The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1891-05-09
FOREIGN GOSSIP.

"A short time ago a band of twenty
Afnauts entered Prisrend and coolly at
tackled the house of the Chief Justice in
broad daylight. The judge and sew
eral of his servants were murdered, and
the house, after being sacked, was
burned to the ground. The Zaptiehs,
or Turkish policemen, did not attempt
to interfere, and all the brigands es-
capped.
There is a temple of silva, nea
Allahabad, in India, surrounded by a
high mound composed wholly of the
fragments of earthen bottles. On n
of the last days of February from twen-
ty thousand to forty thousand pilgrims
assemble, each being provided with
two or three earthen bottles containing
water from the Gauges and a few cop
per coins.
The English school board has
caused a plague of crows in Northern
Norfolk, SO say the farmers, Swho in
these days of compulsory education
can not obtain enough boys to scare the
crows. Mechanical scarers are no use
the old birds are much too knowing
TO be deceived by such devices, and they
enjoy ~ really ROOu Illuc uIlohSSb 1lC
farmers ricks and crops.
The latest London fad at small
dances is for the hostess to " pro-
vided n plentiful supply of hot milk and
settler, which to regale their guests
upon the eve of departure, to guard
against cold on the homeward drive.
The milk, having been heated aim ost
to boiling point, is poured into a long
glass, into which a heaping tablespoon
full of sugar is lightly stirred and a
small quantity of settler is frothed
from a siphon.
France is suffering almost as much
as Germany from the overcrowding of
the learned professions. Fifteen thou
sand schoolmistresses, 1000 primary
schoolmasters and 500 high-school in
structors are looking in vain for en-
ployment. There are $1,000 French
physicians-that is, about 5000 or 1000
more than there are in Germany, with
her 10, 900, 600 more inhabitants. Paris
has 800 apothecaries. Two thousand
lawyers in Paris, who have passed all
preliminary examinations for a full
practice, can not make livings in their
profession. Civil and mining engineers
are 10 numerous that hundreds of them
are seeking eagerly petty positions in
mines and factories.
Germany is the classical land of
suicides and Saxony is the most suicidal
province. To every million of Saxons
there are 400 suicides, although the rest
of the empire has an average of only
$50 to 100 to the million. In Leipsic the
ratio is the highest in the civilized
world-45O to the million, or SO more
than in Paris. In London the number
per million is IS; in st. Petersburg, 100;
In Berlin, $50; in Vienna, 2s5. In Prus-
STA the number of suicides increased be-
tween 1850 and 1878 from 1,436 to 1859.
In France, fifty years ago, the annual
number of suicides was 1,739. In 1878
it had increased to 6, 484, and in 1886 to
s,1s7. Of the suicides of 1886, 1880
were committed by men between fifty
and sixty years of age and 924 by men
between forty and fifty.
Within the past year a new sect
called the ~''Shavers," or ~''Shearers,'
has sprung up in the village of Uim,
Russia. The members meet in secret at
midnight, and part of their religious
exercises consists in plucking fowls oi
their feathers. Sheep are closely shorn,
and horses have their names and tails
cut off. The feathers, wool and hair
thus gained are made into a sacrificial
pile and burned in the public road; the
ashes are then scattered to the winds.
A strong objection to their religious
rites is found in the fact hat they are
not particular whose birds they pluck,
or whose horse loses his name and tail,
1t is not an unusual occurrence for ar
inhabitant to discover that his choice
bantams have been made unwilling re
cruits for a ballet of unplumaged birds