Morning journal and courier., 1889-12-05

but explanations arc cold comfort for the de- feated.
 A new sort of boot sole has been intro duced in Neuremberg, consisting of sort of trellis of spiral metal wire, the interstices being filled with gutts percha and rosin. They can be fitted with nails like ordinary soles, are fifty per cent. cheaper than leather, and vastly more durable.
 The anti-railroad men of Michigan have rather overdons 1t. A law was recently pass ed reducing all passenger rates to two cents Q mile, and the railroads ere pleased with it. Up to the passage of the law thess had been 50 many excursion rates, round trips, etc., that the average rate was only about cent and three-quarters per mile. Now there are no more such cheap tickets offered.
 An effort is being made in Great Britain to repeal the ancient law according to which jurymen are denied refreshment when they are considering their verdicts. The London Lancet, which is the principal organ of the medical profession, calls for some relaxation of what 1t designates as 'tthe antique rigidity of the law" on the subject. It urges that most persons when hungry become angry, and the irritated mind is seldom just.
 The mayor of Philadelphia received an odd complaint the other day. A lady wrote him c letter saying that the streets of the city were kept altogether too clean. She be- longed to the cruelty to animals society, and she explained that there wasn't dirt enough in the streets to give the horses a foothold, in consequence of which they were constant ly falling. The mayor proposes to have the letter framed and hung up in the city hall. The Panama Herald has this rap at the Nicaragua scheme: Until the mud flats in the ocean in front of Greytown and the mud l dy bed of the river shall be entirely, or even partially, cleared out the world will not feel great confidence that the sixty -four miles of the river will be easily rendered navigable or that the rock cut between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific will be easily achieved, or easily supplied with water when it shall have been cut.
 ! Tho Russian emperor, according to Mr. Labouchere's Truth, is in constant dread of assassination, and this state of ever-present fear, added to the hereditary melancholy of the Romanoff family, has so utterly shat tered his nerves that for days together he ia practically not responsible for his actions. I The emperor smokes necessarily, and not only endsavors to sustain his spirits by CO pious libations of champagne and brandy, but of late he has taken to drugging himself with chloral.
 Great improvements have been made iz
 Rome. Most of the old houses on both sides of the Tiber have been removed, fine em
 banknents of masonry have been erected
 slightly deepening and widening the river te
 an average width of sixty five yards, and On
 top of the embankments, on both sides, es.
 planades are formed as on the Thames em
 bankment at London. One of the nev
 bridges crossing the stream is thirteen yard
 wide, and near 1t at either end stand ney
 buildings seven stories high, completely shut
 ting out the views of the Janiculum and Sal
 Pietro hills.
 An interesting legal question has beel
 raised in Amherst, Massachusetts, wher