Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-10-09
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.
Ia GOOD for the brain.

Butter is good Tor the brain.
kansas is said to have ssven negrt
editors.
-Stammering is almost unknown among
the savages.
The pine tree is said to attain an age
of 500 to 200 years.
Twenty-Five thousand people are en-
ployed in the Chicago cattle yards.
There is said to be only one sudden
death among women to eight among men,
-Aljeziri Alhambali says coffee was first
made known as q beverage in SO OF the
Hegira.
The annual consumption of railroad
ties in this country is estimated at ABOUT
IS, 900.
An English company is being organized
for the acclimatization of elephants In
The Desert of Sahara has almost eI-
actly the number Of square miles that the
United States has.
Few blue-eyed people are color-blind,
and we are told that women as q rule have
better eyesight than men.
Few men have legs of equal length, and
to every 1000 men in the British army
only 18 are over six feet in height.
Not few people living have double
rows Of natural teeth, and an authority as
serts that only one person in a. 500 has per-
fect nose.
There is q large factory near Chicago
which does profitable business in manu-
featuring useful articles from the waste
blood OF animals
Penny savings banks are connected
with public schools of Belgium. and 10000
o. the 500, COO primary pupils nave deposited
over oOO,U francs.
The peach is of Persian origin and the
apricot is Syrian. The former fruit is mem
toned by classical writers as early as 200 B.
o., but the latter not till 80 A. d.
The first 12-inc1 gun ever made for the
American navy was shipped from the WASH
ington, d. G., gun foundry to the Monterey,
1t San Francisco, January 9, 1892.
Bees are geometricians. Their cells arc
constructed so as with the least quantity Of
materials to have the largest-sized spaces
and the least possible loss OF interstices.
The greatest number of deaths from
earthquake shock as at Yeddo. Japan, in
1703 when 10000 people, it is estimated, lost
their lives in the terrible seismic upheaval.
The boomerang, Australian, is club,
three feet long. bent almost at right angles.
1t Is thrown SO as to strike on the rebound,
and is the most remarkable weapon of any
country.
Canadian school teachers and some
Canadian editors are still writing of
"colour," "labour" and "candourr and If an
onerder is locked up they say he has gone
to "gaoL"
In the last 30 years English engineers
have built 100, 900 miles of railroad, at q cost
of sLsoo COO 600. in various quarters Of the
globe, the capital being lound in most cases
by English companies.
The picture on one of the new Colum-
bian postage stamps, 1t Is announced, will
be that of "The Santa Maria, Columbus flag
ship, after Alfred Harrisee." It will be
known as the flight and pursuit OF Alfred.
One hundred and three thousand dollars
has been offered and refused for a Hebrew
Bible now in the library OF the Vatican at
Rome. This makes the most valuable book
in the world, 80 lar as dollars and cents 20.
The first electric railroad in Brazil has
just been put in operation in the city of
Bahia. 1t is a narrow gauge, ~ miles long.
and the whole plant and equipment were
made in the United States and shipped
booily to Brazil.
There are Is stars, 13 letters in the
scroll held in the eagles beak, 13 marginal
feathers in each wing, 13 tail feathers, l8
parallel lines In the snield. l3 horizontal
bars, l3 arrow heads in one foot, and Ii let
soAo Ia VIC "OIuS 4udi vel
1t seems that We have the choice of 270
religions in the United Kingdom; and our
taste for sensational novels is shown when
80 per cent of books published belong to that
c ass. Some OF the busiest steel pens of the
g. 5O0, 600 said to be daily used all over the
world are welded by the fictionists.
The plan OF making trunks with round
tops is now abandoned by the best trunk
makers. The TACT that the strength OF any
thing isit weakest point seems to have been
forgotten when so much labor and expense
was put into the cover only. Trunks are now
made with fiat tops, but strong all over alike.
I'm this country We have one horse for
every IL persons and only an average Of four
hours Of daily sunshine in which to ride o.
walk. A celebrated aeronaut asserts, after
patient investig alton, that the ninth day Of
the moon is the most rainy of the whole 28,
and o'clock in the afternoon the rainiest
hour of the day.
Statistics recently compiled in London
show that the number of cabs, both four
wheeled and hanson cabs, is diminishing.
This Is probably due to the extension of
street car routes and democratic ideas.
During tine last u months there were 30S9
fOur-wheeled cabs licensed, as against 8, 92l
the year previous.
1t was lately quoted in British ship
ping circles as a proof Of the depression
anecting the shipping trade that splendid
four.mast iron bark OF 1000 tons register,
owned on the Clyde, came into port from
Australia in ballast, was unable to get car
20 and sailed lack for the antipodes q ain
with the same ballast she brought with her.
Next to gambling, the Eskimo men like
to wrestle. The usual way of doing this Is q
test rather of strength than skill The
wrestlers sit down on the floor, or in any.
convenient place, side by side and facing
in opposite directions, say with their right
elbows touching. Then they lock arms, and
each strives to straighten out the others
arm.
The Chinese superstition about lucky
and unlucky colors is one that foreign mer-
chants must observe when they attempt to
sell their wares in China. The use of black
paper q wrapper Tor needles has Initiated
again st their sale in China. Blue must be
specially avoided on wrappers OF goods in
tended for the Chinese market, while red ts
auspicious.