Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1892-07-09
CURIOUS FACTS.

The Navajo Indians shun a building
where a death has occurred.
A human skull turned up among the
mail matter in the New York Postofice
he other day.
Gunpowder was discovered from the
falling of a spark on some materials
mixed in a mortar.
Wellsville, Mo-, has nearly twice as
many dogs as inhabitants. 1t has 1740
residents, and $500 dogs.
Charles Brandt, a dairyman of Leban-
on, Penn, has a four-year old daughter
who milks six cows every day.
The emeralds of Mexico and the Andes
region of South America are Of better
color aud often superior in size to those
found in the south of Asia.
1t is said that the Eskimo alphabet has
only FIVE characters; that the language
itself is not very difficult, but it is the
only one the Eskimo ever learns.
There is a surface of 5000 acres In
Silesia, Prussia, which is usually dry, but
which every thirty years fills with water
in some unknown way, and becomes a
lake.
Two neighbors in Rutherford, N, j.,
went TO law about a rooster, which it wa
asserted one of them had maliciously
killed. The rooster cost twenty five
rents. The case C st the two families
800.
The celebrated "Emperor's goblet" a
valued possession of the municipality of
Osnabruck, has been sold TO Baron
Rothschild, of Frankfort, for $50, 900.
Tbs proceeds will be expended in build
ing a new theatre. The goblet is of
solid silver, super5ly chased and orna.
mented.
In Paris, in Vienna, in Berlin, tie
small house or hotel is the luxury of the
wealthy, aud the great bulk of the popu-
lation hive in flats. In St. Petersburg,
the most modern of European cities, all
the houses are flats. The modern Italian
in Rome lives, as the ancient Roman did,
in a fiat.
An amusing institution among the
New Jersey summer resorts is an asylum
for dogs, kept by Il c).ore1 man, who
charges S. a month for large dogs and
less for the small Try, The canine
boarders take a swim or a run every day,
and are sent back to their owners when
they return to town.
The custom of using more than on
Christian name was introduced into
England with the coming of Henrietta
Maria, the bride of Charles l., after
whom a large number Of British infants
were soon loyalty c%lristenel. The
rolling resonance of the double name so
Tucked the ear of the public that soon
other combinations of the same kind
came into fashion.
The following test Of genuineness in
diamonds is said to be effective: Prick
a hole in a card with needle and look
at it closely through the gem. If it ap-
pears as a single hole the stone is ceuu-
inc; if double it is glass. Pat your
fingers behind the table Of the gem an
look through it as throu n a microscope.
If You can distinguish the grain of tue
skin clearly it is glass; if not it is a
stone.
Apropos of the report of United
States Consul DENLY, of Picking, on the
export of tigers bones from Ichang for
use in medicine, it may be said that what
purport to be tigers bones are sold as a
matter of course in nearly all the Chinese
shops in New Orleans, Lt. A specimen
brought there was submitted to the late
DR.. Joseph Leidy, who at once pro-
nounced it to be the bone of n ruminant
and not that of a tiger at all.