The Portland daily press., 1885-09-23
PERSONAL AND PECULIAR.

Krupp is at present chiefly manufacturing
guns for China, Turkey, Japan and Egypt.
A Maine doctor declares that he has the
spirits of 300 Indians under his control.
Africa produces 1,S75,0Oo pounds of ivory
year, and kills off $4,000 elephants to do it.
George Augustus Sala says everything is
improving in America but pie.
1t is stated that the cranberry crop of
Massachusetts this year will be worth $780,
600, if not injured by frost.
Aunt Dabney," negress aged 81 years,
has died in Millersburg, KY, leaving a hus-
band aged 10.
A Southern negro won't eat black sheep
under any circumstances, and the Southern
wool-grower is taking advantage of this SUI
perstition to raise none other.
a toboggan slide 100 feet long, is being
laid out at Waterbury, Conn.,, and it is pre-
dicted that many other American towns and
cities will adopt the exhilarating Canadian
sport this winter.
The journal of the English Statistical So
ciety shows that the mean duration of life in
England has increased during the last so
years. In males it has risen from 1873 to
41.9, and in females from 41.9 to 45.3 years.
Mr. Gladstone was greeted with marked
respect by the Norwegians everywhere, and
received many compliments from the public
prints. Seldom, if ever,,'' said leading
journal, has it been onr fortune to behold
such noble and energetic countenance."
Two Norwich men who arrived in New
York recently from foreign port with two
thorough bred dogs were surprised to find
that the duty on the animals represented
seven times their value. They left the dogs
on the boat.
A lady from New York, who was on board
the steamer Ticonderoga, on Lake George,
at the time of the accident last week, says
the Glens Falls Times was so agitated that
she rushed up to the captain, and, throwing
her arms around his neck, pathetically asked
nm II there was telephone on board.
For the opening season, says the Philadel-
phia Record, dance teacher has devised
what ne calls the dervish. 1t consists of
few slow, measured, stately revolutions in
ordinary waltz time, followed by dozen
rapid waltz ooes, done so suddenly that the
couples look like wild deryishes Of the des
ert.
Sea water has been converted into bev-
erage by Thomas Kay. A little citric acid
or citrate of silver is added to the briny liq-
uid, chloride of silver is precipitated and
harmless mineral water is produced. An
ounce of citrate renders half pint of water
drinkable. Seven ounces would furnish
shlpWrecked man with water for week.
At IS Mr.. j. T. Trowbridge is a prosperous
man of letters, bearing in his ruddy and gen.
ial face no trace of the trials which he en-
countered in early life He lives on the
banks Of beautiful sheet of water in one of
BoStonS most beautiful suburbs, Arlington.
lie was born in log house near where the
city OF Rochester, N. y, now stands.
A queer case of doubtful identity has been
figuring in the Fitchburg, Mass, courts.
Twelve witnesses on one side positively iden-
tilted Mr.. Adams as man who passed by
the name of Walters, and on the other side
eighteen men showed conclucively that it
could not possibly be he. Adams was dis
charged.
Mr.. Stead, the editor of the Pail Mall Ga
zette, just now the man most talked about in
all London, is thus described by the CORE
spondent of the Paris News: He is the type
OF fanatical reformer, with his hair stand
ing in all directions, his light blue ewes are
bloodshot, his face red with ill-suppreSsed
excitement, and his slight frame swaying to
and fro, but looking like a brave man.
One large Saratoga trunk contained the
Presidents wardrobe for the trip, and some
Adirondack mud was still visible on it's sides
when it was carried into the White House.
The large straw hat, old trousers, boots and
fsherman's shirt of blue flannel, which CON
StiGuted the PreSldent's makeup in the noun
talns, We're not brought back to Washington
The wife of j. K Emmett of New York has
unique mode OF securing her new pet dog
from the fanciers. Upon driving out in her
fine equipage Mrs. Emmett has the dog in a
box on the seat beside her The box is of
black walnut; it is about IA by "a inches and
about Is inches high, with perforated back
to admit air; glass front to view the ami
NAL completes the arrangement.
A little daughter of David Norf of Dubois,
Pa, died few weeks ago. Willis, her s.
year-old brother repeatedly declared that he
wanted to die, so that he might go to heaven
and see her. On Friday last he asked his
mother if he was good enough to 60 to heav-
en- if he died. His mother told him that she
believed he was. Not long afterward she
heard pistol shot in room up stairs. She
ran to the room and found Willis lying dead
on the floor. In his right hand he held a re-
volVer, with which he had shot himself
through the heart.
Paganini is describedby Karoline Bauer in
her memoirs as haggard man, who seemed
only to consist of olive-colored skin and rat
thing bones. The black clothes he wore were
literally dangling about this skeleton. His
gait was languid, as if the whole bone fabric
must collapse the next moment and drop at
least some of its joints. His face looked like
mummy head, covered with a brown skin;
his cheeks were hollow; from the deep sock
cts of his eyes shown forth dismal, black fire;
long, thin hair in ringlets Unframed like SER
penis this deaths head.
A novelty in marriage proposals is report
ed from Antwerp. The Congo king, Massa-
la, special favorite of the ladies of Ant
werp, is reported to have lately won the
heart of an English lady, who, nothing 10th.
wrote to the king offering him her hand and
heart and fortune of $4,000. Massala, evil
IDENTIFY flattered by the proposal of the lady.
who honestly described herself as mo long,
er young" caused an answer to be written fo
her in which he expressed his regret that. as
he was provided with sufficient number of
wives during his stay in Europe, he could
not enter a new matrimonial bond. If, how
ever, she would choose man from his suite.
Massala would be happy to further the ar
rangement.