Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-06-09
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

The census returns snow lnat IN tbs
entire State OF Virginia the surplus Of
women is only SO.
AN English mathematician estimates
the limit of ideas entertained by any mind
during lifetime at - 6oo.l6o,Ooo.
A Young st. Louis girl is said to have
made profit of 81, 300 last year in furnishing
bread for the Woman's Exchange
AT Washington c. H., O., the other
day, single elephant pushed out of the
mire a wagon which the combined strength
OF IA horses had failed to move.
1t is said that the emeralds OF Mexico
and the Andes region of South America are
of better color and often superior in size to
those found in the south OF ASIA
A London journal estimates that a
dentist who is busy six hours day can
make So 900 year by extracting teeth at 70
cents each and filling them Tor 81 each.
"A Chicago physician says that the
human nose is frequently not In the exact
center of the face. and it is well-known
fact that the two sides of the face are rarely
symmetrical.
The General Manager of the wisconsin
Central Railroad is reported to have said re-
Gently: 81 think we shall run trains on the
Wisconsin Central by electric power before
the Columbian Exposition is over"
Electrical headlights on steam locomo-
tives are now used extensively. The Phila-
delphia and Reading engines are being fitted
up With these and it is reported that dozens
or more Western roads have recently placed
large orders
There is an immense garden in China
that embraces an area of $1,000 square miles,
1t is all meadow land and is filed with
lakes ponds and canals. Altogether it is as
large as the States of New York and Penn
sylvania combined.
The United States, Great Britain and
Germany send the greatest number of let
ters through the mails. United States annual
receipts from postage stamps are 29s7l3,-
sos francs; German Empire. 223, $50 Gil francs,
and Great Britain, 235. 933, $50 francs.
That nothing is more easily forgotten
than an umbrella or cane is proved by re-
cent sale of unclaimed property by rail-
road company. The lot comprised nearly
two thousand umbrellas, more than thous-
and walking sticks and 500 parasols.
Holding pillows in her teeth while she
drew on pillow-slip5 caused a chamber
maid in a New York hotel to lose all her
lower teeth. She had to change 40 or 80 beds
n day, and this performance, for period of
ii years, so loosened her lower teeth that
they dropped out.
The Fans are the only people in eqUa-
torial Africa who have a currency, and they
are strong monOmetaIists. The money is of
iron, wrought into pieces resembling rusty
hairpins with fiat heads. They are put up
in bundles of ten, and 100 bundles is the
market price of a wife.
This is one of those simple things which
few people know of: Ifyou are in Pull
man car get pillow from the porter, put it
on your lap and place your writing material
on 1t. The elasticity OF the pillow Will IN
sure smOothneS5- Where pillow cannot b
obtained use your coat.
"A certain Harvard professor, author of
many books used to delight to catch mice
with his fngers-a practice for which he
had an almost cat-like expertness. And
there was a notorious Roman Emperor who
took the keeneSt pleasure in catching flies
and impalinS them on stylus.
Darwin states in his ''Voyage of a
Naturalist" that unless the huanacoes, or
wild llamas of Patagonia drink salt water,
in many localities they must drink none at
all. The large and interesting group of
sloths are alike in never mixing. A parrot
is said to have lived in the Geological gar
dens Regent Park, for 81 years without q
drop of water.
-Pythagoras thought the heavenly bodies
to be separated by intervals corresponding
to the harmonic lengths of strings, where
fore he and his followers held that the
movement of the spheres gave rise to u
pleasing sound called tine harmony of the
spheres. He taught this, and also that the
first sounds perceived By the human ear
were the music of the spheres.
The bell in the yard of the marble Col
legiate Church, at Fifth avenue and Twenty
ninth street, New York. was cast in Amster-
dam in 1895. 1t was taken down during the
Revolutionary War to prevent it falling into
the hands of the enemy. 1t was kept at Car
Isle, Pa, Tor many years. 1t was rung Mt
moved to its present resting place.
"A French doctor asserts that an unfail-
ing test of death may be made by producing
q blister on the hand or foot by holding the
flame of q candle to the same until the blis-
ter is formed. If the blister contains any
fluid it is evidence of life; if, on the con-
trary, the blister contains only steam, it
may be asserted that life is extinct. Any
one may try it; there is no error possible.
One of the most remarkable examples of
a mans power of triumphing over natural
disabilities is the perseverance of William
NJ Davenport, q blind man of Teyden, Mass.
Instead of becoming beggar or sitting
down for others to support, he set out to
make q living, first as IL woOd-sawer. then rs
q thresher. He now owns farm OF 200 acres
and is reported 10 be worth SI5,OOO For
wears he has been looked upon as one of the
best judges of live stock in the country.
1t is safe to say that we owe all the
forces at our service to the sun. The wind
blows because some portions of the atrnos-
phere are more rarefied by heat than others;
rivers flow because water raised by eva pOr-
alton falls Oack to earth as rain; and ami
mails possess strength because the chemistry
OF digestion and absorption sets free and re-
stores the energy, derived by the plants and
other animals on which they feed, from the
air and the soil by the aid of the sun.
The ownership of an amputated arm
was disputed 1T law. The son of man in
England, named Housley, had his arm
anputated insan infirmary, and after the
operation Housley asked for the arm and the
surgeon refused to give it to him. Soon
afterward he brought a box to the infirmary
and asked again for the arm. Then the boy
died, and the father asked for the arm q
third time unsuccessfully. Then Housley
sued. The judge gave Judgment for the de-
fendant.
George Harzer of Kiowa, Kan, is the
father of q six-year-old boy who is an cleo
tricaI wonder. The little fellows BODY
seems to be surcharged of electricity at all
times and he takes great delight in shocking
those who come near him. lie can greatly
increase the force of the shock by rubbing
his feet on the carpet and after dark the
electrical discharge is so strong that sparks
are emitted when he slides across the noor
and touches a piece of metal. He dmuse5
himself by touching all the dogs ana cats
about the place. and the result Is that they
all flee at his approach