Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-07-12
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

Cincinnati has women carpenters.
Austria has women hod carriers.
Most "sardines" are sprats and pilch-
ards.
The royal standard of Persia is black
smiths apron.
France has just finished census Of
carrier pigeons.
The average 1aborer wears out five
ounces of muscle day.
I'm Sweden you can get a competent
servant girl for sl4 year.
Under the caves of one barn in Show
hogan, Me-, are 1SO nests of swallows.
During recent parade in Cheboygan,
Mich, ten red-headed girls rode on ten white
horses.
| DIR. Dowd, of New York, has found
| that each cubic inch of soil contains from
6o,000 to 250CO minute organisms.
"A mining corporation in the copper re-
/ gion of Upper Michigan will sink the deepess
| shaft in the world-over 600 feet, at least.
The Coreans are the largest eaters
known. Their stomachs are generally alb
normal in size, and the one possessing the
| largest is generally considered the richest.
1t is becoming quite the thing for New
York women to accompany their husbands
or fathers into the woods in search of game.
Light rifles and shotguns have been in un-
usual demand this spring.
The number of English words which
have no rhyme in the language is very large.
| Among them are month, silver, liquid, spirit,
chimney, warmth gulf, sylph, music
breadth, width, depth, honor, iron, echo.
Two tunnels of cast iron for an electric
] railway have been built in London and put
in operation for rapid transit. They are
| three miles in length and lie between 40 and
60 feet below the surface of the city's streets.
The amount of eoloring matter in a
| pound of coal is enormous. 1t will yield
| enough magenta to color 500 yards of flannel,
vermilton for $50 yards. aurine for l20 yards
and alizarine for Ij5 yards of Turkey red
cloth.
One speeulator said of another who
| has had to sell his 100000 residence in st.
| Louis: 'This man has, within the last Is
| years, ranged all the way from the posses
sion of 100000 to being 100000 worse or
than nothing"
The highest inhabited place in the
world is the Buddhist Monastery. Haine, in
| Thibet, Asia, 1900 feet above the sea. Next
| to this comes Galena. a railway station in
| Peru, 15,635 feet. Leadville, Col, has an ele-
| walton of 10, 200 feet.
"A barefoot girl of Big Stone, Tenn while
| gathering ginseng one day recently, sud-
denly found herself in rattlesnalxe's den.
| When the battle was over she counted So
dead reptiles about her, having escaped her.
/ self without scratch.
"A new pianoforte keyboard having six
| rows of keys has recently been exhibited in
Manchester, England. An octave is formed
| by six keys in two contiguous rows. All the
| keys are on the same level, and each note is
| separated from the next by an interval of
| two semi-tones.
| The credit of having manufactured the
largest gun in existence is claimed by the
| Krupp Company. The gun, which is the
/ property of the Russian Government fS
made of cast steel, weighs 235 tons, and has
| q caliber Of 13x inches, and a barrel 40 feet
| in length 1t fires two shots per minute, and
| each charge costs E300.
| The laughing plant of Arabia produces
black, bean-like seeds, small doses of which,
when dried and powdered, intoxicate like
| laughing gas. The victim dances, shouts
| and laughs like q madman for about an
hour, when he becomes exhausted and falls
| asleep, to awaken after several hours with
no recollection of his wild antics.
The meanest young man in Michigan
lives in Cheboygan. He has cut from the pa
pers accounts of people dying from cream
poison and pasted them in his hat. When
| he visits his girl he leaves that hat on the
| center table so that she cannot help notice
| the pasted notices and read them. He says
it is great scheme and works 30 well that
eQ0 mas nOI HSk6Q IOT lC6 CI6dIu once IQl9
year.
There has lately been organized in Eng
land Rent Guarantee Company, the business
of which is to insure landlords against loss
by bad tenants. In order to reduce its risk
to a minimum, it makes a business of keep
ing landlords informed as to the standing of
tenants, and for a consideration they are
supplied with information which often en-
ables them to keep undesirable tenants out
of their houses.
"A Russian contractor has found out an
original method to test the strength and
aIertness of the laborers he engages for his
work He comes to the market, where the
workingmen are waiting for a job, and
orders them to run, to wrestle and to lift
each other. When "the boys have played"
enough for him to make observations he en-
cages those who have displayed the greatest
strength and adroitneSs.
Among the euriosities ofliterature pos
sessed by one OF the big libraries of New
York is the edition of the Scriptures, pub
lished in several small volumes, known as
the "Wicked Bibles" There are two sets of
books to which this title applies. One
published in England in 1851 and the Otherin
Germany about century later. Their pecu-
liarity consists of the omission of the word
,'not' in the Seventh Commandment.
The town of Saratow, in the Southeast
Of Russia has lost a river-the Volga. The
water of the river has for some time past
been deserving the right arm OF the stream,
upon which Saratow is built, and flowing ex-
cfusively in the left arm, which is about q
mile and a quarter distant from the town.
The former bed of the stream is now quite
dry, and is used as a road to convey passen-
gers and goods which arrive by steamer to
the town.
The twisted wire nail-a cross between
a screw and the ordinary plain wire Nails
said to be working its way into popular
favor and is believed to represent as great
an improvement upon the plain wire nail as
that useful invention is over the old cut nail.
The twisted wire nail not only crushes the
f1bers of the wood less than the two other
forms of nail, but by its screw shape pos
sesses a much greater holding power than
the other forms.
Bombay has the greatest piece of solid
masonry construction that the world has
seen in modern times. For years past the
water supply OF Bombay depended upon
works known to be defective, involving the
possfbility of water famine. A consulta-
ton of eminent engineers was held under
the direction of the Government, with the
result that large dam was determined on
to inclose the watershed of the valley which
drains into the sea south of Bombay.