The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-07-28
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

A FALL RIVER CdAss.) BAKER recently re-
ceived an order to make q pie Weighing 1000
pounds. The pie consisted of COO pounds OF
beef, 400 pounds Of mutton. 500 pounds OF ftyI
aud SEQ pounds of potatoes. One barrel of fCAr
was used to make the crust The measurements
were eight feet long. Eve feet wide and two
feet deep. and it was sufficient 70 serve 1000
people.
SOME curiosity has been excited as TO the
Taison d'etre of the names Campauia and Lu.
CANA given to the new steamships OF the Cunard
Company now building at Fairfield. According
TO the traditions Of the Cunard line every name
| must end in ia, and Campania aud Lucania
were not heather divinities. has actually
been stated, but two great southern provinces
Of Italy. Campania was the district OF which
Naples was the capital and included all the
lovely scenery Of the rich country down 20
Paestuo. South Of that, Lucania, stretching
from sea to sea, running up to the highest
point of the Apennines and boasting Horace OF
Nenusia as its son.
ACCORDING to Herodotus, the ancient city Of
Babylon stood on broad. level plain, aud was
an exact square of fourteen miles each way.
making the entire circuit of the city ffty-six
miles. 1t was protected by both wall and a
moat, the latter being broad and deep and kent
constantly filled with water. But the wall was
the wonder of wonders, being 931A feet in width
and average Of 200 feet in hight This
monster barrier was provided with 100 gates
ali OF solid brass the lintels and side pieces
being in bronze Cross walls ran along the
with twenty-five gates, which cor
responded TO the number of streets running in
each direction from the river The most re-
markable edif1ce inside the wall was the Temple
of Bel, a pyramid Of eight square stadia On
the summit of this pyramid stood pure gold
image of Bel 40 feet high, two other smaller
figures of the same precious metal and golden
table 40 feet long and IS feet wide. This won
derful city first came prominently into the his
tory of the world in the year 747 b. c.. but
since the time of Alexander the Great it has
been The site having haa
entirely lost.
In SUMATRA there is very singular race Of
human beings called the Kubus. They are the
most timid and bsshiul people in the world, be-
ing too shy to mingle with the other races Of
the island. They dwell IN the darkest recesses
of the mountain forests, and have seldom been
seen by white men, One has never been known
to willingly face a stranger. This being the case
| their trade with the Malayans is carried on in
| very strange way The trader announces his
| arrival by beating gong, and then retires from
the place of rendezvous. The shy Ku-
bus then approach, put their forest treas
| and retreat The trader then returns and laws
his commodities down in quantities sufficient to
| pay purchase price OF the goods on sale. He
| then disappears for a second time, this to give
the Kubus chance TO return and consider the
| bargain. After many Withdrawals, approaches,
gong-beating, etc, an understanding is arrived
| at and each party carries away his bargain
This remarkable race know nothing of a
supreme being, heaven, he'll or evil demons
| They have no system of marriage and never
| bury their dead. They live on snakes, ants,
bugs, grubs, etc.
THE most remarkable instance Of nstheticism
among BIRDS says Chambers Journal. is that
exhibited by the Australian bower birds who
build long galleries in which to play, adjoining
| them with Sheels, feathers leaves bones or any
colored or glittering object which come in their
way. Capt. Stokes described one of these
| bower birds as taking shell alternately from
| each side of the bower and carrying it through
in its beak. Lumholtz describes several of these
play houses OF the bower birds; he says they
are always to be found 'in small brushwood
| never in the open field; and In their Immediate
vicinity the bird collects a mass of different
kinds OF objects, especially small shells, which
| are laid in two heaps one at each enJrance-the
one being always much larger
heap and thirty in the other. There is usually
a handful of green berries, partly inside and
| partly outside the bower" In his interesting
book Among Caunibals." Lumboltz desc RIDES
| a play ground of what would appear to be a
| different species Of this bird showing even a
| great aesthetic taste He says: ION the TOP
Of the mountain heard in the dense scrubs the
loud and unceasin2 voice of a bird. / carefully
| approached 1t, sat on the ground and shot it,
| IL was one of the bower birds, with a gray and
very modest plurnage, aad of the size of q
| thrush, AS picked up he bird my attention
| was drawn to a fresh covering of green leaves
| on the black soil. This was the birds place of
| amusement which beneath the dense scrubs
1
| way, the ground having been cleared of
| leaves and rubbish. On this neatly cleared
spot the bird had laid large, fresh leaves ono by
| the side OF the other, with considerable regu-
| larity, and close by he sat singing, apparently
| extremely happy over his work. AS soon as
| the leaves decay they are replaced by new ones.
On this excursion 1 saw three such places of
/ amusement all near each other, and all had
/ fresh leo es from the kind Of trees while
| large heap of dry. w.thcred leaves was lying
| clos b. 1t seems tuaJ the bird scrapes away
! the mold every time it changes the leaves so as
! t. have dark background, against which the
| green leaves made a better appearances. Can
| any one doubt that this bird has the sense OF
| beauty"
| "CELLULoID has altogether superseded ivory
| as a material for pool balls, " said a manufact
| urer to Washington Star writer "a set OF
| sixteen celluloid balls will outwear three OF
| foAr sets of ivory, and they cost only S25
| whereas you cannot buy sixteen good ivory
| balls for less than S1l5 The condition of the
| atmosphere which causes the ivory balls Ia
| shrink and swell and crack. Just as IL they were
| made of wood, has no effect upon the Celluloid
| OF course you know that celluloid is q mixture
| of gun cotton and camphor Naturally Il
| make it white. After the ingredients have beer
| properly mingled with the aid Of steam heal
| the celluoid is pressed into blocks which are
| little bigger than the balls that to be made
| In order to render them as hard as possible the
| material is subjected to a pressure Of 300 tons