Charlotte messenger. [volume] (Charlotte, Mecklenburg Co., N.C.) 1882-18??, 1888-04-21
SELECT SIFTINGs.

There are said to be only four horses
IN Alaska.
The first newspaper was published in
England in 1888.
A cow-milking machine has been
patented by Nebraska man.
The word gentleman is from the Nor
mani rench-gentil-homme.
A swordfsh weighing 500 pounds was
caught recently from wharf at Punta
Gorda, Fla.
The feudal system was introduced into
England by William the Conqueror
about 1910.
The founder of the Adams Express
Company, Alvin Adams, started his
career as an Office boy in Boston hotel.
Fireworks are said to have been known
to the Chinese in remote ages. They
were invented in Europe, at Florence,
about 1860.
The inhabitants of Plainield, Wis,
see almost every day on the streets OF
their town man only "a years old who
weighs 664 pounds, and is still growing
The last direct intelligence from the
members of the Inflated Franklin Arctic
Exploring Expedition were dispatches
from the Whitefsh Islands, dated July
IL, 1916.
A justice at Rondout, N. Y, has
decided that you have perfect right to
give your note payable latter death, !"
instead of latter date" and that if the
other fellow accepts it he must stand to
his unpromising bargain.
The first white child born in America
was Virginia, daughter of Ananias and
Eleanor Dare. She was born on the 18th
of August, 1897, in Roanoke, N. C.
Her parents were in the expedition'sent
out by Sir Walter Raleigh in that year.
Henry Surington was killed by raiders
in Brownsville, Ala, in the spring of
1865. HIS body was properly buried,
but three times since it has been washed
from its grave by spring freshets, much
to the alarm of the saperstitioas of the
place.
The appearance. of the only fat villain
in fiction, Count Fosco, is explained by
Mr.. Wilkie Collins. He says that she
made him fat because lady once made
the remark at dinner party that no
novelist could make really lifelikc fat
villain"
W. H. Pratt, of Davenport, Iowa, once
wrote out the emancipation proclamation
in such manner as to have the letters
group together into perfect picture of
Abraham Lincoln. The picture is now
in the possession of the Iowa Historical
Society.
There were, previous to the Revolu-
tionary War, only five public libraries in
all the colonies outside of the Libraries
IF colleges. Two OF these were in
thiladelphia-the Library Company of
Philadelphia" founded in 1871, and
the American Philosophical Society,""
in 1s42.
S. NJ. Zahn, of Lancaster, Penn, is an
dol collector. Among his collections
are an Aztec idol, taken from mound
n Mexico. and supposed to be thousands
IF years old; a Hindoo idol, Japanese
god, Arizona Indian idols, and a sand
stone god taken from the banks of the
Susquehanna.
A singular death Of valuable bull
log, owned by William Howell. of kai
cine, Wis, is recorded. The dog was
standing near the large and rapidly re-
Volving flywheel of an electric light en-
CINE and suddenly attempted to Jump
through it. Before he could be rescued
the dog was ground to pieces.
A peculiar deposit which resembles
,lay in pliability, but which when ex-
posed to the air becomes as hard as
granite, has been discovered at the base
If Bear Mountain, near Taylorville, n.
9. Blocks of it have been dug out and
lsed for all the purposes of stone with
success, and it is proposed to build
houses of it.