The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1885-10-28

her sensation while in transit as that of
being rapid and constantly pricked by
thousands Of needles: Since her expert
snce she has been affected similar to a
person with St. Vitus'' dance.
The experiment of raising buffaloos is
It present engaging the attention Of some
If the Western ranchmen, who are pay
ing $50 apiece for calves with which to
tart their herd. Buffalo hides are now
worth from SIS to $40 each. and as these
animals are much more hardy than cat
tie, losses from severe winter weather
will be light in comparison with that OF
/ herd of Shorthorns.
1t is said that the nations of the earth
speak about ninety different dialects.
But these dialects can be traced to a
much smaller number of languages. All
these languages are divided into three
classes, namely, the Indo-Germanic,
which embraces the ancient classical
languages and those of modern Europe;
the Sanscrit, which embraces all the
various languages of India. and the Sc
ulLIC, WLlCl CulUldCCS LAC A4CD1SW3
Chaldaic, Syriac, Arabic, etc.
The gold and scarlet of the sun is ri
vailed in the cupolas of St. Peters ca
thedral, just finished at Moscow. There
are five of the cupolas, and no less than
nine hundred pounds of gold were used
in OVERLAPPING them. The doors of the
temple cost 1910, 600, and upon the mar
BILE floors was expended 1 1880, 900. Ten
thousand worshippcrs can be comfort
able if their souls will let them within
this twelve million five hundred thou
sand dollar temple.
One curious revelation made by recent
censuses is found in the growth OF the
female population of large cities. New
York contains about 25, 600 more women
than men; Boston has a surplus of 49,
900 women; in Baltimore there are H.
900 more women than men, and so ON in
several others of the large eastern cities.
Fifty years ago it was the men who came
to the cities to pursue their careers, while
the women stayed at home; but more
recently women, both in this country
and in Europe, have been crowding to
the business centers.
A statistician has been studying the
effect of comfort on longevity. His
tables show that the richest people have
an average life Of ifty-two years, the
middling ~forty-six. and the poor only
~forty-one and a half. A well-to-do man
is. as liable to infectious disease rs a
pauper, while diphtheria, Group, whoop-
ing cough, and scarlet fever are more
prevalent among the rich. Consumption
and pneumonia claim the poor, who are
comparatively free from brain fever.
There is apparently some advantage in
being rich.
The people of the Sandwich islands
were a good many years ago reclaimed
from their old style of heathenism. The
work among them was done by some of
the earliest o! the missionaries. A mod
ern missionary who lives in Honolulu
says that the present danger with these
islanders is not that they will relapse into
the ancient heathenism of idolatry, but
that such heathenish practices as they
learn from modern civilization will be
too much for them. The islanders are
physically running down. Disease and
drunkenness have made gr;evous havoc
among them. ...,.
The size of elephants is commonly
over-estimated. Their stature is almost
always exaggerated in those countries
where they are found wild. Even Euro
pean travellers of scientific training have
made notable mistakes in this respect.
African elephants which Major Denham,
one of the early explorers, supposed to
be sixteen feet high proved to be less
than ten feet when killed. In Ceylon
the native elephant, which was formerly
thought to be larger than the African
animal. is rarely taller than nine feet;
and Sir Elilers0111 elnent says the largest
specimens on that island do n0u average
more than eight feet. Out of 1,1Ut
elephants from which the tallest were
selected and measured with care on n
occasion in India, there was not one
whose height equaled eleven feet.
A German writer estimates the number
of blind persons in the world at about
1000, 900. This is not a mere guess,
bat is based on accurate statistics, which
show that, on the average, there is one
blind person among every 1,400; hence,
as this planet has about 1.400, 600, 600
inhabitants, this would make 1, 1000, 900
blind folks. The European countries
differ somewhat in the proportion of
blind inhabitants. In Austria one per-
son is blind of every 1,7S5; in Sweden,
Of every 1,418; in France, of I ,191; in
Prussia, of 1, Ill; in England, of 1857.
Then follow with a still larger percentage
Russia, Norway and FINLAND. TIE
largest number of blind persons is to be
found in Egypt. At Cairo one person
among twenty is blind, and DR.. FRANKIE,
of Vienna, once encountered in one morn
ing ramble almost 1000 blind men and
women Many are also found in China
! and Japan. Germany has the largest
number of asylums for the blind,
namely, thirty-fve; then follows Eng
land with twenty-six, France thirteen,
Austria: Hungary ten, Italy nine, Belgium
six, etc. America, Asia and Africa to-
gether have only six asylums.
A commission appointed by the Ger.
man government last fall on the subject
of vaccination and it's effects as a pre-
ventive Of smallpox reports that since
1874, when revaccinatlcn began to be
strictly and generally enforced, not one