St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-01-16
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

The debt of New York City is $685.
663.672.
A Georgia minister has preached 49,
600 sermons.
Two thousand tons of January rubber
are expected at Para.
Chicago produces an average of about
ten suicides per week, or 500, in round
mum 1ers, per year.
Two thousand four hundred and nine
ty-five telegraph poles have been ha1ch-
eted in New York, and Ii, 500, 900 feet of
wire has come down.
The Massachusetts, supreme court has
ruled that man who is injured in a
railroad accident while riding on a oass
cannot recover damages.
For the first time, it is said, since their
discovery the Straits of Mackinaw are
free from ice at this season of the year.
E n if the government had not put out
the lights for the winter, vessels would
pass through as usual.
A French electric journal estimates
that the total length of the telegraph
wires Qncluding submarine cableSl of
the world in use at the present time ex-
ceedS 100000 miles. Four-fifths of the
land wires are in Europe and America.
All the submarine cables together give
length of $1,000 miles.
A novelty is announced in the shane
of ''recording and alarm" compass
which, it is declared, will greatly IN
crease the safety of vessels. The appa-
ratus is said to he composed of binna-
Gle and recording and alarm instru-
ments connected by electric wires. The
principle, ill brief, is to sound I'm alarm
whenever the course is not kept.
The number of cloisterS and monks In
Spain has increased with astounding
rapidIty of late years. Spain now has
21,230 monks and $4,000 nuns in 1880
clOiSterS and 10 orders. In Barcelona
alone there are l63 cloSters for women.
In the last fourteen years the number of
monks in Spain has been seXtupled and
the number of nuns has been doubled.
A popularity about the blind IS that
there is seldom one of them who smokes.
Soldiers and sailors accustomed to
smoking, and who have lost their sight
in action. continue to smoke for a short
while, but soon give up the habit. They
say that it gives them no pleasure when
they cannot see the snake, and some
have said that they cannot taste the
smoke unless they see it.
Arthur Mack. ex-chef of the Shano-
hal detective force, asserts that while
China has population of over 49,, OOO,-
900, yet the criminal element in proper
ton to numbers is less than 10 per cent
of what 1t is in the Chinese quarter of
San Francisco. He accounts for this bv
the greater stringency of the laws for
the punishment of crime in China. and
the greater certainty in their admins
tration.
The rapid decrease in the number of
kangaroos is beginning to attract the
attention of scientific societies in Aus
tralia. From the collective reports of
the various stock inspectors it was es-
timated that in 1887 there were 1851
SO kangar0oS. In 1885 the number fell
to 1,270,3S decrease of 711,130. The
chief obstacle to the adoption of meas
ures for the effectual protection of the
Kangaroo is his vigorous appetite. One
full-grown kangaroo eats as much grass
as six sheep.
Miss Annie Gladstone, the da Ighter
of the family physician of the Prince of
Wales. died recently in London, and
left in her will a bequeSt of 5e33, 900, to be
deposited in London bank, and its in
terest applied to the purchase of several
bottles of the best champagne for the
use of actors and actresses on every oc-
casfon when the play calls for wine
drinking upon the stage.