Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1888-12-21
NEWS AND NOTES.

operated by electricity.
Soap root, which grows in the Western
part of Kansas, sells for S38 Il ton.
A grandmother only twenty-fi five years
old is the chief curiosity in Handbook
Ind.
The corn product of Kansas this year is
estimated at $50 per cent. greater than
last year.
From 200 to 400 square miles of the
great pine forests of Georgia are cleared
every year.
1t is proposed in the legislature TO raise
the salary of the governor of Georgia
from $4,000 to $4,000.
There is no ice on Lake Superior yet,
although the time of year is past when
there usually is plenty.
The total production of the silk manu-
| factories of America now amounts to
| $50, 900 200 per annum.
Thomas Wilkinson of Vernon, n. Y. ,
has beard five feet long, which he wears
tucked under his vest.
A single gold dollar can be made into a
sheet that will carpet two rooms sixteen
and onehalf feet square.
The experiment of rice cultivation has
been successfully tried in California .
There are large tracts of land adapted to
this grain.
A Kansas paper predicts that in five
years Kansas will make her own sugar,
and in ten years viii have millions of
pounds to sell.
Philadelphia has just consecrated a
church for deaf mutes-the only one in
the world. No one is allowed TO sleep
during the sermon.
If you want to see the elephant yOu had
better hurry up. There are only about
5000 elephants in the world, and the
number is decreasing every year.
Opium seems to be as harmful as rum
in California. OF the 1877 prisoners now
in the state prison there, 900 were
brought there through opium and itrfdfs-
sociations. & y
White gunpowder is the latest idea !
Wellington could hardly have worp at
Waterloo with white birthstone, Ant
that S the color of the smokeless I{sw
powder to be used in the queen ,sarIni&s.
Heretofore no marriage in the sgFgen-
tine Republic was legal that WIS. l8tper5S
formed by priest of the CatifoIidf hufelfy
Now decree has been issriSd establish
ing civil marriages after JANUARY l 1t
causes great social commotion.
The fact that two men are likely to be
executed at the Ohio penitentiary next
year may induce the legislature this win
ter to adopt the plan of execution by
electricity, the same as the law going
into'effect in New York January l.
Potatoes are drug in the market at
COlfaX, Wis. , owing to the enormous
crop raised in that section. The best
price to be got is 10 cents a bushel, and
one farmer offered to give a friend
wagon load of choice ones if he would
take the trouble to send for them.
The increasing number of intermar-
riages between deaf mutes is attracting
attention. Its believed to imply the
founding of a mute race. By all means
let us have such race, says the Alta
Californian, and let them be hired to do
all the celebrating of elections and Fourth
of July.
The Farmers Alliance of Minnesota is
already organizing to have some voice in
the selection of a United States senator
The Alliance claims that it viii control
twenty-five votes in the legislature, and
proposes to cast these first for Ignatius
Donnelly, but has no hope of securing his
election. After Donnelly the Alliance
favors the re- election of Sabin.
The effects of marriage, celibacy and
divorce upon mental health have been
Investigated in Prussia, where the statis-
tics of insanity show that out of 100 1000 of
the population of each class, there were
mentally diseased among the married, 90
men, 80 women; among the single, 332
men, 293 women; among the widowed,
32l men, 256 women: among the di-
vorced, 1911 men 1920 women.
A Swedish scientist claims to have dis |
covered the secret of petrifying wood by |
processes. He thinks it will be |
possible ere long to construct edifices of |
wood and convert them into stone. As it |
takes six months and costs about |
$500 to petrify block of wood of the di- |
mansions of one cubic inch, it will prob
ably be some time before his process viii |
be generally adopted.
A native forage plant, called "spiked
clover, - is attracting attention in Cali
fornia 1t grows in great profusion on
low lands by the streams in Humboldt
attaining sometimes the height
of twelve feet. The plant puts out white
blossoms on slender spikes, and resembles
the clover leaf in formation 1t is eaten
with avidity by horses ana cattle.
Ninety-fiye and half per cent of the
total area of France is agricultural lands,
the rest being occupied by towns, cities,
railroads, etc. There are 5 ,6a2,-
D07 farms, each averaging a little over
and one-half acres. There
are . ,l67 ,667 holdings, each averaging
less than one and one-quarter acres.
These are near cities and localities
peculiarly suitable to the vine and garden
crops.
The largest coal dock in America will
be built at once at West Superior by the
Eastern Railway Company. 1t will be
1000 feet deep and 500 feet wide, with a
central vessel slip 1000 feet long and 100
feet wide, giving 500 feet of dock frea- ]