The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1889-08-28
Irresistible Impulse.

If the struggles that are going on daily,
made sometimes by nearest and dearest
friends, could be laid bare the expose
would be a frightful one. In q certain
building in this city which | frequently
visit there is Il large rotunda. Around
this rotunda runs q spiral staircase, the
banister of which is low, and is made to
continue on after leaving the stairs at the
sixth floor and acts as a guard rail for the
top floor. 1t is altogether too low, and
any six -footer falling against it would
probably fall over into the pit of the ro-
tunda. I have heard several of the men
engaged on the sixth loor of this build
ing tell in a matter of fact (but to me hor-
rible) way of the desire that took posses
sion of them whenever they approached
this guard rail to throw themselves over.
and must confess that | have found my
self edging away from it with the indis-
tinct, underlined, inexplainable fear that |
might throw myself over it il | got too
close to it; and have told others, who
spoke of having experienced the same
feelings, to let the world know that it
was not q premeditated suicide if | should
ever be picked up at the bottom of that
pit a shapeless, broken mass.
There is a young man in this city of
Chicago who has a dread of the bridges and
always takes to the wagon way when he
crosses the river. He has been fished out
of the muddy, sticky water at Clark street
bridge once, having thrown himself over
the rail. When brought to terra frma he
could not explain why he had jumped
over.
did it; that's ALL" said he, when ques-
toned about it. 81 had jumped about q
foot when l wished from the bottom of
my heart that | hadn't" he continued,
land nov to avoid a repetition of that act,
! always take to the middle of the road
when crossing the bridges"
Suicides $50 called are increasing at an
alarming rate, and opposite the name of
many a man who is alive and well today,
with bright prospects, good health, happy
home, and everything on earth to live for,
the word suicide" will be written as the
cause of his death, when he was simply
the victim of one of these irresistible i'm
pulses.-Chicago Times.
Insects FIeeter Than Birds.
High speed is attained by insects in
| fight, many of them being able to out
! strip swift birds. 1t has been computed
that the common house fly, in ordinary
flight, makes 800 strokes per second and
advances twenty-five feet, but that the
rate of speed, if the insect be alarmed,
may be increased six or seven fold, so that
under certain circumstances it can out
strip the ~fieetest racehorse. 1t is no I'M
common thing to see a bee or wasp en-
deavoring to get in at the window of a
railway train at full speed, n it is cal
| culated that if a small insect can fly
faster than a racehorse can run, an insect
as large as a horse would be able to travel
as fast as a cannon ball. Leunwenholk
relates an exciting chase, which he be-
held in a menagerie, about 100 feet long,
between a swallow and a dragon fly
among the swiftest of insects. The in
sect flew with incredible speed and
wheeled with such address that the swal-
low, in spite of its utmost efforts, COM
pletely failed to overtake and capture it.
A pigeon fancier of Hamme, in West
phalia, recently made a wager that q
dozen bees liberated three miles from
their hive would reach it in better time
than dozen pigeons would reach their
cote from the same distance. The COM
p~etitors were given wing at Rhyhern, q
village nearly a league from Hamme, and
the first bee reached home a quarter of a
minute in advance of the first pigeon.
Three other bees reached the goal before
the second pigeon, the main body of both
detachments finishing almost simultane-
ously an instant or two later. The bees.
it may be mentioned, had been handi-
capped in the race, having been rolled in
-four before starting for purposes of iden-
LITIGATION. According to Chabrier, the
male of the silkworm moth travels up
ward of one hundred miles in one day,
and there are many British moths, as
~entomologists well know, which can cover
long distances in an incredibly short space
of time.-EIchdnge.