Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-11-25
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

"A man in Chicago the other day took
out lease for 1892 years.
Thoroughbred st. Bernard dogs sell at
anywhere from $3.50 to 81, 600 each.
In the Puritan days cord of oak wood
cents.
Good mentions the case of gentleman,
wno In his sleep, composed an ode of SIX
stanzas and set it to music
Some 500 veterinary surgeons or horse
doctors III Great Britain have signed a paper
condemning tight check reins
line records of insurance companies
show that the American man lives longer than
men of the same race in the Old World
Two skilled machinists have obtained
quite reputation by converting coins. large
buttons and similar objects into boxes.
In Russia, which is the great horse
country of Europe. they never put blinders on
horse and shyipg horse is almost unheard
of.
When you give horse an apple or a
slice of bread. always feed him from the palm
of the hand, so that he will not bite your
fingers.
The selection by plants of food and re-
lection of injurious substances, though not al
ways performed without errors, indicates the
presence of sensation.
Some men have done really hard mental
work while asleep. Condorcet finished train
of calculations in his sleep which had much
puzzled him during the day.
The population of foreign descent in
North America may be broadly considered as
belonging to three races-the African, the
Latin and the Teutonic ATvan.
The successful application of the art of
navigation depends as much on the skill of the
artists who construct the instruments employed
as on that of the observer who uses them.
-Oi the 4, 900 and more graduates of the
Girls Normal College of the City of New
YORK, nearly one-half have been teachers in
the city schools and one is Commissioner of
Education.
Fishermen over a large part of Europe
always kin the fish as soon as they take them
out of the water. and do so upon the ground
that 1t is better for the flesh of the fish that it
be Killed at once.
In Switzerland, it is said, they will pay
higher wages to mikmaid who can sing to the
cows than to one who cannot. This is done on
the principle that bad treatment of q cow In
1Qrtously affects its milk
-eFrom aeon parison of the registers of
measurements made for army purposes it ap-
pears that American soldiers are on the whole
as well developed as those who fill the
ranks OF European armies.
Z -Blinders were invented by an English
nobleman to cover up the defect of a wall-eyed
horse, and then they were found to be good
places to put on the coats of arms Of the no.
bility. and so they came into fashion.
The form of oath binding on the
Mahometal conscience is to make the Koran
rest on the head while the oath is admins
tered. But if the Koran is skilfully held Just
above the head the form is not valid and the
oath not binding.
Tbara ora naor1,- N non ooLo-oa ....1.
in New York City. Some of them have built
up fortunes in real estate speculation. One Of
them accumulated an estate worth 100000 IN
catering business. number aTe worth $780,
GOO each.
"A bird seldom seen in New England, a
cormorant from Labrador, was shot by E. W.
Hazard. of Southington. Conn.,. while hunting
along the shore last week. 1t was sent to Yale
College, and has been handsomely mounted
and placed on exhibition.
AN old elm in the Academy yard at
Exeter, N. h. set out by Daniel Webster when
a student there, and known to all old students
and townspeople as the Webster elm, was cut
down Wednesday last. 1t was entirely
dead. Its wood Is in great demand fof SOU
Venirs.
Organized charity, in the form in which
we now recognize it, has had hardly 20 years of
life. In 1S62-that is before the combined
tion-the proportion Of adult able-bodIed pau
pers IN London indoor and out. exclusive of
Yagrants, was Z per LOCO; in 1855 it was 80
Astronomers agree upon three motions
of the earth. Tho rotation on its axis in one
day of 20 hours; the revolution around the sun
in one year of 1861 days; and a very slow gyra-
tory motion of its poles around and outside Of
line at right angles to the plane of the ecliptic
and colneiding with the line Of axal rotation at
its center, in q, S6S years.
-,
canal across New Jersey from the Delaware
river to the Atlantic. The scheme was first
suggested by merchants of Philadelphia who
desire shorter water route to New York and
an abbreviation of the journey of hundreds of
miles down the bay and around Cape May to
strike the ocean paths to Europe.
The twenty-eighth annual report of the
Government cinchona plantation and factory
in British Sikklm has been issued. At the end
of the financial year 1SSg-9O the plantation CON-
sisted of 4.6S2, 401 trees of various ages and of
a nursery stock amounting to 264 600 seedlings.
The crop collected during the year amounted
S04. 705 pounds. The products of the factory
were $3.50 pounds of sulphate,of Quinine and
6,57S pounds of febrtfuge.
There have during the past II years
been series of fashionable crazes in japan.
The year 1873 was the rabbit year. The JAP
anese went wild over these little quadrupeds.
As much as 81, 900 was paid for a single speci-
men, and specuations in 800 and $500 rabbits
were Of daily occurrence. COck-tghting, print
ing dictionaries by subscription, boating whist
waltzing, gigantic funerals and table-Iurning
are among other recent crazes.
The females of Ecuador are proYerbiaI
for beauty, those among the aristocracy being
said to have the fairest complexion of any in
South America, while all possess large, soft
and expressive dark eyes. the blackest and
most abundant hair, the whitest teeth. we'll
rounded figures and small hands and feet. Like
all women In the tropics, they mature early
and fade quickly, but perhaps their average
span of 40 Years includes more heart-happinesS
than comes to women of colder climes In three
score years and ten, for these are haTassed By