Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-09-22
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

South Americans eat Daked oananaa
Covered carriages were first used in
England in the year 1880.
Locomotive engines were hrst maoe oy
| Trevethick in 1902
| The crossbows of the fourteenth century
| weighed IS pounds.
More than $40, 600, 900 is spent in Great
Britain every year for fox hunting.
-California has little girl who has nine
fingers on one hand and eight toes on tns
opposite foot.
About one-third of the entire population
its allied dialects.
"A man claiming to be 100 years old was
lately sent to prison for three months IN
Russia for petty. theft.
Sixty thoroughbred horses sailed from
Liverpool on the White Star line steamer
Nomadic on Friday for New York.
Metal balls, filled with burning oil and
| combustibles were used by the Romans ana
afterwards by both Turks and Greeks.
AS if we didn't have enough trou ble
| now, along comes q scientist who says ehas
| in 10, ,O00, 900 years there will be no light from
the sun.
"A collection of butterflies long owned
by Baron Won Fielding, of Vienna, was re-
Gently sold to Lord Rothschild, OF London,
for 5000.
The pension agency in Topeka is the
largest in the country. Itpays out annually
$1,000 900 to veterans of Kansas, Missouri
and Colorado.
The oysters of Puget Sound are the larg-
est known. Some of them are two feet IN
diameter and with the shell weigh as much
as 60 pounds each.
Dickens famous Thieves Kitchen,
in Laystal street, near the new Clerkenwen
road and Rosebery avenue, London, was
torn down recently.
Two portions of the body of J. Wilkes
Booth, the assassin of President Lincoln,
are preserved as relics in the Army Medical
Museum at Washington.
"A man in Dakota was lately sentenced
to prison for half lifetime, and the Supreme
Court has decided that the time means 10
years, months and days!
The Spanish language has word of
nine letters which, spelled backward or for
ward, suffers no alteration in its orthog-
raphy. 1t is the verb "reconocer."
SO extensive are the feeding grounds
and so rapid the movements of the wild
ostrich that as many as so or go miles are
often travelled by it between daybreak and
dark.
The most powerful and heaviest gun in
the world weighs l35 tons, is 40 feet In length
and has 15% inch bore. Its range is IL
miles, with project1le weighing loOO
pounds.
1t is interesting to learn that the Star
Arcturus is 551, 900 times as great as the sun
which lights our planet Arcturus has
circum erence OF "a, $1,000 miles and our
sun OF SGT, 600 miles.
According to the Census Bureau the
total number of males in this country is g.
067 $50, while there are but 80, 554 $40 women.
Which means that of every 100 mon five
must go unmarried.
The consumption of tobacco and beer
is increasing in England, as well rs in
France. In France the average amount of
tobcacco consumed by each inhabitant an
nually is two pounds
The highest place in the world regularly
inhabited is the Buddhist of Haine, i'll
Thibet which is l6 900 feet above sea level.
The highestinhabited place in the Americas
is at G;llera, Peru, Is, 635 feet above the sea
level.
The Greek phalanx was composed of
200 to 5000 men in a square battalion, with
shields Joined and spears crossed. The best
armored were placed in the outer ranks, and
| those poorly armed, or with no armor,in the
center.
The oldest armchair in the world is
the throne once used by Queen Hatafu, who
hourished in Egypt 1000 B. G. 1t is made OF
ebony, beautifully carved, and is so hard
ened with age as to appear to be carved
from black marble.
of the Loaf millionalres IN the United |
States only 1856 are south of Mason and
Dfxon's line and Texas has 81 of these. The
real estate in New York City alone Is worth
more than all the land between the Potomac
and the Rio Grande -
Thirteen millions sterling has already
tt,a ani
or s5. 600, 600 more than the original estimate.
Two millions will have to be bOrrOv wed from
the corporation of Manchester, and doubt is
arising OF its value when completed.
Everything about the new Atlantic
| steamer, the Campania, is of British make
except the rudder. That Is made of a single
steel plate. 1t is so wide that there is no
British firm having the necessary machinery
for rolling it, so the job had to be sent to
Krupp.
Glass as far as research has been able
to determine, was in use 1000 years before
the birth of Christ, and was even then not
in its infancy. In the State collection at the
British Museum there is the head OF lion
nodded in glass bearing the name of an
Egyptian king of the eleventh dynasty.
On the occasion of the unwilling the
memorial to Alfred Krupp, al, t,Essen, his son
Frederick Krupp, who now carries on the
works. put into the hands of the committee
the sum OF W DuIlu
dwellings for workmen OF the factory who
have become unable to work on account of
age.
"A colored woman candidate for the
post of public school teacher was examined
in Independence, Mo-, a few days ago.
"why does the Mississippi river flow
south?' was asked. Because the land
slopes that way" she replied, promptly and
seriously, and pointed to the big school
globe for confirmation.
AT cost of S1O 900 the Baptist Publi-
cation Society has a mission car in use in
California for O missionary and his wife, It
has an Auditorium which is often filled.
Through this means 500 have been converted,
ten churches established and eight Sunday
schools organized. 1t is the gift OF j. ID.
Rockefeller and others.
The United States gold dollar contains
25 troy grains. The ordinary pound, avoir-
dupois contains 1000 grains. therefore 81, ,OOO,-
600 in gold coin weigh 1864 pounds avotr-
dupois or over a ton and q half. The stand
ard silver dollar weighs 4l2.5 troy grains and
81, COO, ,OGO in United States silver coinage viii
weigh 81, ,93I pounds, or nearly 2SL tons.