St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1893-04-22
SOMEWHA STRANGE.
ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OF
EVERY DAY LIFE.
Queer Facts and Thrilling Adven-
lures Which Show That Truth Is
Stranger Than Fiction.

Queer Facts and Thrilling Adven
lures Which Show That Truth 1:
Stranger Than Fiction.
A FRENCH statistician, who has b en-
studying the military and other records
with view of determining the height Of
men at different periods, has reached
some wonderful results. He has not
only solved some perplexing problem:
in regard to the past of the human race,
but is also enabled to calculate its future
and to determine the exact period when
man will disappear from the earth. The
recorded facts extend over nearly three
centuries. 1t is found that in 1910 the
average height of man in Europe was
1.75 meters, or say five feet nine inches.
In 1890 it was five feet six inches. In
1920 it was five feet five inches and q
fraction. At the present time it is five
feet three and three fourths inches II
is easy to deduce from these figures q
rate of regular and gradual decline in
human stature, and then apply this,
working backward and forward to the
past and to the future. By this calcuIa-
tlOn it is determined that the stature of
the first men attained the surprising
average of sixteen feet, nine inches.
Truly, there were giants ON the earth in
those days, The race had already Ne
Perforated in the days of Og, and Goliath
was quite degenerate offspring of the
giants. Coming down to later tin VIC
find that at the beginning of our era the
l. average height of man was nine feet, and
In the time of Charlcmagne it was eight
feet eight inches. But the most aston
lshing result of this scientific study comes
from the application Of the same incxor-
able law of diminution to the future
The calculation shows that by the year
1000 A. D. the stature of the average
man will be reduced to fifteen inches.
At that epoch there will be only Lillipu-
tians ON the earth. And the conclusion
of the learned statistician is irresistible
that 'the end of the world will certainly
arrive, for the inhabitants will have be
come SO small that they will finally dis
appear" finish by disappearing, as
ne French idiom expresses it-"trom
the terrestrial globe"
Mr.. WALTER B. HARRIS who has Just
returned to England from Tangicr,
which seems to prove beyond dispute
the existence of the so-callcd "dwarfs'
of Mount Atlas, about whom so much
has been written of late. Mr. Harris en-
countered number of these small folk
and collected good deal of material
about them from their neighbors, who
say that they inhabit the most inacces-
sible parts of the mountains to avoid the
payment of tribute. But he does not be-
lleve in the pygmy or troglodyte theories.
He says: Il think that it is now conclu-
sivcly proved that the small people Of
Mount Atlas are not pygmies'-
they are, in fact, merely certain col
lection Of Shieh tribes, who, through
the high attitudes at which they live,
and the extremes of climate they are
subject to, from their poverty and ina
! bility to-grow crops, from the scarcity
and bad quality Of such food as they are
able to collect, have, in the lapse of cen
turtles, become of almost extraordinarily
= stunted growth. Why then have they
mot been seen ny former travellers? The
answer is simple. Both Sir Joseph
Hooker and Mr. Joseph Thomson, al
most the only Europeans who have ever
visited the Atlas, were during their
travels entirely in lands governed by
kaids representing the Sultan, and the
very proximity of these Kaids would
drive the small people to a distance,
who would never on any account visit
their castles. 1t is for this reason alone
that the existence of a stunted race of
Shieh people must have failed to have
attracted their notice.
FRANCIS W. JAMES of Port Townsend
Wash, who, with ]. B. Webster of Oak
land, was of the pioneer population of
that Territory thirty odd years ago,
stated ina letter to Mr.. Webster recently
that the Makah tribe of Indians at Cape
Flattery, just south of Vancouver island,
are increasing in numbers, which is I'M
usual, and that they are as wealthy
community of Indians as exists in the
UniSed States, made so by their industry,
also unusual and the increased value of
sealskins. These Indians now have their
own schooners, and cruise, with a white
captain of course, as far north us Alaska,
and are very successful. They also are
noted wha,emen, and engage extensively
in the cod, halibut aud salmon fisheries,
there being very extensive hslibut banks
few miles seward from Cape Flattery,
which are now annually visited by a
numerous fishing fleet. These banks
were discovered by Mr.. Webster and two
other white men in 1850 and quantities
of the fish caught and cured for market
during the next few years by his com
pany. Port Angeles is sixty miles from
Cape Flattery and was thirty years ago
without inhabitants, but is now a flourish
ing city of 5000 inhabitants, with a
grand future before it.
On Christmas Day, when the four
masted American ship Cyrus Wakefield
was in gale, First Mate William Nit
chelI was knocked overheard and swept
far astern. He had climbed to the poop
deck and had taken firm hold of q life
line to steady himself, when the spanker
boom got adrift, and swinging around
struck him and hurled him over the star
board quarter. One of the crew tied the
decp-sea lead line to life preserver and
80 I