Feliciana sentinel. [volume] (St. Francisville, La.) 1877-1892, 1892-01-16
or GENERAL INTEREST.

Tho longest day of the year at
Stockholm, Sweden, Is eighteen and
one-half hours in length. LAT Spitz-
bergen, three and one-half months. At
London, England, sixteen and one-half
hours, and at New York about fifteen
hours long.
George Jayfes, who lives near
Gainesville, Mo-, raises rattlesnakes for
their oil, which he sells at about 81 a
pint to wholesale druggists for lini-
ments. "Snaky George" has about 1o.-
900 of the reptiles on his place and kills
1000 n year.
There Is n big opportunity for q
| musical musician in Butte, Mont Hum
dreds of whistles at the mining works
| announce the hours three times a day.
A facetious individual suggests that the
| whistles be arranged on the principle
of the calliope, and that they play
"Yankee Doodle" in the morning,
| Home" at night.
The state debt commission OF Vir-
ginia and the Olcott committee of New
York, in conference in Richmond, have
agreed upon a plan of settlement It
provides for an issue OF nineteen mill
lions OF bonds, having one hundred
y " Aubs oCdI luz AOA VCA
years at two per cent. per anuum, aud
for the remaining ninety years at three
per cent, the new bonds to conform in
general character to those issued under
the iddleberger bill.
Two Cubans were fishing on the
lower end of the new extension of the
government wharf Sunday afternoon,
says the Key West Equator Democrat
About four p. m. one of them found his
line taut, and after a ''hard pull, a long
pull, and a pull altogether" a thirteen
foot shark was landed. Assistance was
secured, aud his sharkship was carried
by main force around the breakwater
and hauled on shore. His stomach con-
tanned a whole beef head and numerous
horns and bones.
"A new article of fuel was utilized
| by the steamer Dunedin. Oh a recent
trip from Cienfuegos, Cuba, to New
York. She ran out of coal, aud the
crew had to tear down the woodwork
of the cabin ID forecastle to supply
the furnaces This also being con-
sumed, and heavy storm prevailing,
| the captain ordered the firenen to
shovel sugar into the furnace. Before
| arriving in port fifty tons of sugar
| (about two thousand five hundred
dollars WORTHY were burned.
"A pin manufacturer in Ansonia,
Conn, is about to utilize some twenty
| barrels Of imperfect pins in building a
| sidewalk in front of his residence
There is in that town a small piece of
| sidewalk built of scraps from the pin
factory, which by corrosion has become
| so hard in few years that it required
| much hard drilling and blasting with
| dynamite to make a hole large enough
| to set a telegraph pole. although it was
| but three or four inches thick. 1t bids
| fair to last as long as a sidewalk of
solid brass
The grain. the sm allest weight in
| use, was thus called from being origin
ally the weight Of a grain of wheat A
statute passed in England in 1856 or
dained that 81 grains of wheat, taken
from the middle of the ear. or head,
and we'll dried, sholld make a penny
weight, 20 of which should make an
ounce, while IL ounces were to make a
pound. The pound, therefore, consist
ed of 1850 grains. Some centuries.
later the penny weight was divided into
| "a grains, which makes the troy pound,
as now used, 500 grains
Nelson Purdum, of jefferson county,
Indiana, disappeared from his usual
haunts couple of months ago, after
| having squandered 4 big pension allow
ance. No trace of him could be found
until few days ago, when hunters
| came across him on the bank of the
river near Madison. Smoke was issu-
ing from the ground, and an investiga-
ton led to their finding n room under
ground in which Purdum was living
rude cot, stove, and a quantity os
provisions were found; but the man,
whose long gray beard and locks gave
him wild appearance, dec incd to
come out.
So many of the passengers on late
local train on the Morris & Essex rail-
road recently had to stand up in the
two rear cars that an irate German
stopped the train by pulling the bel!
cord Just as it moved out and de eman ded
that an empty car on the side track be
attached. The other passengers sus-
tanned him, but the demands We're not
needed. When the train started again
the German pulled the bell cord and
announced that he would pull it every
time the train started and have the car
attached. After lot of talk the train
was backed down and the car attached
The first iron ship has more rcputed
birthplaces than Homer. Both the
Clyde and the Mcrsey claim pre-emi-
nence in this respect Sir E. j. Robin
| son, OF Edinburgh, designed an iron
vessel in 1916. which was not launched
till three years later. and it is said that
an iron boat was worked on the Severn
even as far back as 17S7. Steel was not
used in the construct of merchant
ships hulls until 1859. Old salts were
not alone in their belief that wood was
meant by providence to float, but iron
to go to the bottom. A naval construct
or of some repute said: Don't talk t,
me OF iron ships; they are contrary to
nature" Now none but small craft are
built of WOO in this country.
\ Practical Use for It.