value
was destroyed except the collection of valuable
books and papers. The library was wondrously