River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1885-04-23
Things in General.

The actual cost of the Suez canal, ac-
cording to a report of the year 1877, was
Ell, 518, 729 exclusive of G1,360,000
bonds issued to pay for coupons, on
shares in arrear during part of the peri
cd for construction, 1t was projected
by Ferdinand de Lesseps, and built UNI
der his supervision. It's total length is
ninety-two miles 1t is now controlled
by the British government.
The total population of the Russian
Empire is given in the "Statesman's
Year Book" for 1888 at 9S ,267 ,407. This
is not the result of an actual census OF
the whole empire, but of such data as
makes it reasonably accurate. The
same authority puts the grand total of
population of England and her posses
sions at over 300,000,000. India alone
has more than double the population Of
the Russian Empire.
The reindeer skin suits for the Gree
" relief expedition were made IN Nor
way at cost to this government of $50
apiece. At a recent sale a Spectator
of New York city bought them for So
apiece, and it is said he has now sold
almost all of them at from $40 to $50
apiece. They have been bought as GU
riosities, and also to be converted into
rugs.
An English physician reports a case
of persistent headache cured by the dis
continuing of meat diet, and even now
a single meal of butchers meat will
bring ON arecurrence of the old trouble.
In that case the meat diet caused head
aches because in that individual the di-
gestive processes were not sufficiently
powerful to disintegrate the meat in the
natural way and its elements went into
the blood in the form of poisonous
properties. These impurities resulting
from imperfect digestion of meat caused
headache. In other cases they may
cause biliousness, diarrhpa, skin erup-
tions or asthmatic troubles. When one
is sick and doesn't know why, he might
well ask himself the question whether
he may not be eating too much meat.
Love rules kingdom of contrasts.
Heine, dreaming of angels, married a
grisette. Freytag turned from courts
to a kitchen, and espoused his house
keeper Bacon, master of philosophy,
was Joined to a woman who had q loud
voice and dressed like a chambermaid
out on holiday. What is more pite-
GUS than poor Keats pouring out all the
typical luxuriance of his soul at the feet
of Fanny Drawn. He a poet, she a
feminine commonplace. Idolatry on
the one side; mingling of curiosity
and vanity on the other.
There are about twice as many white
people as colored people in the city OF
Memphis, yet the record of mortality
almost invariably shows more deaths OF
coIored than Of white persons. The
cause of this excessive mortality, IS SAID
to be traceable chiefly to quackery.
The negroes there are naturally super
stitious and believe there is more vir-
tue in conjuration than medicine, and
thev cling to their superstitlons and
seem to learn nothing by the fearful
mortality among their race. The negro
ouacks reap a rich harvest on this cred
ulity. They have a specific for every
ailment, and knowing nothing about
the disease, their remedy aggrayates in
stead of curing.
Cheap sugar, the New Pork Confec-
TONER thinks, is not likely to result at
once from the recently promulgated
conclusions of an experienced chemist,
who announced that sugar can now be
made from sorghum at an expense not
exceeding | cent per pound. 1t says
''For the past twenty years, this won
derful sorghum, or rather its friends
and advocates, have been promising to
revolutionize the sugar trade, but as
yet the promises have not been fulfill
ed. The realization of the doctors
dream, if not the learned gentleman
himself, to our unaided vision, appears
to be "a long way off. /"