Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-07-01
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

New York city employs 3,543 public
school teachers.
| "A New Orleans man keeps lizard on
his table to guard valuable papers.
AT Birmingham, Ala, there is an old
hen which kills sparrows. She coaxes them
! up with bait.
Richard Tellis who lives near Clifford,
Mich, served in 80 engagements during the
war and never lost drop of blood.
If the Mediterranean were lowered $50
feet Italy would. be Joined to Africa, and
| three separate seas would remain.
AT military dinner in New York the
other evening the ice cream came in the form
of cannon balls, guns, swords and drums.
The explosion of a dynamite cartridgeto
surface a fsh that weighed more than
200 pounds.
A Sonomo county California; vine-
yardist purchased 10000 paper bags to cover
the young vines and protect them from the
grasshoppers.
"A man in Dakota was lately sentenced
to prison for half lifetime, and the Su-
preme Court has decided that the time
means 10 years, months and days.
"A Chinaman in San Francisco has in
troduced something new in the credit line.
He bought a wife on time, and has now got
himself into trouble because OF his failure
to pay the debt.
Thirty wears ago lad named Maynard
was driving q milk team for a living. That
lad grew up to be Hon. +. Burr Maynard. who
has just been appointed to the Superior
Court Bench of Massachusetts,.
AT the close of the Civil War there
were 100 steam vessels entered on the naval
register of the United States but to-day only
d of tt1n1T1 lin fva-
vors the most famous is the kearsarge.
The newest gimcrack in the hands of
the street peddlers is a little trick savings
bank a wooden box with q tiny drawer
which opens to receive q coin, and looses
the coin mysteriously whenever it is shut.
"A Ft. Worth, Tex, man says that he
has the largest maidstone in the world. 1t is
rearly as large as hens egg and was taken,
he says, by his father from the stomach Of
white deer found dead in the Ozark noun
tains.
"A farmer near Yuba City, Cal, COM
plains that 80 tons of hay he had cut was
drenched by heavy rain, while on the op-.
posite side of his farm there was large field
Of grain which needed rain, but did not get a
drop.
"A million men standing close together,
each not occupying more than four square
feet, could be placed on patch but little
more than a third of a mile square. A square
mile will accommodate 7,965,0O0 men. At
that late the whole population of the United
States would hardly cover nine miles square.
Mr. j. w. Dodds, of Melton, Ga, is
81 years old, and has.been using the same
razor strop 43 years. 1t is the only one he
ever owned and is almost as good as new
never having the mark of q razor on 1t until
one day last week, when, while sharpening
his razor, Mr.. Dodds cut a very small piece
of the strOp.
A r n.
ron, Mich, heard the cry of a boy overheard
while sauntering near bridge there Mon
day. He saw the boy struggling in the water
and Immediately plunged in. The boys face
was covered with blood, and to his surprise
when he washed it of he discovered he had
rescued his own 5-year-old son that had fall
len of the bridge.
"A short time ago, when several we'll
known gentlemen visited Flint river, in
Georgia, for fishing, they set lines for trout,
batting the hooks with pieces of fish. When
they went to examine their lines they found
that a small channel catfish had swallowed
their bait on one hook, while, in turn, a
small trout had swallowed a catfish, and that
a large IL pound trout had swallowed the
entire lot.
Patrick Wood, patient in Bellevue
Hospital, New York, is regarded by the doc
tors as phenomenon. His skin has gradu-
ally hardened until it is now like a covering
NN -
He is as helpless as though he were statue.
He cannot move hand or foot. This disease
is a rare one and has been diagnosed as
sclerOderna, or hide-bOund. There is no
known cure for it. ----.--..-.s-
-After a young woman in Philadelphia
had made purchase and had gone the drug
gist remarked: THAT'S the first time in five
years I've had a call for dragons blood.
What is lit Well, it's a vegetable substance.
obtained from the fruits of several small
nalmS in tire In1iaa MQnu
it was in great demand among young women
who wished to win back their recreant
lovers, they burning small lump of it with
q certain form of incantation."
An Italian at st. Cloud, Fla, recently
bought three lottery tickets, one for
himself, one for his sister, and one for his
brother. The brother got mad to think of
the dollar squandered for a lottery ticket,
and so he sold 1t to a German and agreed to
to wait till pay day for his pay. The Italian
ise for his squandered dollar, but after the
drawing took place the glorying was on the
Germans side, for the ticket drew 5000 in
cash. The italian is now to sick too work
H. w. Mabry, of Green Cove, Fla,
says that some three weeks ago a stray hen,
for the time sojourning on the premises OF
Blain Brothers car works, laid an egg near
the dry kiln. No one disturbed the egg. and
the other morning one of the workmen who
happened to be engaged near by discovered
tnat tno egg seemed TO De animated, and
watched the proceedings for few minutes,
when, to his amazement, pretty little black
chick stepped out of the she'll and took in
the surroundings as naturally as If it had
been under obligations to some motherly
fowl for bringing her into existence after
the most approved fashion.
Lake George has q natural curiosity
which few people appreciate. About a mile
south of Caldwell, in field, is one of the
largest holes that anyone has ever seen. 1t
was started quite good many years ago by
heavy rains and has continued to expand
until it is safe to say that several OF the
largest hotels could be deposited in it, leav-
ing room for q number of other buildings of
no small dimensions. The washouts have
carried the earth into the lowlands and
scattered it abroad, and the cave has
swallowed up trees and portions of fences in
its course burying them or carrying them
away. Each year the hole grows larger and
the Question is where it may reach to in
years to come. 1t is a sight worth O tramp
over the fields to see, and should be installed
as one of the curious attractions of Lake
George.