Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-03-17
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

English main roads cost f35 lis. per
mile yearly to maintain
Three times as many herrings are con-
sumed as any other kind of fish,
1t is said that there are more than
$1,000 people of Welsh birth in London.
The land covered by new houses in
Greater London every year is i, 16S acres.
1t is gross breach of etiquette for
Chinaman to wear eyeglasses or spectacles
in company.
Electricity in its various forms of ap-
plication is said to give employment to
5000, 600 persons.
The catalogue of Leland Stanford Uni.
versity shows q total of 44O students. Of
which 30 are women.
More men have died and are buried in
the Isthmus of Panama, along the line OF the
proposed canal, than on any equal amount
Of territory in the world.
-"Cool as a cucumber" is scientifically
correct. Investigation shows that this vese-
table has temperature 10 below that of the
surrounding atmosphere.
"A fairly EXPERT deaf and dumb person
will speak 43 words per minute. A person
in possession Of speech will probably speak
150 words in the same space of time.
Homer speaks of "brazen-footed steeds,"
from which we naturally infer that in his
day horses were shod with bronze or brass
Two reputable ancient writer's tell Us that
the mules OF Nero wore silver shoes.
in certain parts of Africa crickets con-
stitute an article of commerce. People rear
them, feed them in confinement, and sell
them. The natives are very iond Oh their
induces sleep.
1t is claimed by scientists that all the
lime in the world has, at some time, been a
portion Of some animal. The same atom of
lime has some time, no doubt, been portion
OF many different animals, and possibly Of
human beings also.
-Flogging Is so indispensable in Russia
that some inventor has perfected machine
which saves the human arm the infamous
labor Of blows Under the dagellation of
speedily collectable.
The inhabitants of the Cook Peninsula,
in Australia, are passionate smokers. Their
p1pe-a bamboo 3% feet long and inches in
round the company after
one of the persons present has filed it with
smoke from the tube.
From Eastern Asia comes plant the
flowers of which contain a quantity ofjuico
that rapidly turns black or deep purple on
for dyeing their hair and eyebrows, and in
Japan for backing shoes.
AT Gotta, in Saxony, persons who did
not pay their taxes last year are published
in q list which hangs up in all restaurants
and saloons of the city. Those that arc on
the list can get neither meat nor drink at
these places under penalty OF loss of lie ense
Granite is the lowest rock in the earth's
crust 1t is the bed rock OF the world. 1t
shows no evidence of animal or vegetable
life. 1t Is from two to ten times as thick as
the united thickn esses of ali the other rocks.
IL is the parent rock, from which all other
rocks have been either directly or indirectly
derived.
In Persia boys and girls never play
together. The little girls have to invite
playmates Of their own sex; but their games
and never lively ones. They generally pre-
fer to sit by themselves under the shade Of
mulberry or pomegranaee trees in the gar
den, and listen to fairy tales, which their
mothers and nurses can tell very interest
ingly, indeed.
"A Germantown jeweler and watch
maker has q curiosity in the shape OF a
Plymouth Rock hen that has been surpris-
ing her owner and some of the neighbors
for some time past by laying eggs OF varied
closely resembles grub, even to the form
of the head 1t is about inches in length,
anu OF perfectly wh1ee color. =
Not a great way from Monterey,
Mexico is the famous Carthusian table, one
of the greatest natural curiosities on the
North American continent. 1t Is a table,
land, ], 400 feet high and 800 above sea level.
perfect crescent, running east and west and
on its summit is more than 10000 acres OF
perfectly level land, abounding in running
water.
AT one time the number of swans in
England must have been enormous. Paulus
Jovius, writing three and o half centuries
ago. declared that he never saw river so
tRickly covered with swans as the Thames;
and in 1925 when John Taylor. the Water
Poet rowed ffom London to Christchurch.
and then up the Avon to salisbury, he was
amazed at the swarm Of birds on that
stream.
Two young city-bred women, daughters
of prominent wholesale merchant in San
Francisco named Lowenstein, are living on
and working q land claim in the State OF
Washington, between Hadlock and Port
Ludlow They took up the claim two years
ago and have lived on it continuously since,
built the cabin in which they live, and have
cleared and grubbed 20 acres of land. Their
nearest neighbor is four miles away.
Some of the younger squaws of the
Tarratine tribe of Indians are better looking
and better educated than many of their
white sisters. Alice, the 1s-year-old daugh-
ter of John Francis, the big hunter and trap
per of the Penobscot, is very pretty and
graceful girl, with dark, lustrous eyes, and q
clear olive complexion. She speaks En-
glish, French and the Tarratine dialect,
plays the piano, makes many kinds OF fancy
work, and has travelled some.
Honey could be immensely improved
by the planting # flowers known to yield a
fine favored nectar. Everyone knows the
difference in the quality of the comb con-
tents in different parts of the same country
and in different regions. The Narbonne
honey derives its fine flavor by being har-
vested chiefly from labiate plants, such as
rosemary, ETC.; and though 1t appears that
the Maltese honey does not, as often stated,
owe its fine aroma to orange blossoms, the
latter undeniably perfume the Greek honey.
The mercury has neverfrozen in Britain.
When the cold in any part of Great Britain
IS described as having been of such intensity
IS to freeze the mercury in q thermometer
, statement that has frequently appeared in
the newspapers during the past winter-itis is
simply not to be believed. Such degree OF
,oId has never been observed in these
Stands. The lowest temperature yet OBJ
served in the United Kingdom was near
Kelso, in December, 1879, when 45o Of frost,
Or 100 below Zero was registered by a Fahr-
enheitS thermometer.