The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1884-11-29
GLEANINGS.

mated at xl5O,OOO,OUO,
Rabbits damage Australia to the ex-
tent of $4,000, 600 year.
Mrs. William H. Vanderbilt knits the
stockings her millionaire husband
wears.
We may laugh or weep at the md
ness of mankind; we have no right
whatever to vilify them.
Bridal cakes are sometimes kept for
fifty or hundred years, and no won
der. If the bride makes it herself, she
does not want to throw it away, and
nobody will eat it.
A new system of Geographic short
hand has been developed by an Italian.
1t is called acknowledgement" and by
it signs corresponding to sounds can be
teleg raphed. 1t is claimed that 10000
words per hour can be transmitted.
A tunnel 5000 feet in length has just
been discovered on the Island of Samos.
1t was constructed about nine centuries
before the Christian era, and Herodo-
tus says it served the purpose OF pro-
viding the old seaport with drinking
water.
Covington, Ky, has dog detective,
whose business it is to hunt up lost or
stolen dogs, and for a consideration re-
turn them to their owners This party
knows all the dogs in town, and is on
quite friendly terms with the most val
liable of them.
Englishmen eat at much shorter in
tervals than Americans are accustomed
to. The farm laborer eats four meals
a day, and in some of the baronial
halls in England the tables are spread
for meals at intervals of four hours
during the day and evening.
There is little war raging between
buttons and hooks and eyes on the two
continents. Worth persists in buttons,
very small ones, still buttons; but there
is an economy in material and time in
hooks and eyes, say the majority, so
the probability is the "eyes have it.
A new perfume, called "a Lily's
Sigh" is now in use among women
whose purse is long, the price being 50
per tiny phial. 1t produces an exquis-
tie odor, very much like the heliotrope,
and is said to have been originally in
troduced in this country by Mrs. Lang
try.
In Italy they talk of throwing a
bridge over the Straits of Messina that
separate Sicily from Italy. A place
where the channel is two and half
miles wide and 36l feet deep is selected.
Two piers will support viaduct OF
steel raised to height of 1928 feet above
the water.
The extraordinary proficiency OF the
Dutch Beers of South Africa in mark
manship makes them dreaded enemies.
An Englishman who has been hunting
among them lately says that he saw
one fire hastily at bustard which was
Hying about 200 yards distant and send
rifle ball through its body; but, as
this did not wholly stop the bird, which
tapped Iapidly along the ground, the
Boer fired a second time and cut off its
head. British soldiers dread, with
good reason, therefore to face these
sharp-shooting bush-fghters, animated
by the idea that they are defending
/ their firesides.
Lhe mystery of the jumping beans Of
Mexico was solved several years ago
here on the Comstock. The explana-
ton is simple enough. There is in each
/ bean a worm whose instinct it is TO so
skip as to put the bean in motion. The
insect gives motion to the bean by
drawing itself into close coil and then
suddenly uncoiling itself in such a way
as to strike against the upper part Of
the cavity it occupies. In Mexico these
beans in great numbers are to be seen
skipping over the ground under the
trees upon which they are produced.
They thus skip and roll along the
ground until tue lodge in some hole or
cavity where they are likely 10 he COW
ered with ear h BY the first rains. The
worm /. provision of nature by means
of winch the beans are distributed and
painted.
the hanging ircase in toe -outiI.
,a.. 60. payi o the p. aie,-
IA, 10y are. c-s A..
| "a 81 wurs III D.
! est when con-
e