Chicago eagle. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1889-19??, 1893-07-29
NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Sheriff's sale of the Panama Star and
Herald. This journal for several years
derived an enormous revenue in subsidies
from the Panama Canal Company, be-
sides the legitimate advertising which
came to it. While the canal boom lasted
it coined money, and even in the days
of the decline it had a royal income.
When canal work ceased, however, the
ruin of business on the isthmus was
total, and for many months the paper
has been filled with matter sent on from
New York. The history Of this journal
during its flush days would make very
readable article. The chief difficulty of
its manager was to get competent news
paper men to remain at Panama. The
deadly fever was a menace that out
weighed all the advantages of hand
some salary and liberal allowances for
expenses. One New Yorker, who was
lurcd by the golden bait offered, reached
Panama only to learn that his piede-
cessor had succumbed the night before
to a sudden attack of fever. The new
mans nerves were SO badly shaken that
he took the steamer for San Francisco,
after spending less than twelve hours in
the place that proved so deadly to an
army of adventurous spirits.
"IT does net seem to be generally
known tina: the English sparrow is a
superior article of food, indeed real
delicacy," writes Government ornith,
ologist in short monograph prepared
as a result of an inquiry set on foot by
the Agricultural Department. A desire
to crafty epicurean tastes may not have
inspired the Department to pursue tins
line of investigation, for in the same re-
port the hope is expressed that the table
qualities OF the despised bird may rec
ommend it speedily to popular favor,
not only because it supplies a delicate
and wholesome article of food, but be-
cause "its general use will tend to dim
inish the rapidly increasing swarms
which in many parts of the country have
become veritable scourge." Neverthe-
less the ornithologist finds that Through,
out Europe the sparrow always has been
held in high esteem as table bird, and
in Great Britain sparrow pie has come to
be regarded as fairly typical of all that
is savory and appetizing. The young at
the time OF leaving the nest are about
two thirds as heavy as their parents, and
If properly prepared from the most
tempting morsels imaginable. "Thou-
sands of sparrows are sold to restaurants
annually in some cities, and often are
served to unsuspecting customers as rice
birds or ortolsn.p
Tire oldest industry of the Atlantic
coast, the fisheries, is the newest industry
of the Pacific. Until a few years age
the fishermen ontthe northern coasts o
California paid no attention to the vas
quantities of sturgeon and halibut there
regarding them us worthless, and it i
only within two or three years that tn
majority of places further north ant
down the southern coast now maxim:
money in fish have paid any attention
whatever to the industry. Last year 81,
million pounds of sturgeon were take
from the Columbia River and shippe'
East, and altogether u hundred or so ca
loads of this one kind of fish went Eas
from that region. In the last year o
two there have been large discoveries o
halibut in Alaskan and other norther
waters, and salmon are getting NOR
plentiful in the streams of that region
Los Angeles and other southern Cal
Eornia points have within year or S
become great shippers of fish to th
East, barricudas and yellow tails bein
the chief varieties. Fish catching an
shipping is becoming great bushes
on the coast said United States Els
Commissioner Wilcox in San FrancisC
recently, "but it is really just beginning
On the Atlantic coast it was the tisheri
which first made men rich. Here it
the last thing for men to turn their a
tention TO-.
A NEW enterprise of some account
looming up. 1t is the farming out
railroad damage suits. Three years a!
the officers of one of the trunk lin
asked a firm of lawyers what sum tn
would take to defend the road in
suits arising from death, accident, al
destruction of property, and pay t
damage in case of loss. The lawy'
named figure. and have since reliev
the officers of all anxiety and, virtual
of responsibility. Their undertaken
like insurance, is somewhat speculate
but they have killed so many suits
the courts and have compromised
such advantageous terms in other ca
that they have made large pro
Other roads have followed suit With
wear or so, and now several firms
lawyers are deyoting themselves to
work. A road that hardly includes
miles of track is understood to pay 81
600 year as an insurance against dams
suits.
DURING the prevalence of the rec
drought in Italy the children Of one
the landed proprietors of the province
Salerno had dream in which the
donna appeared to them and said
rain would fall as soon as an image
herself buried in certain field could
dug up. Many peasants acting on
supernatural tip began at once to
for the image After several d
labor they unearthed two ancient toi
decorated with mural paintings,
some valuable vases. Near by they
covered an antique house, In one OF
rooms OF which was clumsy repre
tation OF a human figure This
peasants declared % he the image de
mated In the dream and II has bcei
object Of alteration 20 thousand.