Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-03-29
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS,

to agriculture amounts to 70, ,405 600 acres.
There is colony of darkies in Western
Alabama which Is ruled over by its own
queen.
Hackney coaches were forbidden during
the reign of Charles II. on the ground that
they destroyed the kings highway.
1t is interesting to note that of the
S2s 900 divorces granted in the United States
during the last 20 years $4,000 were granted
at the request of wives.
Out of 956 street car plants existing in
the United States and Canada $50 are oper-
ated by horses, 40 BY cables, 24s By cleo
tricity and IS by steam.
There are 955 religious papers in the
United States. whose combined circulation
Is about one-eight of all the newspapers
published in the country.
I'm Norway all Christian sects, except
Jesu1ts, are tolerated, and are free to exer.
else their religion within the limits pre-
scr1oed Dy the law and public order
The total sheep stock in Great Britain
az the end OF last year exceeded by 1900 900
head the hocks of two years ago. and by
more than Loo, 900 the fiocks of 1881.
According to LIE Patyiote. the vaIne of
the firearms exported from Belgium during
the past year amounted to q, ,024, ,1Is francs.
aissinS' 49, 1856 'sl in 1890 and l0ss,sOi in
One of the most interesting results Of
the British occupation of Egypt has been the
naturalization of the game of football within
Nile" WIG no'ins
-Ihe cocoanut trees of Florida are due to
nuts washed ashore from a wrecked vessel
10 wears ago. Now the State furnishes
nearly all the cocoanuts used in the United
States.
The number of students entered this
winter at the 20 universities of GERMANY
shows very marked decline The total ia
only .I,S56, as compared with nearly $4,000
last summer,
AT Gortyna, in Crete, some fresh Greek
inscriptions have been found by the peas
ants, most of which are Christian, one of
them giving on a sepulchral slab the name
OF Byzantine bishop.
Mrs. j. j. Gentry, who lives near Bio
Spring, Mo-, has O tumbler made out OF
cows horn with wooden bottom, one of six
ner father made to drink hard cider out of
In the campaign OF lS40.
The ''Society of the Friends of Trees''
hourishes in Nice. Its object is the general
restoration of the forests throughout the
French republic. All the bald spots are to
De covered with new growth.
During the 25 years ending with 1885.
l49l new papers were started in New Ye-,-
including so dailies and Gil weeklies.
these papers 1,1O5 died before the end OF
70 years, leaving percentage of abe
survivors.
The French Minister of War has iss
an order that henceforth every officer al.
every man in the French army shall, when
on actlve service, carry on his person
material for first dressing in case of hi,
being wounded.
Down in Rabun county, Ga, they have
or profess to have found a common looking
stone. like an ordinary bit OF rock. that
emlts the most brilliant scintillations It
night, or in a darkened place, and nobody
knows what it is.
The French journals record the dis
covery in the cantonal library at Aarau of q
COPY of the first edition of Holbein's "Dance
OF Death" of which the cuts (gravures) are
GATED loSS, and specified as the work of a
Frenchnan of Lyons.
There are more than 500, 900 bearing
banana plants, 100000 bearing lemon trees,
4.OOO,OOO orange trees. and 21,OO0OOO pine
apples. The value of tropical and semi
tropical fruits grown under the American
nag is nearly $40, 100000.
AN acid is now mixed with sawdust and
the whole mass nodded into blocks or any
other form, resulting in a fine material for
building purposes. The blocks assume ex-
cally non-combustibe.
Mineral naphtha is added to alcohol to
make it undrinkable, but according to the
Chemical Ne,rs there are men working in
chemical works who not only drink the
nauseated spirit. but are capable of swallow
ing coal naphtha itself.
In Sweden no civil disabilities now at
tach to those who are not of the national
faith, of whom, besides the $40 Roman
to 10 r<,1g~ n 0n0T IT.
brews, ia Mormonites. 1900 Protestant
Dissenters, OF whom SO are Irvingftes.
-Old-fashioned hunting matches have
been revived in Connecticut. Fifty men.
sometimes twice that number, elect captains
and hunt for a day and night, the side bag
ging the most game winning game suppSr
Ia the expense OF the defeated hunters.
English people eat more butter than
any other nation in the world. The Totze-
points out that the consumption per head is
13 pounds per annum, as compared with
pounds in Germany, pounds. in Holland. 4
pounds in France and pound in Italy.
Nearly all the royal personages of
Europe are cousins, and not yery far re-
moved, as it has been laid down by a Ger.
man genealogist that every crowned head of
Europe, bar i key, Is descended from one
of two sisters who lived about $50 wears ago
In the tombs of the Pharaohs have
uCth very approximations OF
the human eve in gold. Some of them are
left eyes and others right. They are beauti-
fully executed, the brows, lids and pupils
being carved out of little rectangular pieces
of metal.
Probably the only monument to Colum-
bus in the United States is in Baltimore, and
was erected 100 years ago. 1t stands on the
ground of the Samuel Ready Orphan Asy-
lum. A singular feature of its inscription is
that the immortal egg breaker was charac-
terized as Chris" Columbus.
Recently David Whipple chopped
three dormant blacksnakes out of a maple
log at his sugar camp in jackson township,
Pa. He placed them in kettle and hung
the kettle over the fire, and in few min
utes the snakes began to crawl around in
the kettle as though summer had come.
Andrew Mapes, of Dutch Mountain,
Pa, had his ak dulled by hard substance
in the trunk of an oak tree one day this
He cut out few more chips and
found q skeleton of coon in the hollow.
While chopping the rest of the tree into
Mr.. Mapes came across the skel-
etons of two more coons.
The Russians call the grip Chinese
catarrh, the Germans call it the Russian
pest, the Italians name it the Ger man dis
ease the French call it the italian fever and
the Spanish catarrh. The Italians invented
the term influenza in the seventeenth cent
ury, and attributed the disease to the inf1u-
ence of certain planets.
IDYLLIC HUM0RESQUES.