The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1893-01-26
or GENERAL INTEREST.

1T is estimated that the Mississippi
river annually discharges into the Gulf
of Mexico 13, 500; 900, 900, 900 cubic feet
of water Of this prodigious quantity
the 12. 900 part will be sediment. Thus
the Mississippi atntally deposits alone
into the Gulf of Mexico sufficient mud
to cover square mile of surface to a
height of 240 feet.
The gluttouous capacity Of full
grown Esqumaux is reported TO be
equal to the consumption of twenty
pounds Of flesh and oil daily, while an
other inha bitant of the cold climates, a
1aku>, of Siberia, has been known to
consume in twenty-fonr hotifs the hindz
quarter of large OK, twenty pounds Of
fat ani a Quantity OF 1helted butter for
his drink.
Some elderly Philadelphia women,
inmates of the Pennsylvania Women's
home, are becoming distinguished ath-
letes in their declining years, At re.
cent picnic two Of them, Miss Hopple
and Miss Houghton, each sixty =fve
years of age, indhlgcd in hfty-yard
dash. A football contest and foot
race were other features of the enter.
tainment
-Cremationists, among other afgu
fhehtS against interment of the dead,
state that it requires thousand acres
of land yearly to bury those who die in
the United States, and that the expense
of funerals exceeds the annual output
of our gold and silver mines Possibly
1t might be figured ont that in course of
time all our wealth as well aS bodies
and land would go into the cemeteries.
Miss Martha D. Bessey, of New
York, who won the prize of fifty dollars
for the best design of the badge to be
worn by the lady manage ers Of thewoflds
fair, is q voting lady of twenty-five, who
received her art education at Cooper
institute, and is at present the only
woman designer employed by Tiffany &
Co. Miss Sarah Winthrop Smith, Of
Connecticut, received honorable men
tion among the competitors for the
prize
The employees of Nine n e. Felicie,
dealer In childrens costumes and
French underwear for ladies, in New
York, receive, besides their regular
salaries. one-half the net profits of the
business. On her recent. feturn from
Paris, Madame Felicie distributed
twenty-five per cent. of the profits in
cash, deposited twenty per cent. in the
bank for the employees and set aside the
remaining five per cent as sick-bene-
fit fund.
Mrs. G. c. Candy, of Denver, lately
bicycle, the first woman, and doubtless
for some time the last to venture on
such perilous undertaking. The de-
scent occupied four hours and fifteen
minutes. The daring cyclist had dam
gerous fall from her wheel over line
OF steep powders, and encountered a
pelting storm of rain and hail, but re-
ceived no permanent injury from her
unusual experience.
Whenever we see any report of the
progress of buildings for the world S
fair it is abundantly strewed with
adjectives conveying the idea of great
ness, elegance and awe, but from only
one paper have we learned that there
have been 5000 hospital eases and seven
hundred deaths among the wor.sing
men since the construction of the build
ings began. The converting of marsh
by the lake to paradise park has re-
suited in more sickness and death than
we had any idea was likely to be at
tendant upon that great work of trans
formation.
-''Chicago'' is spelled in various
ways by the residents of this country,
but now that the world outside is be-
coming acquainted with the great west
ern metropolis, marvellous spell of
orthography has been inaugurated. In
sorting over the letters from various
parts of the world 1877 different ways of
spelling the name have been found,
among them ''Jagjago," 'Hipaho," !"
"Jajigo," ''Shecchago," "Hizago,"
s'Chachicho," and "a scholarly resident
of Finland indulges in "Zizazo." A
collection of addresses is to be kept for
exhibition at the worlds fair.
The vandal woodcutters in the Cal
ifornia sequoia forests used to cut the
trees at distance of from a dozen 10
twenty feet above the ground in order
to avoid the gnarled and knotted base.
But it has lately been found that these
stumps are as valuable as the straight
wood. The gnarls present most beauti-
full figurings, and the wood is sawed
into thin sheets aud used for interior
decorations. Now these stumps are be-
ing dug out, and soon noteven avestige
will remain to show what was the ap-
pearance of some of the most majestic
natural monuments of this wonderful
continent.
Why Grass Grows Hollow.
The stems of grass and oats are usu-
allv hollow and the knots or nodes