The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-04-17
CURIOUS FACTS.
A span is 10S inches.

A span is 1os inches. --.,-.z.- =
The eaverage human life Is thirty-one 4
years.
The value of an Attic drachma was
eighteen cents. ~
Pigskin is now used for gloves and
children's shoes.
Vaccination is compulsory in England
and optional in France.
One out of every four persons in New
York has money in bank.
A colored man owns sixty houses and
one of the hotels at Memphis.
The new tunnel under the lake at Chi
cago will be four miles long.
During the civil war 267 Union soldiers
were executed for desertion.
Convicts cannot vote unless they have1
been restored to citizenship by pardon.
In Vermont, when they have snow,
instead OF breaking the roads with
snow plow, they roll the snow down
solid with a heavy roller.
A new fruit has been discovered in
Southern California. 1t looks like the
fruit of the pear tree, but the pulp Is
soft and pasty, tasting like claret.
An orchid grower says that in one
spotted variety of the flower more than
$1OO will be given for one small spot,
the plant being worth so much the more. i
There is some doubt as to the place
and date of St. Patrick's birth, but the
leading authorities put Fitzpatrick, near
the mouth of the Clyde, in Scotland, as
the place of his birth.
Several counties in California which
are VIGOROUSLY infested with mosquitoes
are Kidding themselves of the pests by
planting eucalyptus trees, in the vicinity
of which mosquitoes are unknown.
Almost every day there are men at
Castle Garden, New York city, who
assert that they are in search OF and
willing to marry any bright and lntehl-
gent emigrant girl who pleases thelr
fancy.
Jonathan Andrews. of Enfield, N. H.,I
has been wearing his calf boots for
TWENTY-FIVE years, bis arctic oVershoes
twenty-three years and his gloves twenty
J four years, and all are good for some
time yet.
On board the British troop-ship that
carried the Argyle and Sutherland High
landers from Ceylon to Hong Kong, re-
Gently, there were 14O applications for
tea, coffee or cocoa, in place of the daily
ration of spirits.
A Massachusetts sportsman named
Chadwick has been hunting along Long
Island Sound on tricycle. which travels
on runners. He is able to cruise over
many miles of inshore ponds and land
locked bays daily without fatigue.
Accidents in which people have been
seriously injured by sneezing are not un-
common. A few days ago a man at
Scranton, Penn, was attacked with so
violent fit of sneezing that he broke
two ribs, and the day before a man IN
Boston, through sneezing. dislo1ated his
shoulder.
New York city consumes over l, 00O,' :.
900 quarts of milk every month. 1t re-
auires the best efforts of 10000 COWS,
averaging fourteen quarts in two milk
ings, to furnish this amount OF milk.
Statistics show that during 1883, re-.
tailers in that city purchased $2S, S,74s,-
376 worth of milk.
An Englishhan has produced piece
of mechanism containing 400 figures;
representing horses, cannon, artillery, in
fantry and band of fifty men, each
with an instrument. A tiny wind mill
turned by the current from burning
candles, furnishes the power to move all
the figures automatically.
One of the large shoe stores in Brook
lyn has started something that bids fair
to cut into the income of the bootblacks
of that city. In the rear of the store in
question is blacking stand where any
regular customer can have his shoes
polished for nothing. The scheme, OF
course, is to attract trade, and as the
chair has seldom been unoccupied since
it was placed, it seems to take.