Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-02-27
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

4
| The State of Maine produces, it is said,
.,CO0OO0 pounds OF paper daily.
Twelve out of % Presidents have had
military training and experience.
"A Douglas county, Ga, farmer claims
to have a pig with seven legs, all service
! able.
A monkey at the Paris circus has been
trained to play agonIzing music on the
violin. ----
1t is estimated that Europe is s1,OOO,-
100000 poorer every year by her system Of
armed peace.
Fish hooks of the first quality are made
from the very best cast steel wire. which is
turned out in coils at Sheffield and BirminS-
ham.
A German chemist has invented
method whereby petroleum and similar
liquid hydrocarbons can be rendered nom
explosive.
In England when the Government re-
signs an appeal is made to the people; in
France the Cabinet merely undergoes q re-
arrangement.
AN etiquette authority saws: ga we'll
bred girl nowadays doesn't Tollop.'" The
almost-forgotten word means to move heav-
lily, or lounge around
1t has been decided in BROOKLYN that
not more than two of the four corners
formed by the intersections of streets shall
be occupied as liquor saloons.
-Four Boston men, who were dining to-
gether consulted their watches and found
! that every one of them had stopped They
are now trying to account for it.
AT Trenton. Mo-, man over 80 years
| old has achieved local fame by letting the
dentist pull 81 of his teeth a sidgle sitting,
without taking gas or chlOroform.
"A mysterious ringing Of electric bells
in Swiss house was traced TO large
spider, which had one foot on the bell wire
and another on an electric light wire.
While tearing down an old house in
Jersey City, day or two ago, a small iron
box was foand, which contained s565 in gold
coins, some of which are said to be very
rare
"A famous English beauty, Lady Lon
donderry, has peculiar and successful sys-
tenn for keeping her youthful freshness. Al
though she is perfectly well she lies in bed
one day in ten.
"A very old deed was placed on record
at Norristown last week. The date is De-
cember Il, 1759 and it conveys for ESQ Penn
sylvania- currency, farm of 100 acres to
Conrad Boytler.
-GlassSEith a wire core is new material
made in Dresden, the glass being fused to
the wire while i'll plastic state. The ad-
heSion IS said to remain perfect under
severe fluctuations of temperature.
-Cadillic, Mich, has curfew whistle.
When the whistle blows young people have
to hurry home in order to escape being
escorted by police officers. who are ordered
to do such duty after the curfew hour.
A young man named Gould, driving
near the graveyard at Pendleton, Ind. after
nightfall, imagined he saw figure in white
fitting through the air. and he put whip to
his horse and fled in wild dismay, screaming
for help.
The old terms of port and "star-
board'' have been banished from the voca-
bulary of the officers and crews OF the ves-
sells of the Hamburg American line of the
North German Lloyd, and replaced by 'left''
and Fright"
In 1867, Falcon Island, which, by the
way, still continues to grow, was then one
and four-tenths of a mile long and 165 feet
above the water in the highest place. In
1890 it was nearly two miles long and mile
wide, and had two active volcanoes.
The tautawa, a nine-inch long lizard
ofNew Zealand, is said to be the most slug
gish animal in the world. He is usually
found clinging to rocks, and has been
known to remain in the same spot for
months. How he lives is a mystery.
Rhode Island is having an experience
with bimetallic coinage, and doesn't like it.
A large number of silver half dollars with
the word "half'' stamped out and the word
"ten" substituted have been gilded and
passed there as ten dollar gold pieces. s-.
Miss Mary Jane Squires, aged eighty,
an eccentric woman who lived alone for
many years near Perry Center, n. Y, was
found dead in her chair the other day.
Forty pet cats were in the room, several of
them being on her lap and one on each
shoulder.
There is an acid dew in India which
covers the acid Towering Sennaga. So dis
tinctly sourish is this dew to the taste that
the Hindoos call it the vinegar of Sennaglu.
1t has been shown to contain melic, acetic,
and oxalic acids, and these are found in the
plant which it covers.
-Ostriches are commonly plueked once
every eight months, yielding one pound
weight of feathers each, but many farmers
only pluck 60 feathers at a time so as not to
cause too much irrita tion and Inflammation,
which is very mi urious to the health of the
birds and lessons the next crop of feathers.
A painstaking student of the Almanach
de Gotha has ascertained that, emitting the
Pope the only European Sovereigns older
than her Majesty the Queen are Adolf OF
SchaumDurg-Lippe who was born in 1917,
and Christian TX. of Denmark, Ernest II of
Saxe-C Coburg- Gotha, and Carl Alexander of
Saxe-Weimer, all three born in lsls.
When a new member was initiated into
the Westphalian Vehmgerichte. and swore
to keep the secrets of the society from wife
and child, father and mother, sister and
brother, from fire and sword, from the
things warmed by the sun or nourished by
the rain, he did so with the thumb and two
fingers OF his right hand upon the cross hilt
of a sword. An oath so taken was held ir-
revocable, and not to be annulled by even
the Pope himself.
The bushmen in the Kalshari Desert
often live scores of miles from places where
water comes to the surface. During GER
tain period of the year sharp storms pass
over the kalahari, covering the apparently
arid region with the brightest of yerdure
and filling. for few short days, the water
courses with roaring torrents. The BUSH
men know how to find water by digging in
the bottoms of these dried-up river beds.
They dig hole three or four feetsdeep and
then tie sponge to the end of hollow
reed. The sponge absorbs the moisture at
the bottom of the hole, and the natives draw
il into their mouths through the reed and
then empty it into calabashes for future
use.