The mountain signal. (Mount Vernon, Ky.) 1887-18??, 1889-05-03
OF GENERAL INTEREST.

A frog sixteen inches long is re-
ported to have been captured at
Orlando, Fla, during a recent heavy
rain.
The sale of eyestones is brisker in
March than in any other month. The
"stones" are the mouthpiece of "a
certain species of shell which "
gathered in great quantities on tho
Venezuela coast.
Lake Superior is said to be the
most ancient of the great lakes, dating
back to Cambrian, and, it may be,
earlier times, and that it formed in
other ages one of the sources of
great river system, terminating en- the
Atlantic seaboard.
"A teacher in a public school not
hundred miles from Philadelphia re-
ceived the following excuse from an
overgrown boy, who had been absent
a day: "Miss-Pleas EXCUSE Frank
for bean absent yesterday as he had
to help his father kill the other hog
His Mother"
An Englishman has produced a
piece of mechanism containing four
hundred figures representing horses.
cannon, artillery, infantry, and band
of fifty-two men. each with an instru-
ment. A tiny windmill turned by the
current from burning candles furnishes
the power to move all the figures
automatically.
The average Russian is said to
drink from ten to twelve glasses of tea
a day. Every Russian merchant has
Il tea-urn in his counting-rOOm, and
the lawyer or mechanic goes out to his
cafe for tea as often as the German
! for beer or the Frenchman for wine.
At the cafes at all hours Of the day
| and night one can see great crowds of
people slipping tea.
AS the north-bound express train
pulled out of the station at Norman, |.
| t., Eeeently the passengers were
treated Ia, the sight of lynching by
the citizefssnf that town. The people
| had captured a horse thief and taken
him to telegraph pole near the rail-
road to hang him. 1t was daylight, and
none of the lynchers, were disguised.
Just as the train started the man was
strung up.
! The Surrogate of Suffolk County,
| New York, lately admitted to probate
a rather novel will. that of Richard l..
Peters, of Southold, l.. !. 1t directs
the investment, Ola sum of money, the
| income of which shall be used in keep
ing his grave covered with growing
| flowers. Another request is that n
sum be invested at compound interest
for one hundred years. The 'incipaa
cine a rs @ e used & erect monu-
ment and celebrate the centennial of
his death.
In Egypt ladies used to carry their
devotion for their feline pets so far as
to go into mourning for them when
they died by shaving off their eye
brows! Favorite cats used to be en-
balmed, too, and l know of no quainter
or more grotesque objects than the
mummilied cats which may be seen at
the British Museum. Even now cats
are held in high esteem in Egypt. and
in at least one Of the Khedive's palaces
at Cairo there is free ration di5trib-
uted every day to any cats that may
care to apply.
The British General
reports that last year 39l. G62 persons
in this country sent money by postal
order to relatives in Great Britain and
Ireland, the total sum amounting to
! IS, $50, 900, while 1910 persons in Can
ada sent over 81, 10000 in the same
way, and the total sum sent in that
way from Australia. the United States
and South Africa in the year was over
SO, 900, 600, or an average of over $780,
coo a day, coming from 635, 256 per-
sons. A writer thinks this shows
what hlial regard tho British race has
or the parents left behind.
-"Notcs and Queries" tells that
ards, which were invented at the close
Of the fourt eanth century, were orig
inally very different from tn ose in use
at present. In shape they were square,
and instead of suits of spades, clubs,
hearts and diamonds, their marks
were rabbits, pinls, roses and flowers
Of columbine. The figured cards were
very prettily devised a queen riding
on horseback with rabbit beside her,
marked the queen of rabbits or OF |
clubs. a rustic-loOking man. gro