Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-11-18
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

-Locusts are still eaten in Africa
-Russia's woolen industry employs 5000
people.
There are oak trees in existence 900
years old.
The net debt of Canada Is reported to
be so37, ,7s4. COO.
There are 512, 500 telephones in use in
| the United States.
| More than 700 biogra phies of Columbus
have been written in various languages.
| The Ladies' Club, of Sydney, Australia,
| is the only one in that city which is free
| from debt.
| The scaffold on which John Brown was
hanged at Harper's Ferry is en- route for the
| Worlds Fair.
| Foreign physicians are now expert.
| menting with frog lymph as preventive OF
hydrophobia.
in Sweden and Norway it is a crime to
make any profit on the sale Of liquor; it must
| De dispensed at cost.
The British Museum, started in 1853,
has now % miles of books and the largest
collection of curiosities in the world.
| On the ice peaks of the Himalayas, in
| India, there is !"snow maggot,'' weighing
nearly one pound and good to eat.
The regular army of Brazil consists Of
| only L, 900 soldiers, but the Government can
raise military force or 100000 men by con-
| scription.
-Peeresses of Great Britain, Scotland
| and Ireland by birth, marriage or creation
are free from arrest or Imprisonment In
civil process.
Street car conductors receive onlv 62L
| cents for a days wages in the city of Berlin.
| The day is IS hours long, with half-holiday
once in two weeks.
Of Chicago's 1908, 669 people only
| 292, ,6j9 are of native American stock. The
| German leads with 3S4, ,95s. The Irish are
| third, numbering 2l5,5Si.
jerome Park, near New York, for many
years one of the most popular race tracks;
| in the country, is to become the property
| of a syndicate and be cut up into building
| lots.
king Henry l. had an arm &c inches
| long. That is why the English and Ameri-
| can yard is its present length, a little fact
| which many students have learned and for
gotten.
| Among the uneducated whites in Ala
| bama there Is a popular superstition that If
| colored person kisses baby twice on the
| mouth the teething period will be easy to
/ the child.
Red hailstones fell at Amsterdam In
| 1726, at London in 1868 (durin2 the time of
| the great plague) and at divers places in Ire
| land and France in the early part of the
/ present century.
| During the reign of Henry ". of Eng
| land no person of a lower estate than
knight or banneret was allowed to wear
| cloth of gold or larIe sleeves. or to use
| either ermine or marten fur on his gown.
A gas well near Montpelier, Ind which,
for some time past, has been supplying that
| communitv, suddenly began blowing oil
| which percolated through the pipes and
| made its appearance in the houses of pa
irons.
The oldest hotel in Switzerland, and
probably the Oldest in the world, is the
| hotel ofthe Three Kings at Basle. Among
| its guests in 1925 were the Emperor Conrad
| IL. his son Henry Ill, and Rudolph, the
| last king of Burgundy.
The age at which ''child wonder
ceases to be such has not yet been deter.
| mined. But Josef Holman. the boy pianist.
| seems to have reached it. The latest reports
| say that his fingers are losing their supple
| ness. his earit deltcacy and his soul its love
\ or music.
The statistics of life insurance people
| show that in the last IS years the average OF
| mans life has increased per cent or two
| whole years, from 4l9 to 43.9 wears. Wo-
| mans life average has improved even more
| than this, from 4L9 to 45.S years, or more
| than per cent.
In the 227 years since "Don Quixote'
was published 1924 editions have been
| printed, of which 52s were Spanish, 3O
English, 179 French, 90 Italian, 81 Portu.
guese, As German. IS Swedish, Polish.
Danish, Russian, Greek, Roumanian,
Catalonian, Basque and Latin.
What lambs flesh is to US, so is the
goats flesh to the Arab OF North Africa. In
the provinces of Greece, too, where goats
are to be found in abundance their flesh fs
much eaten. The kid is reckoned by epi
cures to be equal, if not superior, 70 lamb
while the flesh OF the buck and the lady
goat are both excellent.
Insects generally breathe through spe.
cial pores in various parts of their body
and if those pores are closed by oil they are
suffocated. Anyone may test this by drop
ping sweet oil on the thorax or back of
wasp; it very soon dies. For this reason oil
has been found one of the best things to use
for the destruction of insects.
The Rothschilds are said to have
curious way of providing a birthday present
for all the girls OF the family when they
come of age. At the birth of each little girl
six pearls valued at s., 500 are put aside. Six
more are added at every birthday. and when
the young lady reaches the age Of 2l she Is
preSen ted with the valuable necklace.
The horseshoe superstition is very old.
The ancients believed that iron as a metal
into their walls to keep off pestilence. It
has always been thought uncommonly
lucky to find piece OF the metal, and as
horseshoes were the form i'll which it was
most frequently found, the supersttious re-
gard came to be transferred from the ma
terial to the shape.
Many people suppose that rosewood
takes its name from its color, but this Is
mistake. Bosewood is not red, nor yellow,
but almost black. Its name comes from the
fact that when first cut it e1hales perfums
similar to that of a rose, and although The
dried rosewood of commerce retains no
trace of this earlv perfume, the name lin
gers as q relic of the early history Of the
wood.
The flag known as the stars and bars
was the first flag adopted by the Confederate
Congress at Montgomery. The battlenag
was designed by General Beauregard, and
was adopted by General J. E. johnson after
the first battle of Bull Run, and was AFTER
ward adopted by Congress. In May, 1858,
Congress adopted another national nag, the
battleflag occupying the place of the union
jack in the United States, and the remaindex
in white.