Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1890-11-13
NOTES AND COMMENTS.

We have had so far twenty-five Presi-
dents Of the United States and all but
four Of them have been lawyers.
THE English authorities are investiga-
ting the habit of ether drinking, which
is said to be spreading in that country,
many persons using ether as a substitute
for alcoholic liquors.
A MEDICAL journal declares that q
healthy man will actually suffer more
from the prick Of pin than he would
from the pains of dissolution in case he
died a natural death.
STANDARD time has been fully accepted
in Asia by not less than 40, 900, 900 peo-
pie; in Europe by almost an equal num-
ber and in America by more than co.,
900, 900. What is thought an essential
is a standard unit Of measurement.
RUBENsTEIN, in his autobiography,
thus estimates the proportions Of people
of the leading nations who understand
music: Germany, so per cent; France,
16 per cent; England, ? per cent;
United States, higher than England.
A CENTURY hence: Showman--This,
ladies and gentlemen, is the skeleton OF
a horse, now an extinct animal. The
horse, up to the last century, was beast
of burden, but since the electric motor
became the universal power the horse has
rapidly died off for want of use.
The State Historian of South Carroll
ma has investigated twenty EIGHT cases of
people claiming to be over 80 years of
age, and in all but two he found facts
to prove that they had advanced them
selves from five to eight years. He can't
find anybody who ever lived to be 100.
THE present economical condition of
France is considered unusually favorable
by her statesmen. The harvest this year
was the largest of the last decade. The
export of manufactures has increased as
well as the import of raw materials.
Almost $500, 900, 900 lie in the savings
banks. The railway profits have also
increased.
The CoRREcTnEss of the statement that
the tendency to commit crime is out
grown with age, is clearly proved by sta
tistics In New York State, where aceu-
rate records are kept, it has been shown
that of all the prisoners confined at one
time, some TO- in number, $4,000
were not more than 30 years of age and
s, 900 not more than 25.
HARVEY, one of the new manufacturing
suburbs of Chicago, has adopted novel
plan to prevent the sale of liquor within
its precincts. In every deed for land
sold in the township is an iron-clad pro-
vision that if alcoholic liquors are ever
manufactured, sold, or given away on
any lot within its boundaries, said lot
shall revert to the company.
THE artificial hatching of chickens has
been practiced in Egypt for 5000 years,
the old process being found more effect
i've than the so-called inventions of this
country. Our consul general at Cairo
tells us in his last report that the market
able crop of artiicially hatched chickens
in Egypt for the current year Is over 15,-
900, 900, and this was not hourishing
season either.
IT is Il curious fact that the Australian
lady bug, which was brought to California
to make war upon the cotton cushion scale
has become extinct in its native land,
and that Australia is to be supplied
with new stock of the useful parasite
by our State board of horticulture. The
lady bug, known as the Vedalia, has
been worth millions of dollars to Cali
fornia in preserving the orchards from
| threatened destruction.
AN Ottawa letter says that "one of the
most important questions affecting the
condition of the Canadian workingman
is the question of state-aided immigra-
tion. The Dominion Government is the
worst sinner in this respect For years
it has been in the habit of paying so
much head to steamship and railroad
companies ON immigrants carried by
them. Latterly quite lucrative busi-
| ness has sprung upin the importation of
waits and strays and children of criminal
parents" !"
THE emigration from China in the ten
years 1SS0-90 was 1851, 367 persons,
of whom 1907, 686 have returned home;
| 1, 167, 900 emigrants went to the Straits
| Settlements on the islands, such as
Sumatra, Borneo, Java, 100000 of the
returning Chinese came from North
America and 5S1, 900 from fhe Straits
Settlements. According to the passen-
ger record at Hong Kong, Annoy, and
Swatau the increase of Chinese emil
grant population for the decade was in
North America, 36,425; in the Straits
Settlements, 356, 900; in Siam, q, ,634; in
Australia, 1900.
AT the ninth annual session of the
Street Railway association in Buffalo,
N. ", President Thomas Lowry of Min
neapolis said electricity was making
such rapid strides that he did not believe
that at any subsequent convention the
street-car horse would be considered. In
the census report, he said, out of $3.50
miles of track in fifty-six cities, 1894
miles are operated by horses, 26O by
electricity, 255 by cable, 2s1 by steam,
the balance, about sixty miles, being the
New York and Brooklyn elevated roads,
In smaller cities and towns outside the
enumeration there are about 1 900 miles
of electric street railways in operation.
ARE women longer-liyed than men2
This is a question which scientists are
now asking of statisticians. 1t is a
very interesting and many-sided query
and presents any number OF social aspects.
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