Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-03-03
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS

|
| ripe blackberries.
The United States Government has paid
out in round figures Sl.pOO.OOc 600 in pensions
| since the beginning of the Civil War.
The negro has gained IS per cent in
| property during the last decade while ths
average gain has been only so per cent.
Il. johnson, OF Englewood, Humboldt
County, California. owns a calf with three
horns. The animal has two more started.
There is girl in Caldwell who can put
whole egg in her mouth and close her mouth
over IL, and sne is not bad-looking girl either.
MIR. Richardson, of the Maryland Lower
House, says he can get 10000 signatures in Bal
timore to have any member of the Legislature
hanged.
"A statistieian calulates that the total
tonnage of the world. steam and sail, is
in round numbers 100000, of which so per
cent is British.
Russell Sage, who makes hearty meal
of piece of ginger bread and an apple, is said
70 have subscribed $4,000 to the funds Of
church he attends.
"A doctor of Cremona. with large band
OF peasants from its neighborhood, has just
started for Uruguay, where he proposes TO es-
IaDlish them as an exclusively Socialist colony.
AN inmate of a lunatic asylum in Bres-
cia. Italy was released on February /. after
secluslon of 30 years. During this period his
cost TO the institution footed up more than
5000.
The mother OF Homily, famous Indian
Chief, died last week at the Umatilla reserva-
tion. She was the oldest woman in Oregon be
ing l13 years of age. Homily is 70 years old,
and his mother was 40 when he was born.
"A cottonwood tree about 100 feet long
has straddled the second piers from the north
end of Sacramento river bridge at Anderson.
and unless cut away before the next rise in the
river may do serious damage to that structure.
1t is said that four years after the fight
at Chickamauga the battlefield shone like
bright moonlight. even on the darkest nights.
The light came from the phosphorescent ex-
halations of the decaying bones OF the heaped-
up dead.
"A little girl, years old, has arrived in
Paterson, N. j., having Travelled by rail alone
from Saginaw, Mich The child, at the request
of her father. was shipped as express matter,
with tag about her neck giving her name and
destination and also the key of her trunk.
"A lawyer in Pennsylvania was badger
ing a woman during the cross-examination,
when she charged him with having sent his
father to the poorhouse, robbed his mother and
deserted his first wife, and the lawyer grew so
quiet that pin could have been heard to drop.
The Florida sponge fleet has done ex-
ceedingly well this winter. The weather has
been favorable and the supply is ine1haustible,
as they grow as fast as they are gathered.
Some of the sponges are as large as a nail keg.
One boat gathered 5000 IN few days.
The famous old mountain fortress Of
Asirgarb, which was formerly regarded as one
of the principal defenses of Central India, is
about TO be dismantled. 1t stands on the sum-
init of an almost inaccessible mountain, and
has many interesting and romantic historical
associations.
"A Georgia man who had to have his leg
amputated refused to be rendered unconscious
that he might realize and describe the sensa-
tions. He says that the only hurt was when
the knife struck the nerves. After it got into
the meat there was no particular feelmg and
he didn't "holler' when the saw worked away
at the bone.
1t is said that the number of pearl
oysters collected last year at the Ceylon fisher
les will barely cover the cost of bringing them
from the sea bottom. One reason for the fall
ing off in the returns. is the circumstance of a
shark carrying off one of the divers. His fellow
workmen. fearing the same CHASTITY fate. re-
fused to enter the water.
"A Congo native, who has been taught to
read and write, has just sent letter, his first,
to the Archbishop of Canterbury. 1t is as fol-
lows: "Great and Good Chief of the Tribe of
Christ, greeting: The humbIest of your servants
kisses the hem of your garment. and beg you
to send to his fellow servants more gospel and
less rum. In the bonds of Christ, Ugalla."
The new cantilevef bridge across the
Colorado river, l3 miles below Needles, CAL,
will require g. 200 COO pounds of iron to complete
it. 1t rests upon two massive stone piers that
are 65 feet below the bed of the river and the
center span is the longest unsupported one in
n ff1a hpry hp
contractors expect to have the bridge finished
by May l.
ID. W. Felshfeld and c. Dent, two En-
glishmen who set out to the Caucasus to search
for some clue 20 the fate of Donkin and Fox,
the English explorers who were lost there some
time ago have returned and report that the
lost men set out to ascend Mount Dychtan,
which is nearly 1900 feet high. The searcherS
attained nearly iI,O00 feet, when they came
upon the last camping place of the unfortunate
men.
AT late meeting of tie Royal Botanic
Society an interesting sweet-seented fern from
the society's garden was exhibited. The per-
fume closely resembles that of fresh hay, and,
like il, is retained after the frOnd is dry, and
lasts for many months if not years, imparting
its fragrance to anything in contact with it.
The secretary thought it might be grown as a
source of ofperfume by amateurs, If not CONNER
clally.
AT an examination for speed certificates
held at the London Phonetic Shorthand
Writer'S Association on the Goth of January
Mr. Bernard de Bear, of the Metropolitan
School of Shorthand, London, successfully ac-
complished the task of writing from dictation
coo words of ordinary newspaper matter in ten
minutes (being at the rate of 200 words per
minute), and afterward correctly transcribing
his notes.
AN extensive society in Vienna, devoted
TO Pan-Germanism, is engaged in diffusing the
German language among the opposing nation
alities of the Austrian empire. Its efforts are
At present being concentrated against the Slavs
Of Bohemia, Moravia and Styria, as it was
found necessary to abandon the attempt to
eradicate the Italian language in those OF the
smpire's provinces where its vitality has always
oeen strong and is now increasing.