Mower County transcript., 1890-02-05
FOREIGN Il: GOSSIP.

FOREIGN GOSSIP.
"A new French invention is a smoke
bomb, intended to be fred into the
ranks Of the enemy who uses smokeless
powder and obscure his view.
"A London lawyer, was lately dis
barred for telling his client to what
country he should fee ::after committing
q crime, without danger of extradition.
There is . small cemetery for sui
cides only near Berlin, where are buried
all suicides in or near the German cap
ital whose bodies are not claimed by
relatives or friends.
The three thousand new blocks
erected in Rome, and the eighty-two
miles Of splendid streets, have SO
changed the capital OF Italy that it is
scarcely to be recognized by those who
visited it twenty years ago.
Strikes have even spread to Egypt.
The Cairo cigarette-maker are the first
to introduce this Western system into
the land of the Pharaohs, having struck
against some extra strict regulations en-
forced by their employees.
Russian officials have decided that
the telephone is dangerous to the
state." In Warsaw orders have been
given that telephones be removed from
all restaurants, coffee-houses and liquor
saloons. Similar orders have been issued
in all other large Polish towns.
The Desert of Sahara is said to be
growing. A French scientific official
reports that the sands are invading
Tunis, and the whole southern portion
Of that country Is becoming desiccated,
there being an insufficient supply of wa
ter to support vegetation.
-Lepers are still numerous in Nor
way. The number is upward of one
thousand, most of whom are found in the
sea-coast districts. There are four leper
hospitals. Leprosy, once common in
Europe, has maintained its hold in Nor
way longer than in other countries, but
is gradually being exterminated there.
The work of attending to trees in
the Paris avenues, boulevards and parks
is in charge of 216 men, who are headed
by sub-engineer and two forest in
spectors, and whose work costs 375,
francs annually. Their work, however,
does not include the Bois de Boulogne
nor the Bois de Vincennes.
in Berlin the street-car fare costs
from two and half to seven and half
cents, according to the distance you ride.
No one can be carried after the seats are
full. The cars stop to take on or let off
passengers only at certain points, which
are three minutes apart. This city leads
the world in street-car mileage.
The number of cloisters and monks
in Spain have increased with astonish-
ing rapidity of late years. Spain now
has 5000 monks and 25, 1000 nuns in /, $50
cloisters and 179 orders. In Barcelona
alone there are 1853 cloisters for women.
In the IA years the number of monks in
Spain has been sextupled and the num-
ber of nuns has been doubled.
-Parisians have lately been enter
tained by remarkable artist, who dis
plays wonderful skill in her peculiar form
of painting. With plates of various COL
ored sand before her, she takes the sand
in her right hand and causes it to fall in
beautiful designs upon table. A bunch
of grapes is pictured with violet sand, a
leaf with green sand, the stalk with
brown sand, and relief and shadows by
other sands; when the work is brushed
away bouquet of roses and other OBJ
jects are represented with the same dex-
terity and delicacy.
in Spain farming is conducted in a
very primitive way. Grain is cut with
small reaping hook and thrashed as in
the time of the Caesars, that is, by
tramping about with asses hitched to a
stone boat. The plow is crooked stick,
pointed.with iron. In the towns are to
be seen heavy wooden carts drawn by
oxen. Most of the carrying, trans
ferring, etc., is done by donkeys. Sand
brick, lumber-in fact almost every
thing that has to be moved-is carried
on their backs. These animals are used
all through Spain, and for every pur-
pose in the same way in which we use
them in the almost impossible canyons
Of the Rocky mountains.