The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-03-10
ABOUT PEOPLE AND THINGS.

Adult fEUfLE n N
DIMINUTIvE wire-tailed pugs are becoming fashion
able.
Miss CLEVELAND is said to be very much, opposed
to dancing.
MACON man is trying to devise a method of saw.
ing wood by electricity of which he dreamed.
EIGHTEEN or twenty years ago Judge Endicott, the
new Secretary of War, was a proud expert in amateur
photography.
HENRY BERGH is opposed to Scotch terriers kissing
ladies on the checks, because cosmetics have a
deleterious effect.
PRINCESS BEATRICE has already accepted the bridal
music of Sir Herbert Oakeley for performance at her
approaching marriage.
On one of the Azoresislands, st. Michal's. the peo-
pie invariably drop the family name, each being
known by entirely different titles. The same names
are also applied to either sex Unfortunately.
IT Is stated that ex-President Arthur is going to
Europe in July. and that he will remain abroad for
several months. He will spend several weeks in
England before proceeding to the continent for a
heightened tour.
THE author of 1.-THE P~rettiest Woman in Warsaw"
says there is no truth in the published statement that
Madame Modjeska is the heroine of the book, as was,
of course, given out by the truthful theatrical agents.
The story is that of a crime which was committed in
a Roumanian chateau; two sisters, Polish actresses,
are concerned in it.
A VERY curious superstition is connected with the
origin of the horseshoe, which is supposed to have
come from the halo surrounding tho heads Of saints in
old pictures. This halo was usually composed of a
shiny metal which remained long after the picture had
faded from view, leaving only this metallic horseshoe
to still receive the habitual reverence given sanity
pictures from generation to generation.
A wEyI.tSNowN oo;anE;Ec c,ar loo lotaly VIVIAN an
order to a Liverpool dealer for a hundred specimens
of the electrical eel, for the purpose Of closely study
ing the singular power possessed by these creatures.
Hitherto this has not been investigated so far as to de-
termine very positively what is the nature Of the mar
velous emanation that has generally been accepted as
electricity. But there are, it is stated, some reasons
lately discovered for doubling the identity Of this
| power with a veritable electric shock.
HUMAN Information in India is thus explained in
Nature by a correspondents: "a tunnel is dug from
the grave to the neighboring jungle; the grave itself
is partly prepared. The subject is then, in sight of
the spectators. prepared by having his ears and nos
trils filed with wax and his tongue turned back. He
is then apparently buried, creeps through the tunnel
and gets away. After six months, or any other inter
val, he creeps back again. is dug up apparently life.
less, and restored with infinite pains.
SENATOR EvARTs rejoices in excellent digestive
powers. A gentleman speaking with him at the AL.
bany banquet, last week. expressed surprise that he
was able to dine out night after night without expe.
riencing any i'll effects from the superabundance of the
viands and of the different wines set before him.
"Oh," said the Senator, II get on very we'll with the
different wines; it is the Indifferent wines that
trouble me-" The following morning, while on his
way to the station, he rallied Senator ArkeIl on a
mistake in announcing to him the time of departure
of the train. "Your son" said the Senator, told me
that the train leaves at 10, and while at breakfast I
found that the time is 9:55. That decision lost me
two pancakes, he added pensively, ''and these PAN
cakes were particularly good"
IT is somewhat singular that the title of Gel
Mahdi' should have been originally borne by the very
Caliph who destroyed the most famous Of the present
Mahdi's predecessors, viz: the Turcoman impostor,
Hakim Ben Hashim, surnamed "Mokannah" (the
yeied) from the covering of silvered gauze which al.
ways hid his face. This ~worthy's career was a pretty
exact counterpart of that of the Soudan prophet. Of
mean birth, and by trade a fuller, he quilted his
native city of Merry at forty years of age for a desert
hermitage, whence he emerged with a proclamation
of his divine mission, which drew crowds of enthusi.
asts to his standard. Fixing his capital at Merry, he
repulsed several attacks. but was at length defeated,
in 73O, by the Caliph Mahdi in person, who drove
him across the Oxus, and finally blockaded him in
Neksheb, the modern korshi, ninety miles southeast
OF Bokhara. Here the impostor, finding his cause
hopeless. poisoned his remaining followers, and then
plunged into a tank filled with corrosive acid, that the
disappearance of his body might give rise las it actu-
ally did) to the belief that he had assembled to heaven.
His life has been written by the French historian
d'Herbelot, but he is chiefly known to western readers
through Moore's famous poem in "Lalla Rookh, I"
"The Yelled Prophet of Khorassan."