The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1886-05-17
PERSONAL AND PECULIAR.

lighted at night by shaft light from torch
which will be seen 80 miles out at sea.
A place called the jungle is to be opened
in Bridgeport, Conn, soon, by George Ar
stingstall, Barnum's elephant trainer, where
he will have an exhibition of curiosities, col
lected while travelling.
The Duke of Newcastle, who is coming to
this country for visit of several months, Is
only 81, and is a grandson of the Duke OF
Newcastle, who came to the United States
in 1860 as the special guardian OF the then
youthful Prince Of Wales.
Margaret Fuller's old home, and school
house as well, in Cambridge, Mass, is to be
pulled down, and it is even more famous as
the ''Miffiin mansion" occupied by Major
Mifiin in 1776, when the American army was
encamped at Cambridge.
A man in Bear Valley, Cal, started a fire
in a chimney that had not been used for a
year. There appeared to be some obstruc-
ton. and he understood what it was when
200 pounds of honey melted and ran down.
The bees had been using it for hive
Robert Browning is so fearful that future
biographers of the poet will deal too freely
with family affairs that he has destroyed a
vast pile of valuable letters addressed to his
father by eminent authors, and autograph
maniacs howl at what seems to them posi-
tive vandalism.
George w. Cable will not be the only par
ticipant in Memorial day observances in
New England who wore the gray. Rev. Mr..
Buckingham, rector of the Episcopal church
at Rutland, Vt. who fought in the Confeder-
ate army, will conduct the religious services
for the Grand Army Post of that town.
Major-Gen. E. f. Burton has described GER
tain large, yellow hornets of India which
dispose themselves in regular circles upon
their nest, with their heads to the centre.
They thus appear like the spokes of yellow
Wheel and a nest of them is sometimes mis-
taken for a sunfiower.
The will of the late Thaddeus F. Stuart of
South Burlington, VT, bequeaths $500 in
trust to the Vermont Methodist conference.
The will provides that at each annual session
of the conference one of its members shall
be appointed to visit the grave of the de-
ceased the first Sunday in June and there
"preach full and free salvation to all that
NAV attend to hear" For this service the
minister is to receive $40.
Marie, the sister of charity, who was at
ta4had tn the -amhnlannns of 1'nAani'- ord
did such noble work, was rewarded by Cen
eral De Ceurcy with the Cross of the Legion
of Honor. NJ. Grevy has confirmed her
nomination. Sister Marie, nee Laroche, es-
pecially devoted herself in Tonquin to chole-
IA patients. She is the sixteenth woman who
has been decorated since the Red Ribbon
was given to Sister Rosalie for her ambu-
lance service during the Crimean war.
About fifteen years ago William Ashworth
of Oregon, No., hid quantity of gold coin
and died few days after. Careful search
was made but the treasure could not be
found. Last week Mrs. Ashworth emptied
an old churn that had stood on shelf in the
smoke house for years. The churn was full
of beans, and in the bottom was tin can,
aad in the can was an old wooden sock, and
in the sock was the long-searched-for gold
1t amounted to $712.
1t has been found by DR.. TAFT that the ear
in women can perceive higher notes, that is,
sounds with greater number of vibrations
per second, than the ear in men. The highest
limit of human hearingi is somewhere between
41,oOo and $4,000 vibrations per second. Few
persons have equal sensibility to acute sounds
in both ears, their right ear usually hearing
higher note than the left. The lowest con-
tinuouS sounds have about sixteen vibrations
per second.
A correspondent of the Boston Cultivator
writes: 81 wish you could look into the stu
dio Of the sculptor, Mr.. Larkin Mead broth
er-in-law of Mr.. Howells, and see his work
THE Mississippi River colossal form of
water-god, surrounded by the emblems of
the majestic stream. | am confident you
would be profoundly interested in the noble
work, as am, watching the head and lines
grow out of the Carrara block, from the
crown of cotton to the alligator cOiled be-
meath the feet This is the most characters
tically American work have yet seen I'M
dertaken by native American artist, and
the largest ideal figure since Michael AHge-
los gigantic shapes. The sculptor is small,
slender man.
The records of locust plaques in the warm
countries of the East, in modern as well as
in ancient times, almost surpass belief.
Kirby and Spence mention an army of To-
Gusts which ravaged the Mahratta country,
extending in column 500 miles long, and so
compact that it obscured the sun like an
eclipse. Near the close of the last century
so many persisted in the sea ON part of the
African coast that bank three or four feet
high, and about fifty miles long, was formed
on the shore by their dead bodies, and the
stencil of them was carried $50 miles by the
wind. In another part of Africa, early in
the Christian era, one plague of loeusts is
said to have caused the death of 100000 per-
sons, and in 591 nearly as bad plague oc-
10000 persons persisted in the Venetian ter
ritories from famine caused by loeusts.
"a New York gentleman" says the st.
James's Gazette, "has most curious and in
teresting Autograph of Oliver Wendell
Holmes. 1t is a sheet of ordinary blotting
paper which the poet kept tackled on his
desk while writing THE Autocrat at the
Breakfast Table Whenever specially
striking thought, happy expression, or
skeleton idea of Importance flashed across
his mind in reading, conversation, or refec-
ton, he wrote the word on his blotter, drew
a circle:around it, and amplifed it at his
leisure in his writing. A careful examina-
ton of The Autocrat' reveals whole pages
of charming Holmes talk and wisdom evolved
from single circle with its suggestive
word: When Emerson, in one of his essays,
exclaims so, circular philosopher was he
thinking of Oliver Wendell Holmes and his