Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-09-03
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

Only one man in 2O3 is over six feet in
height.
Gable iineswill supplant 4, 900 horses In
New York.
There is newspaper in London which
is printed in scented ink.
Ice cream was first made and sold In
Philadelphia 81 years ago.
There is doctor by the name of Miller
in nearly every town in Missouri.
San Francisco's cable system is greater
by 80 miles than that Of any other city.
1t has been estimated recently by Q
shoe man that the people of the United
States spend $40 o,c00 annually for shoes
The magnitude of the Cnautauqua
movement is illustrated by the fact that the
entering class, which Is to pursue a three
years course, contains the names Of 1900
| students.
The other night, at Breckenridge, Col,
some person put dynamite in the Methodist
Episcopal Church bell, and the bell and
| Delfry were blown TO atoms. endangering
the lives OF more than 100 people.
"A. R. King, a New York Central con-
ductor, recently took up a stop-over pass
dated March 20, 1851. The passenger was
Jonathan Osman. SO years old, and be had
been saving that ticket just "a years.
The medical adviser of friendly soci-
ety.in Bath advertises that he will under
| take the medical treatment of all and sun
| dry at the economic rate of cents weekly
| for Adults and half price for children.
Snakes are so abundant and trouble
some in the country about Talcott noun
tain, Conn, that the farmers in the vicinity
| nave clubbed together to hire man to kill
the reptiles. He is paid cents head and
manages to make from % to 50 a day.
"A gold chain was found in lump Of
coal that Mrs. 8. w. Culp, Of Morrisonville.
Ill, was about to put on her CRATE fire. The
chain weighed eight pennyweights and was
! only half embedded IN the coal, one end
| hanging loose.
Cremation is very economically con-
Quoted in Japan, and in consequence is very
popular. In Toxic there are six crematories,
| IN which one-third of the dead are burned
! The highest price for burning body is 6 i,
| ana the lowest shillings.
"A desperate battle occurred recently
between blacksnake and gartersnake at
Gainesville, Ga. For 30 minutes it was an
| undeclded question as to which would gain
| the victory, but at the expiration of that
time the blacksnake succeeded in devouring
| his antagonist.
AT his new place in the Catskills George
Gould expects to have a herd of about 100
deer and elk. He has already small pre-
serve on the shore of the lake which contains
| eight Colorado elk and eight Virginia and
| fOnr black-tailed deer. Mr. Gould has, in
/ cluding the lake, $50 acres.
| The 'green goods men are harvesting
crop of Oregon suckers who send money
/ to 5S Liberty street, New York, to get boxes
| of sawdust in return. People who bite at
such bait should remember that nothing
| tS free on earth except salvation, and there
is some doubt about that
| -Cnunfu Troas,ro, n.oo- of cu.:-u-.
| county has received from Southern Michi-
| gan 81 80 of public money from some woman
| who came into possession of it unlawfullv
| IA years ago and whose hibernating con-
science has now aroused sufficiently to make
| 1t uncomfortable to retain it, but not enough
| TO force her to pay interest on it.
Antelope Valley, says the Los Angeles
| Times, reports this year 65 900 acres of wheat
| as fine as any in California, which will av-
| eTage eight and a half sacks (about l. 100
| pounds to the acre) Four or five years ago
! this vast territory was in effect desert.
Now its grain crop alone will bring to the
producers over 9, 900 600.
Captain Kron, of Lexington, Mass,
| Union veteran, survived 20 battles OF the
! Civil War; including Cold Harbor, where he
\ lost an arm, to die last week at the age of 81
through having his foot trod on in a
/ street car. The pressure on bunion caused
| Inflammation, gangrene set in and the poor
ulhn uleu a1Jer IL week ) lllneSS-
The South Metropolitan Gas Company
of Salisbury is conceded to have the largest
gas holder ever constructed, and the com
| pany is planning to build one even larger
| The one now in use is about 256 feet in diam
eter, by 1856 feet high, and will contain over
! 100000 cubic feet of gas The capacity of
the new holder will be about II 600, coo cubic
feet.
Marshall is a great place for donkeys
| and their kindred. Besides selling 13 900
mules every year they have raised a mule in
that county which is 8 years old and 20
hands high. mule six feet eight inches
high is such q curiosity that they are taking
exhibiting it as sort of side show and the
gate money in single day sometimes
amounts to 500.
Annie Conant, San Diego invalid who
has been endeavoring during the past year
to collect 100000 cenceled postage stamps,
has succeeded in accommodating the enormous
number of 10000, This probably represents
an expenditure by the people who used those
stamps of between $1,000 and $40, co., and it
is not likely that this enthusiastic collector
secured more than an infnitesimal fraction
of the stamps used by the people of the ma
ton last year.
The Reno Gdzetts says: About 200 In
dians took possession of some empty box
cars of q freight train this morning without
being provided with transportation, intend
ing to go to Sacramento to pick hops. The
conductor could not put them off, and the
train pulled out with them. The Indians,
when questioned, said: Maybe so, hop man
on ranch Mt sacramento pay fire all right"
The Indians are the only people that can
beat q railroad, and they can do it with the
boldness of buccaneers.
The practicability of telegraphing with
out wires has recently been demonstrated
by the success of several experiments. Not
long ago Mr.. Preece, the head electrician of
the postal telegraph system in England,
succeeded in establishing communication
across the Solent to the Isle of Wight, and
telegraphed also across the River Severn
without wires, merely using earth plates at
a sufficient distance. apart. 1t is now pro-
posed to make practical use of this system
in communicating with lightships.
"A plantation of india rubber was
started by the Government of Assam, in
1873, in a forest at the foot of the Himalayas.
Seedlings were planted in the forks of trees,
and by 1885 they had reached the ground.
The trees were subsequently placed in beds
40 feet wide, protected by the surrounding
forest In 100 the plantation extended over
I,lO6 acres, and contained 1854 healthy
plants besides a, 900 seedlings. the expert
ment will not begin to be profitable until
after several years more.
The four cables of the BROOKLYN bridge
are l6 inches in diameter each and consist of
about 20 900 single wires. One difficulty with
which the engineers of the Brooklyn bridge
had to contend was the the fact that the
outside or exposed wires were expanded by
the heat of the sun, while the inner or pro-
tected ones were not so affected. The pres
sure of the wind, too, being of varying
velocity required such adjustment of the
wires as to prevent displacement, even in 2
hurricane, 1t took Is months continual
work to string the wires of the bridge.