The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1889-10-12
MISCELLANEOUS.

to England, travelled all around Lon
don. seen everything worth seeing IN a
two-months trip, and all it cost her was
5000.
Thick wooden stockings lately
saved the life of lady of Middlebury'
Pa. She was bitten by rattlesnake,
but the stockings absorbed the venom.
The spot turned bright green.
Pensacola, Fla, has a magistrate
that knows thing or two. In dis
charging a gentleman who was ar
rested for fighting, he remarked. III
you hadn't hit him you ought to have
been hung"
"A man has been going around
Orange Township, Ohio, clipping the
hair off the tails of horses. He turns
out to be insane. He explained that he
wanted the hair to make bed and
took his captors to cave in the woods
,g.hare he had three bags full of hair.
Italians are not very strong in
domestic ties. OF $4,000 Italians that
landed in Castle Garden last year, 34,-
900 were males. The emigration OF
females from Italy is smaller than from
any other country, averaging but thir'
teen per cent. of the whole number
who landed. From Germany the peg
centage is forty, from Ireland forty-fye.
There are alleged to have been
many instances of colored personsturP-
ing white, but the case of a Yamaeraw,
Ca, woman is most remarkable from
the fact that her niece a few years ago
also became Caucasian to all appear
ances, and that her skin drops off in
big flakes. She is almost entirely help
less, her limbs being paralyzed. He
illness began with her change of color.
One of the cannon used by the
American colOnists in 1863 in defend
ing their settlements from the attacks
of the Indian chief Pontiac, is embedded
in the foundation walls of a residence
of Bethlehem, Pa, where it was
placed by the officers of the Moravian
church to prevent young America from
firing it off on liberty days.
"A steamer arrived at Philadelphia
the other day with cargo of fruit and
a number of tarantulas on board. Mem
bers of the crew were often obliged to
keep watch at night and sweep the
vipers into the ocean as fast as they
crawled up on deck. The vessel was
loaded to its hatchways. At times the
deck was literally covered with them,
and some were as big around the body
as a good sized orange.
When General Burnside was COM
handing in East Tennessee he was in
vited to dinner by an elderly farmer.
The invitation was accepted. At the
table sat the mother of the host,
lively old lady, but in appearance ex-
tremely old. Mother" said the Gen
eral, may ask your age? You appear
to be quite old for person who can get
around as lively as you do" She re-
piled: Yes, my son, l am very old
l have lived here all my life. l don't
know adzackly how old l am. but |
know that am a little over 1,000years
old. columbus State journal.
The new machines for selling post
age stamps adds another to the long
list of nickel-in-the-slot inventions.
Most men prefer to pay five cents for
a two-cent postage stamp rather than
submit to the ordinary manner OF the
drug clerk who sells stamps at the
Government price. Why the clerks
should buy stamps, put a sign in the
window, and then sell them with such
extraordinary ill-grace is one of the
mysteries OF the modern retail trade.
1t is a fact that most of the clerks
consider it personal affront to have
any one ask them for stamps. and the
machine is considered the more cour-
teous and apologizing.
A century ago only 800 species of
orchids were known, and those very
imperfectly. Now the latest authority
gives the extreme number of known
species as 10000. This may be an ex-
cessive estimate, but it shows the i'm
mense advances which have been made
in our knowledge of these interesting
plants for which collectors now ran
sack the most remote quarters of the
globe. 1t is said that the modern pas
sion for the cultivation of orchids
sprang from the exhibition of some re-
markable specimens at the early meet