Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-04-02
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

| 1t cost over 5000 recently IN legal feeS
in South Carolina to settle a claim of S..
The glare of the white, sandy plains Of
| Africa produces dangerous ophthalmia.
A mother, father and their IS children
Joined in one day Mennonite colony in
Lane county, Ore.
In the year 1929 the Chinese completed
an imperial canal that traversed distance
of 1000 miles, 40-days sail for the Mongolian
| junk.
| "A bill entitled SIT shall be unlawful to
hire any red-headed female to play base
J ball" was recently introduced in the Albany,
| n. Y, Legislature.
! Numerous grandchildren of both the
contracting parties attended the wedding Of
a groom of 75 and q bride of IL at Crawfords-
vile, Ind, few days ago.
DR.. Livingstone once said he had
walked for weeks through region in Africa
where a lake ought to be. according to the
| maps, and he never saw the lake.
Umbrellas are rarely used in Alden,
Arabia. Rain has fallen there only twice in
| 90 years. Previous to the last rain, which 90
Cured in 1888, there q period of dry
weather which lasted 2G years.
"A monkey in the Philadelphia Zoo
tried to commit suicide by cutting its throat
with piece of glass; after his mother had
whipped him. He made a frfghtfuI cash be-
fore his mother took the glass away
In the South of Europe the rosemary
has long had magic properties ascribed to it.
The Spanish ladies use1 to wear it as an an
tidote against the evil eve. and the Portu-
guese called it the elfin plant, and dedicated
1t to the fairies.
In Corea three spirits are supposed to
enter the world with every infant, guarding
the child until it grows up. For these mys-
tprinus the9p lit tla baorS q Z
upon the child's waistband, each containinS1
O lock of its hair.
Mr. Gladstone is the owner of the largest
lead pencil in the world. II is the git OF q
pencil maker at Keswick, and is 80 inches in
length. In place of the customary rubber
cap it has u gold cap. Its distinguished own
er uses it for walking stick.
In the olden days Egyptians wore golden
eyes for the purpose of wardinS of the evil
influences which were supposed to cause
diseases of the eyes. A person whose right
eye was sick would carry the corresponding
optic carved in metal, and vice versa.
Gold is weighed by troy weight, while
feathers are weighed by avoirdupois; and as
the II ounces in pound troy contains but
$3.50 grains, while the avoirdupois pound
contains 1000 grains, the pound of feathers
is 1910 grains heavier than the pound OF
gold.
The statistics show that the North Ger
man Lloyd Steamship Company heads the
list of passengers carried across the Atlantic
for 1891 with total of 1884, SIS passengers Tor
New York, and the Hamburg American
comes next with 5259G0, giving total OF
l,264, ,56S.
"A remarkable instance of the tendency
to change and even mutiate d word in order
to give it familiar and suggestive appear
ance is found in the expression 'jerked
beef" which is n ready English substitute
for ''charqui," the Peruvian word for meat
cooked in smoke, or '.jerEed."
There Is spider in New Zealand that
usually throws coils of his web about the
head of his prey until the wretched victim!s
first blinded and then choked. In many IN
fTeQuented dark hooks of the Jungle you
come across most perfect skeletons of small
birds caught in these terrible Snares-
In the presence of her parents or par
ents-in-law, a Chinese woman may not
sneeZe or cough, neither stretch. yawn nor
lolI about when tired. nor may she presume
to stare at them. She should wear II happy
face. and a mild, pleasant department in
serving them, in order TO soothe them
1t was not usual for the old Romans to
have baths in their houses though at date
15OO wears before that. or $500 years AGO. the
nobIemen of ancient Greece had their dwell
ings supplied with baths of terTa-cotta. A
DortiOn of such a bath found by DIR.
Schliemann in the palace of the King Of
Ttryns, contemporary with Achilles, Paris,
Helen, and the war against Troy.
Some of the most valuable objects OF
art nowadays are hung upon watch guards.
There is well-known WashinStonian whose
scarf is usually adorned with Egyptian
scarab worth 5000. It's appra1scment is so
high not so much on account of its exquisite
workmanship as because it was found in the
sarcophagus of Rameses the Great and Isl
believed to have been the royal seal
The wren is chased every st. Stephens
Day on account of it's betraying the Savior
by chattering in clump of furze where he
was hiding. 1t is called the ''king of all
birds" because it concealed it7elf beneath
the wing OF the eagle when that lortily bird.
claimed supremacy by soaring highest.
"Here am" said tho wren, mounting above
the eagles head when the latter could go no
higher.
A curious book, in which the text is
neither written nor printed but woven, has
lately been published at Lyons. 1t is made
of silk and was published in IS parts. Each
part consists of two leaves, so that the en-
tire volume only contains 80 leaves. ir-.
scribed with the service of the mass and
several PRAYERS. Both the letters and the
border are in black silk on a white back
ground.
The number of persons in Great Britain
who approve of cremation seems to be stead
lily increasing. From the report of The
Cremation Society of England for 1891, it
appears tDat IN 1870, Cne 0fSt year Ine cTetIld-
torium ut WokinS used. only bodies
were sent there: in 1856 the number 10;
in 1887. IL: in 1883. 2S: in 1ss9 46; in 1870, "a;
and during the past year, 80. Crematorla
are being built in various part of the
country.
NJ J. Lajard, who has been investigat-
ing the welI-known whistling language OF
the inhabitants of the island of Conner. in
the Canaries, has come to the conclusion
that it is really the Spanish language fntensf-
fed by the aid of wiIistling. In speaking
the Gomerian puts his fingers in his mouth
by twos Or fOurs and blows with might and
main The result * mixture of words and
whistles unintelligible to the tyro: but after
a little practice one can distinguish the
words of the language.
While splitting an ash tree into rails
few days ago. Rensselaer, Hopkins, of Monu-
ment Creek, Pa, came across a section Of
the heart that was decayed rs fine as pow
der The rotten part was 81 feet long and
the heart and outside of che tree were as
sound as nut below and above it. There
was no hole from the outside, and in the
hollow Mr.. Hopkins found hatful of dead
honey bees and an ounce lead bullet. The
layers of growth showed that the bees had
baap t11ere for q least II vears