Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-09-05
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

-Pekin boasts of 80, 900 beggars.
Photograph plates are now coated by
machinery.
There are nearly 8, 900 stitches in pair
Of hand-sewed boots.
The entire Salt river valley is said to be
honeycombed with caves.
g-Parrots cost but 10 cents each to ths
dealers in Central America.
| "A chicken with hawk-shaped head
ana beak is one of Missouri's curiosities.
| Chinese women are not taught to write
or read. They are not considered of enough
importance.
California has little girl who has nine
| fingers on one hand and eight toes on the
opposite foot.
There are said to be 1, JAP patent remi-
dies for cholera in the list at the United
| States Patent Office.
Out of 794 candidates examined at the
| Cambridge higher local examinations
recently 1872 were women.
A "talking clock" has been invented
by a matchmaker in that busy center Of
Theological art-the city of Geneva.
The hardest known wood is said to be
cocus wood. 1t turns the edge of any az,
however well tempered. SO it is claimed.
There is certain noted place of ths
earth where the sun and moon may both
happen to rise at the same instant and upon
the same point of the compass.
There Is a remarkable place of the
earth, of a southern latitude, from whose
meridian the sun removeth not for several
days at certain time of the year.
"A fisherman caught an immense trout
in the Austrian province of Istria a short
time ago. The fish is said to be over q
yard in length and half yard in circum-
terence.
There is a very remarkable place of the
terraqueous globe where all the planets, not
withstanding their different motions, do al
ways bear upon one and the same point of
the compass.
The workers alone in London hospitals
amount to 5000 persons, of whom some 13O0
are honorary medical officers who devote
their time to the treatment Of disease with
out Zee OF any kind.
There is vast country in Ethiopia
Superior to whose inhabitants the body OF
the moon doth always appear to be most en-
lightened when she is least enlightened and
to be least when most.
There is a certain place of the earth, in
northern latitude. where, though the days
and nights (even when shortest) consist Of
several hours, yet in that place it Is midday
or noon every quarter OF an hour. a.
The highest place in the world regu-'
larry inhabited is the Buddhist of haine, in
Thibet, which is 16, 900 feet above sea-level.
The highest Inhabited place in the Americas
is at Galera, Peru, 5,635 feet above the sea-
level. o
The Central Pacific Railroad has some
monster engines in use on the western end
of its route-those made at the Sacramento
shops in 1888 Each of these gigantic loco
motives weighs, exclusive of tender, l23 600
pounds.
AN English physician who has made a
study of bronchial diseases says that women
teachers are subject to a peculiar throat af-
fection. He recommends that they be
taught in training schols how to manage
the voice.
The task of photographing the heavens
and observations with the spectroscopa are
the two things which (apart from official
work. will chiefly occupy the astronomers
at the Royal Observatory for the next half
dozen years to come.
According to the foreign papers there
are now {, 1885 journals and magazines printed
in Germany. In 1891 there we're .443; in 1890,
3, ,204; In 1889, 2 9S2, and IN 1855. 2 729. There
has been an increase since last year, there
fore, of 95, and since 1883 of sO9.
In connection with the Egyptian ma
tions, the Gnostics, well as some of the
early Christian fathers, speak of Christ as
the scarabeus and symbolic Him as man
with beetles head. The Egyptians always
embalmed this sacred insect.
The latest triumph of Yankee inventive
genius is an India rubber fish worm. 1t is
said to be a remarkably good imitation Of
the common earth wOrm is 1ndestructible,
and in actual use proves as aiuring TO the
fishes as the genuine article.
-Peeresses of Great Britain, Scotland or
Ireland, by birth, marriage or creation, are
free from arrest or i1nprisO nment in civil
process; and in the event of a peeress being
charged with a criminal offenSe she would
be tried by the House of Lords
The deepest soundings eyer taken in
the Pacific Ocean, or, in fact. any place on
the globe, were made in the vicinity of the
Ladrone Islands, in north latitude 12o A.
east longitude l43o 16', where the depth was
found to. be 26,S5O feet a, 475 fathoms), or
about five miles.
"A statistical item of interest to women
is that women to-day are two inches taller,
on an average, than they were % years ago.
The cause is found in the exchange of the
embroidery needle for the tennis racket,
oar and the gymnastc apparatus OF the
school and college.
Both the Kurds and the Cossacks be-
1ieve that Ararat is guarded by an unearthly
being and that no man can ascend the peak
opinion, however, as to what kind OF spirits
are on guard, the former claiming that the
devil is guard supreme, the latter that angels
are on watch.
About 250, 900 canary birds are raised
every year in Germany, and, besides the
100000 birds that are sent to this country, the
English market takes about $4,000 and the
next best customers are Brazil, China, the
Argentine Republic and Austria, to which
country statesmen are sent with large num-
bers of birds every year.
Twenty millions of acres of land in the
State of Washington are covered with a
growth of wood which will cut an average
of $4,000 feet OF merchantable lumber per
acre. Much OF it in the vicinity of. Port
Crescent will cut an average of 100 900 feet
and more to the acre, while single trees are
common that will cut 8, 900 feet.
1t has been found that horsefies, bees,
bumblebees and other insects of that ilk
can be held by the legs and made to produce
the humming OF buzzing noises so charac-
teristic of the two winged insect family,
even though their wings De entirely re-
moved; and that q partial (say the clipping
of a half or two-thirds Of each w1ng) removal
of the organs of flight only serves to increase
I,., 1t,, ,.sl H., 80 = Nll