Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-02
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

kansas farmers plowed on Christmas
day.
In New York there are 10000 cash girls
between Il and IA years of age.
The people of the United States spend
$3.50, ,0O0. 900 each years for shoes.
European physicians now employ hyp-
| notism as a cure for drunkenness and the
| opium habit
| "A debt of cents which has been owed
BY Philadelphia woman for 40 years has
| just been paid.
In 10 years the orange export OF Cali
! fornia. has increased from nothing TO
| 26,OOo,OOO pounds.
1t is estimated that at least $4,000, 900
] of the Governments paper money has been
lost or destroyed.
| The bulk of the Japanese revenue is
derived from the railroads and telegraph
| lines which it owns.
During the past four months more than
s7,oOo,OO0 in gold has been brought to the
| United States from Australia
"A blacksmith's tools of the present dsy
| are almost identical with those used in the
same trade over 800 years ago.
The oldest liquor in any New York club
| cellar is supposed to be some Sayillac
brandy of the vintage OF 1858 at the Union
| Club
"A floor painted in various colors in
gesso has been unearthed at Telel Armams,
~ the palace of Amenophis w., the King OF
Egypt.
| "A girl in Norway must be able to bake
| Dread before she can have beau. The one
who takes the cake as a cook is considered
the Hover of the family.
The aboriginal Australian adopts bru-
tally foreible mode of wooing. When he
wants wife he looks about for a likely
helpmate, and finding one to his liking,
KNOCKS her down with his club, and carries
her home.
-Zadkiel, the English planet reader, in
his sixty-second annual almanac, Just issued,
has found a message somewhere In his stel-
lar readings to the effect that in November
OF next year there will be ''a death of an
Empress or Queen"
The rapidity with which insects travel
is astonishing. The common house-fiy makes
600 strokes per second when in the act of ordi-
nary flight, that number of strokes causing
an advance movement of % feet. Our best
naturaliSts say that this can be increased
seven-fold.
There is knowing farm horse near
Butler, Pa, which lifts the latch, opens the
gate. goes to the Watering trough, seizes the
pump handle in his mouth, pumps water,
drinks and returns to his pasture, closing
the gate after him.
In round figures, the building done in
Chicago during the past year amounts to
5O0 as compared with 81, 3T3, 2O9 during
1880, and S3l,5l6 000 during 1889. This amount
represents LAS permits and 2s0,64 feet Of
frontage. This, in turn, represents a solid
frontage OF 81 miles, OF over4 miles in excess
OF last year.
Electricity has been tried in Sweden for
blasting. A deep hole is drilled in the rock
and Jablochkof candle is inserted and the
current turned on. The intense heat causes
the rock to swell at all points, and internal
strains crack the whole rock. Holes
best drilled into the solid parts, not. as in
blasting, in the seams and soft places.
"A father will sell his daughter among
Unyamwazi, Africa. for one up to ten cows.
4 Lomali asks of Loor wooer from 10 to 20
horses, of a wealthy one from 100 upward,
together wit n 30 camels and 200 sheep. On
the other hand. in Uganda four oxen are
sufficient to buy the most perfectly formed
village belle, provide six needles and abox
of cartridges are thown in.
Colonel LIE Cauteur, of the Isle of Jer-
sey, cultivated 80 varieties of wheat on his
estates at one time. and Darwin mentions a
French experimenter who had 322 distinct
sorts growing at one time. Vilmorin-An-
drieux ct Gle seed merchants of Paris have
collected upward of 100 different types of
wheat. or more than twice as many as the
great Jersey experimental.
-Firefies have been put and are even to
this day applied to some curious uses. In
Santo Domingo and other West India islands
they are employed for lighting purposes,
being confined in lanterns, both for going
about the country at night and for the illu-
minatlon of dwellings,. BY attaching one of
them to each foot while travelling in the
darkness they serve as a guide to the path.
The Raneha Carne Humans, in Cali
fornia, is said to derive it's singular name
49,
occupied by a tribe of Indians who ate
human flesh. Another tradition is, however,
that some Spanish explorers who came into
the valley just after a terrific battle between
the aborigines found it so strewn with dead
and mutilated bodies that they named 1t
Valle Carne Humana, the Valley of Human
Flesh.
"A recent census of British Guiana shows
a population in the colony OF about 100000,
of whom III, coo are East Indian coolies, 5000
Chinese, 5000 Portuguese, and 10000 negroes.
The great increase in the number of Asiatic
immigrants into the country, the coolies
now forming a third of the whole popula-
tion has been made the subject OF consider
able legislation recently. These coolies are
imported under contract with the British
Government, to work on the sugar estates,
and only remain in the colony Few years
The Japanese art of making miniature
landscapes and gardens consists chiefly in
starving the plants so as to retard the c1rcu-
lation of the sap of life-giving juices. Fur
auson, who was one among the first OF
English adventures to visit China and
Japan, mentions the fact that he saw at Can
ton IN boxe about the bigniss of ladyes
snuffe-box, which did contaire a httyl dirt
and sixteen tiny little trees, foure of which
were in full blow, the whole boxe. trees and
all, so small that n man could put them in
hys mouth together.
The Esquimos wear reindeer skins for
clothing They buy them from the Siberian
Chukchees, who come over to an interna-
tional fair that is held every summer on
Kotzebue Sound, just above Bering Strait.
on the Alaskan side. For the peIts, seal oil
and walrus oil are exchanged. There is
much dancing and feasting on these occa-
sions as well as trading. All the trading Is
done by barter no sort of money being in
circulation. At this fair also many wives
are bought. One can purchase very good
article of wife for $40. Wives among the
Esquimaux people are usually bought. Some
times the women are consulted.