Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-02-22
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.
To every 900 males in London there
are ], l23 females.

To every 900 males in London there
are ], l2S females.
The total income of the Church of Eng
land is about s1,Oo0,OOO week.
The total valuation of property IN Mon
tara in 1891 was sl42 205 AS, an increase OF
| S-9,6S.C4J over 1890.
Because Of the low price of cotton, 4
farmer in Coffee county, Ca, burned his
F., crop OF 1t ana then committed suicide
The Druids held many plants sacred,
as, for instance. vervain, selago. mistletOe,
ahd' among trees, the oak and the rowan.
The story of an intoxicated gentleman
who drank bottle OF - certain cure for in
! ebriety by mistake and is now an involun-
tary teetotaler is iull of suggestion
BY studying the spectrum of lightning
| as 1t passes through the air, it has been
found that sodium, the element from which
common salt is formed, exists in tire mos
! phere.
The city of Butte, Mont, has so many
idle men on its hands that the authorities
are talking OF putting up a new building
where the unemployed can be fed and
| lodged.
"A British Consul in China, DR.. James
Scott, who has written the first Corean
grammar, declares that the Corean language
estimates its age at 600 years.
AT wedding in Brookfeld, Mo-, last
week the bride and groom each wore very
valuable gold nuggets, old family relics. dug
from Deadman's Gulch, Sacramento Valley,
by the father of the groom in 1856
American colleges are every year add
ing largely to their libraries Harvard now
has $50, 900 volumes: Yale, 200, ,OCO Cornell
IO 10 OoO Columbia, 10000; Syracuse 5000;
Dartmouth, 6',5OO: Princeton, 6s,OO0.
This has been a terrible winter for
stock on the Idaho ranges Thousands of
animals are dead, and the stoclmen say
that owing to recent heavy SHOWS there is
no possible hope for the remainder.
The Phenicians were acquainted with
the use of extremely hardened iron (prop-
erly speaking, steell, as their numerous and
beautiful orks in ornamental metallurgy,
and the cutting and engraving of previous
stones.
The State Treasury of New Hampshire
has just been drawn on for $3.50 for Sc bears
killed within the limits of one town (Bart-
lett during last year: and Of this sum one
man z. G. Merrill received $3.50 for % that he
personally killed.
The United Kingdom has neither pe
troleur nor natural gas. Our product of
each in 1898 was nearly s25 600 900 ON the spot
the aggregate as given by the latest re-
port of the United States Geological Survey
being over ri, 100000.
Steps are being taken to tear down the
old John Jacob Astor headquarters fur
trading house at Fond du Lac and enough
interest has been aroused in the preserva-
tlon of the oldest building at the head of the
lake to call out vigorous protest.
"A professional nurse in Frankfort, Ger
many, who allowed a surgeon to cut away Il
piece of her arm to place in a open wound
on the body of wealthy patient, is suing
the surgeon for damages on the ground that
he took too much from her arm in the opera
tion.
The Ce,1tTalbIatt der Balaodltung states
that pipes of cement, in which wire netting
Is embedded, are now being manufactured
in Berlin. The wire netting is said to
greatly increase the strength of the pipes
against bursting. so that they are well
adapted for water conduits.
The Salvation Army is being boycotted
in Finland. No mention of it of any kind
may appear in public print. So strictly is
this law being carried out that any mention
OF the army, any advertisement bearing on
the movement is sufficient to cause an entire
issue OF newspaper to be cancelled.
The widow of the famous Indian chief
Black Squirrel, who was one of the Seneca
tribe loyal to the American cause during
died few davs ago on the TOnawanda
reservation in Niagara county. New York.
She was l02 years old, and drew Il pension
from the Government
The cheapest tax-dodging scheme on
record is that of churchman in Lincoln
county, Me-, who has organized a bogus
religious and charitable society, has made
himself treasurer, and has turned all his
personal property over to the treasury of
this non-taxable corporation. He defies the
assessors and they don't see how they can
get at him.
Toys were showered upon the King of
Spain last Christmas. They came from his
grandmother at Paris, from his grandmother
at Vienna, from the Orleans family, from
grandees of Spain. from the corporations of
the towns through which the royal party
passed last summer. All these good people
literally bombarded His Majesty with cases
of all shapes and sizes, crammed with toys
of all sorts and descriptions.
Everybody who has read the poetry or
novels of Sir Walter Scott has seen the
throstle or mavis frequently mentioned in
them A number of these birds were i'm
ported to Portland from Germany. Last
year they made nests and reared young in
the large trees at Ninth and Main streets,
and in the fall migrated to the south. They
nave lust returned to Portland and are mer-
riIv Whistling about their haunts of a year
ago.
"A Californian, having read an article in
Nature on the intelligence of the fox, writes
that whatever may be true of the English
fox his California cousin is next door to a
fool. His son caught numbers of them in q
trap but many of them escaped by parting
the chains Cby dint of strength, not of in
telligence) and were again caught within
two or three days in the same trapsi One of
them was caught three times in quick sue
cessioni
Living on Weston Mountain, Umatilla
county, there is young man, recently from
Ohio. who has two sisters who's are not related
in the least by blood This strange state of
things came about in this way: His father
had one daughter by his first wife; first wife
died He married again, and dying he left
one son, the gentleman in question. His
mother married second time, and one
dauohter was the result of the union. Each
of the daughters is, OF course, half sister to
the son, although there is no blood relation
between the two.