Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-11-21
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

-BoStOnIanS are as Ionu VI Conuy % SuSJ
ere of baked beans.
In the Western Baltic 23o specimens OF
alge have been described.
Crime is a contagious disease, and its
spread is not confined to the debased classes.
Dick Walker, of Jesup, GA, has man.
ufactured cork leg for his three-legsed pig.
In proportion to the population, three
times as much spirits is drunk in Scotland as
in England.
"A tale is the first key to the heart of a
cnlld the last voice that penetrates the fast
DR.. Hall, in a lecture on Spain, saws
one one C. can live comfortably in palace in Seville
1t is calculated that man walking day
and night could make a journey round the
earth in 42s days.
The American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science includes in its member
ship about 1000 persons.
The personnel Of the Imperial Opera
House in Vienna is little village community
of itself. 1t consists of All persons.
-Naturalists, curators of museums and
others have found much difficulty in procuring
specimen eggs of the golden eagle.
Although sometimes seen 400 leagues
every night to its solitary rOOst
The name Kaffres. as applied to the
! Kaffres of South and Central Africa, is the
Arab kafr, "a cur" and was given them in
spite by the Moslem.
The Morning Advertiser, the latest e1-
cept the Times of the threepenny papers in
London. WILL it is said, reduce its price to
y uny at the New Year.
The average number of distinct wars
and expeditions in which England has taken a
more or less active part since 1851 seems to
have been rather under one year.
Levi Post, OF Essex, a Connecticut
river village. picked mess" of green corn in
his garden day or TWO ago. and unless the
weather changes suddenly expects to have
green corn at his Thanksgiving
The golden eagle may be distinguished
at once from all such immature white-heads by
the feathers its legs All white-headed
eagles have bare legs, while the legs of the gol-
den eagle are feathered down to the foot.
Parties at Santa Cruz, Cal, are engaged
in salting and packing mackerel for the first
time III the history of the town. No such sea-
son has ever been known for fish and sea birds,
and the old residents proDhesy dry winter.
The alge of the ocean, and especially
of highly saline seas. in all respects different
from fresh-water algR. They constitute two
independent orders. the one of which is adapted
by its organization to fresh water, the other to
salt water.
The Pima Indians, who live in thatched
huts on the banks of the River Gila, in the
South Arizona Mountains. antedate the white
man IN America by many years. They we're
fourishing race 300 years ago, when the Span
iards came among them.
The suns perpendicular rays do not
illumine the depths of the sea at all, or any
thing like it. On the contrary. they only pene-
trate, at the very outside, some 200 fathoms
down into the world of waters, beyond which
distance all is utter darkness.
AT the present time we have indispu-
table evidence that in addition to anthrax cry
| sipelas tuberculosis (of which one of the COM
| monest forms is pulmonary consumptionl
| chicken cholera glanders and swine fever, are
| brought about by the presence Of micro-organ-
| isms; while in the case of many other diseases
the proof is all but complete.
"A bird of immense wing power is the
| tiny stormy petrol, the smallest web-tooted
bird known. 1t belongs to every sea. and
although SO seeming frail, it breasts the utmost
| velocity the trough of the waves, and gliding
| rapidly over their snowy crests. Petrels have
been observed 900 miles from nearest land.
New York is filled with adventures,
| with rascals great and small, with men so in
dustrious in uncanny lines as TO cause one to
admire the persistent pluck with which they
| energetically go ahead to their own ruin, en-
| ploying faculties for their destruction,
| which. rightfully utilized. might make them
not only solid and respectable, but brilliant and
| impressive.
| Thousands of goldcrests annually cross
and recross the North Sea at the widest period
| of the year. and. unless the weather is rough,
| generally make their migratious in safety.
And yet this is the smallest and frailest British
| Dird-a mere huH of feathers, and weighing
only 20 grains. Another of the tits, the oxeye
has been met upon two occasions at 600 and g. o
| miles from land.
Captain Malogoli, the head of the ItaI-
ian military carrier pigeon depots has, after i'm
mense and unwearying tronble, succeeded in
getting his pigeons to fly backward and forward
between Rome and Civita Vecchla az kilo-
| metres). This practical success has shattered
the theories of various ornitholog1sts such as
| Russ. who have affirmed that pigeons cannot be
| made TO fly in two directions.
Our forefathers had fewer indoor occu-
pations than ourselves and more enforced idle
| ness. They saw less of society; they depended
| more on home resources for amusement. Hence
the pilgrim with his licensed exaggeration the
mipstrels and the whole army Of testers
| japers, disours jongleurs, gleemen, ribalds and
! goliards-all the tribe of those whom Pier
| Plowman calls "Satan'S children" were well
| come in the baronial hall.
1t is said that of old, in Prussia and
Lithuania, the Were-wolves on each Christmas
| Eve would assemble in troops at certain trysE-
| ing-places, and thence went forth in bands to
hunt for animal food. Woe betide the lonely
| house which lay in their path; such they would
| assuredly enter and devour every living
| creature within it, whether man OF beast, leav-
| ing proof that the midnight marauders had
| been common wolves in that they drank all
the beer and mead IN the house!
Ovid tells US that the first temple Of
\ Vesta at Rome was constructed of wattled
| walls and rooted with thatch like the primitive
| huts of the inhabitants. 1t was little other
| than a circular. covered fireplace, and was
| tended by the unmarried girls of the infant
| community. 1t served the public hearth Of
| Rome and on it glowed, unextinguished
throughout the year, the sacred fire, which was
! supposed to have been brought from Troy, and
| the continuance of which was thought to be
| linked with the fortunes of the city.