Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1885-03-21

SOME years ago law was enacted, fixing
license tax upon all foreign corporations do
ing business in Pennsylvania. The object
aimed at was to collect revenue from parties
in competition with local manufactures,
which were heavily taxed. The intention
was good. but as matter of fact number OF
foreign corporations maintained offices In that
State. chiefly for the purpose OF purchas ng
supplies of articles manufactured there, and the
effect of the law has been 70 drive them away
and take the trade, amounting to over MIL
lion dollars annually, to other localities.
THE Russian Emperor. shamed, perhaps, by
the recent brave conduct Of Kings Humbert
and Alphonso in the cholera and earthquake
catastrophes, has ventured to display little
personal courage in st. Petersburg. He TOOK
part in assisting at two disasters that recently
occurred. The one was at the burning OF the
city bank, where he showed great energy and
GOODNESS, and the other on the occasion or the
cavlng in of an immense building occupied by
a number Of tenants. His Majesty mounted
to the top OF ladder that was suspended
from the crumbling wall and at imminent
risk helped TO save the lives Of the inmates.
A PECULIAR musical resonance character
ICES the low sandy banks and marshes of the
Pascagoula river, and is accounted for by the
inhabitants OF its shores In picturesque II
not practical manner. Upon calm moonlight
nights a mysterious music has been heard 10
issue at intervals from the water. and, "hoat-
ing over its surface for time, die away IN
soft melodiOus fragments" poetlcal o.
server declares that 1t comes from caverns or
grOttOes below the bed of the stream, and, as
cending from the water ia volume of sound,
it curls under the very keel OF the travellers
boat, and reaches the ear like the strains OF q
Thousand distant 9Olian harps. To the wholly
practical mind the phenomenon may be &C
counted for in part by the peculiar formation
of the banks OF the stream, the wild rushing
of the wind through the reeds on the shore, or
the hollow indentations in the bed of the river.
THE Krg of Dahomey has celebrated the
Feast OF Customs with more revolving bar
barity than ever this year. A French mis-
sionary writing OF the celebration" says
Every day during the three months that l
remained at Abome l saw at the door of the
Kings palace six hea1s freshly cut of, to say
nothing of the number of dead bodies nailed
TO the trunks of trees, head oownWards, or
still living bodies nailed by the hands or feet
only, in various positions, and dying from
sheer pain, hunger, or the stlngs and poison
of insects. l also witnessed during the last
dayS-0f my stay the fate of two women and
two men who, with the Kings brother,
formed plot to dethrone the King
The Kings brother, according to the
laws of the country, could not
be put to death, and was therefore shut up IN
the dark dungeon. The NV women one OF
wnom was the vie and the other the slave of
the Kings butler were buried to the neck,
aud as they were still alive after seven days,
though they had eaten nothing mean time,
they were eXhumed To the waist and fed, and
then the hole in which they were half buried
was filed with powder and set on fire. AL
though horribly burned, they still lived, when
the eXecutioners poured boiling palm Gil over
their heads, Whereupon the crowd rushed In
ard sliced Them in pieces with their knives.
The two men were tied to stake and the
crowd pierced their flesh IN thousand places
with red hot irons. One of them lived half an
hour and the other nearly an nOur."