Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-11-20
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.


Franklin, 81 feet in height.
The Government of Japan gets large
proportion of its revenue from the railroad
and telegraph companies that it owns and
operates.
The more delicate orchids will not re-
cover in a year from the effects OF the
flower show. say experts. They suffer great
injury from unevenness Of temperature.
MANY of the Jewish rabbis refuse to
perform the marriage ceremony after the
sun has set: but their refusal is not sus-
| tanned by any law of the Hebrew religion.
The Florida orange crop is now being
shipped to New York and other localities.
The yield of the State this year was over
5000. 600 boxes, and an average box holds l5O
oranges.
| The locomotive Charles Dickens, on the
London and Northwestern Railways spe-
cial express service between Manchester
and London, has run 100000 miles in nine
years-a feat without parallel in English
railway traveling-and never had break
down.
There is a logging chute near Clifton,
Ore, which is three-quarters of a mile in
length-one of the longest in the country
was built in 1880 at a cost of $4,000. For
considerable distance the bottom is lined
with iron. 1t takes log just 20 seconds to
travel down the incline.
"A kiss, according to the definition
| which took the prize in a London competi-
tion in which 1000 were considered, is here
| given: "An insipid and tasteless morsel,
which becomes delicious and delectable in
proportion as it is favored with love-" Good,
but not as satisfactory as the thing it de-
scribes.
In Russia in times of famine like the
present millions of the Cars Slavic sub
| jects would leave for the United States il
they could do so. But all persons, with tn
| exception of Hebrews, who desire to leave
Russia must give satisfactory reasons for
| indulging in the desire, and are put to ex-
pense and trouble if permitted to CO.
The number of Americans in Paris is
small, despite the maxim that 'tall good
Americans go to Paris when they die" OF
| the $50 962 foreign residents of the gay city,
| only ,237 are set down as Americans, 1.S70 of
them men and 1857 women. 1t is curious
| fact that there are 497 more American
women than American men living in Paris.
The Armenlans, few of whom are now
to be found in this country, principally en-
| gagged in peddling, are exceedingly sharp
| traders. 1t was member of the great He
| brew family of Rothschild who once said:
| "Shut up all the Hebrew with all the Arnen-
! ians in an exchange, and in less than day
all the Hebrews wealth will have passed into
Armenian hands"
The biggest head in all the world is car
| ried by Lotus J. Parker, of Washington,
| who is 4s years old and in excellent health,
| contrary to the predictions of physicians,
viii o said 90 wears ago that he would soon die
| or become an invalid. Mr.. Parker's Uranium
| is 80 inches, or nearly yard. in circumfer-
| ence, while the ordinary mans is but 20 or
81 inches in girth.
| New Orleans, according to one of it's
| newspapers, will become the greatest ship
ping port of the country within the next ten
| years. greater even than New York. They
| say that the producers in the Northern States
| west of the Ohio river, and in the Southern
| States west of the Alabama river, have
| found out that they can ship grain, cotton
| and pork to Europe from New Orleans more
| cheapiy than from any other port.
Moose are said to be plentiful in the
| forests of the Province OF Quebec this sea-
| son, and that the stallxers look for good re-
| turns from their rifles. The sport of moose
| hunting in Canada requires hardihood alert
ness and skill, for the game is wary and
sometimes dangerous while roaming through
| the brush and among the rocks and snow.
| The meat, the skin and the horns of the
animal are valuable in the market. The
| male moose often weighs from 900 to 200
pounds.
"A German professor has now discovered
| that the habit of kissing is dangerous from
| physical causes. He has counted and classi-
| fed the bacteria in the human mouth. and
| found % distinct species. Some of these are
sure to be taking the air, or proncsnading
upon the lips ct all times, even those most
sacred to the interchange'of the emotions.
The professor is too well acquainted with
the weakness of human nature to suppose
that this information will put kissing out OF
fashion, but he adjures. those who are
addicted to 1t to wear reSpirators. Good
heavens!
-Bucaramanquina is the name of new
mineral substance discovered in Colombia,
South America. The substance is something
like asbestos. 1t is amber in color, is per-
fectly transparent and incombustible. Ex-
periments made at Bogota are said to indi-
cate that it will be of great value in the
manufacture of bank note paper. 1t can be
reduced to pulp and nodded into light fire
and waterproof shingles for houses, and can
be woven into pliable, fireprnof cloth. or
shaped into hremen's helmets. A white
varnish can be abstracted from it, and the
material is said to be superior in many re-
spects to asbestos. The deposits appear to
be of great extent
The "Gingerpop School of Poetry" was
term bestowed by David Macbeth
Moir (l79s-ls5) in his Sketches of the Poet
ical Literature in the Last Half Century" in
the school of poetry represented by John
Hoopham Frere, the author of the humorous
poems "The Monks and the Giants who
wrote und er the pseudonym of William and
Robert Whistlecraft. This species of poetry,
Moir says. was characterized more especial
1y by it's appro ximating and blending to-
gether seeming incongrulties, by its airy,
rapid, picturesque narrative: by its COM
mixture of the grave, the pathetic and ma
jestic with the frivolous farcical and the
absurd, and it bore the same relation TO
high imaginative verse that gingerpop bears
to champagne.
"A man who periodically, snake like,
sheds his skin, is reported to the Chicago
Medical Society. The shedding began in his
first year, and has since then occurred regu-
larly every July. He is taken with feverish
He undresses. lies down. and within few
minutes the skin of the chest begins to turn
red. The redness rapidly extends over the
entire skin, and the feverish tremors con-
tinue uninterrupted for about II hours
Then he rises in perfect health. The skin
now begins to peel, and ten hours later lt
comes off in great patches. From the arms
and the legs it can be peeled off exactly like
gloves or stockings. As the old skin comes
away, new epidermis, as soft and pink as
baby's, is revealed.
of Columbus there are in the New
York State Library % different portraits. 1t
was not believed until recently thal por-
trait of Columbus that had been painted in
his lifetime was in existence, but Librarian
Howell has announced that an original por-
trait has been found in the museum al Como.
In the sixteenth century Paolo Giovio had
museum of paintings and Statuary near
Lake Como, and it has been presumed that
he thought Colu was as worthy OF
portrait as statue i'll marble 1t Is known
that tho Grand Duke of Tuscany directed
Christofano to CODY nearly 300 portraits in
the Jovian Museum for the Florentine Gal
leIy and that one of them was that OF Co
lunlbus The Massachusetts, Historical Soci.
ETY. has copy of the portrait IN the floren-