The Indianapolis journal., 1886-01-04
ABOUT PEOPLE AND THINGS.

BARON TENNYSoNs fortune is estimated at
$400 000 all of it of his own making, for the
poet is practical, and always makes profitable
the malicious say close-Dargains with his
publishers
HEREToFoRE ships have been permitted to
pass through the Suez canal only in daylight;
but now war ships and steamers provided with
electric lights of sufficient power to illuminate
the canal 1900 yards ahead may go at night.
THE metric system is said to be losing ground
in laboratories in this country and, indeed, out
side of France generally. The foremost objec-
ton to it is said to be the ease with which errors
occur through the displacem of the decimal
point.
VENERABLE exTreasurer Francis E. Spinner.
now more than eighty, is once more happily
heard from at Pablo Beach, Fla, where a visitor
says he walks, talks and acts like man of fifty,
though, if he keeps up that signature of his, he
continues to write like sixty.
MRS. BANCROFT. the wife Of the historian is
said to be preparing volume of her remi-
at Washington sixty years ago and has seen the
best people and places at home and abroad, she
cannot fail to favor the public with an uncom-
monty interesting book.
WILLIAM EwARr GLADSTONE is three years
older than M. Grevy and one year older than the
Pope. and he is stronger and far more active
than either Bismarck is six years younger than
the Eneishmap, who is eleven years younger
than the Kaiser, and carries ten less years than
Won Moltke Tough old men, all of them.
M. PAsTEUR has not only invented incubation
for hydrophobia, but. as sort of side issue, he
claims to have discovered the secret of true hap
piness, which consists he says in devoting days
and nights to penetrating the secrets of nature
and discovering truths. People who pro-
pose to be happy will proceed to penetrate aud
discover
PHILIP Cook, of Georgia, is the only confed-
crate brigadier whose troops were engaged in
battle within the federal district. He led the
advance brigade of the army commanded by
Early and Breckenridge, and occupied Frazers
farm, on the Baltimore &c Ohio railroad. Gen.
Cook says that the dome of the Capitol was
clearly visible to his men as they fought.
Mr.. WILLIAM e. MARSHALL, the New York
engraver, is engaged upon portrait of Confed-
crate General Lee from a negative taken in
Richmond during the war and declared to be- by
Gen. G. w. Custis Lee, the only profile negative
of his father in existence Considering the CO.
lebrity of General Lee, it is strange that here
tofore no satisfactory portrait of him has been
published.
AN English sportsman, shooting on the north
shore Of Long Island. was invited to dinner at q
to a London newspaper about it, 'I wonder
how often in merrie England he says, "a
farmer with his family and two men servants
sit down to roast turkey, chicken pie, with four
or five vegetables, and cranberry pie, to say moth
ing of both beer and whisky to drink
THE blind Mr. Fawcett, late Postmaster-gen-
eral of Great Britain, was an enthusiastic
angler He performed, if anything. better than
the SEEING says his biographer, whether be-
cause he waited more patiently to strike until he
felt his fish. or because he was more docie in
following the directions of his skilled compan-
ions. He had great success in catching salmon
and trout, and in trolling for pike in the winter
One of his trophies was twenty-pouni salmon.
AT meeting of the Pathological Society of
Philadelphia DR.. Formal presented an analysis
OF $50 autopsies on drunkards. He found that
the most prominent troubles caused by chronic
alcoholism were cyanotic induration of the kid
neys fatty infiltration of the liver, and mann
INFLATED stomach. He thought that the expos
ure Irregularities of diet. ETC., incident to drunk
enness have as much to do with the maladies as
alcohol itself. The prevalent idea that drunk
ards are apt to have ''hob nails livers was not
confirmed; in the whole number Of cases he
found only six of cirrhosis with contraction. In
220 cases the liver was enlarged owing TO fatty
infiltration. The Doctor said he had once ties
titled In court that certain person was not
likely 20 have been q hard drinker, because ct
the autopsy no cirrhosis was found But this
was before ne had made the recent $50 autop-