The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-01-07
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

~ Adh AZ llhN VI IcCb a uIH OAdCk cab Tue pSb
Of Mrs. Sarah Van Dykes family at Seh1enk-
vile. Pa, disappeared. He vas a mammoth
pussy. bis only defects being the absence of an
eye and tooth. which he bad lost in an en-
counter with another cat After a week went
by poor old Tom was given up as last. Last
Friday he threw the family nearly into fit of
fright by appearing in the dining room.
OWING to the increase of cotton fires In Liver
pool. which, during the past twelve months,
were 500 per cent. over those OF an average
year, the local insurance companies have just
issued new set of rules, which warehouse
owners say are calculated to ruin them, and
against which they are now vigorously protest
ing, says New \ oTk Sun cable from London.
Under the new regulations, If strictly, inforced.
the owners OF warehouses not constructed with
all the latest Improvements would, under pain
of losing their certificates, have TO rebuild the
whole of their premises if fire should break out
in any part Of them. As merchants would not
store their cotton IN an uncertihcated building.
the luckless warehousemen are in an awkward
NIX. The Liverpool insurance companies abso-
lutely control the local business, and, being
enormously wealthy as well, they laugh at the
threats of foreign competition.
CLUBS with peculiar names and missions con-
tinue to multiply, says the New York Press.
There is one called the vultures and Suicide
Club. Now Paresis Club is announced. It
has been discovered that actors and managers
eide and Paresis clubs Members OF tie former
who suffer real or imaginary misfortunes are
supposed to shuttle off their mortal coils or re-
slgu. The Paresis Club has good object. 1t
Is 70 care for members who happen 70 be
afflicted with the terrible incurable nnalady and
prevent them from being railroaded to asylums.
In the public institutions like Bloomjngdale
paretic patients probably receive more scien.
tinc and skillful treatment and care than the
club can possibly sxpect to furnish One Of
the aims OF the club is evidently to aid their
members stricken with par sis and TO escape
the publicity that follows their admission to in
sane asylums
IT was the late King Theodore Of Abyssin;a
who once thought to bestoY honor upon Queen
Victoria by offering her his hand in marriage,
says the View York sun, The matrimonial
oyertures OF MS dussy majesty did not elicit a
response from the court OF St. James. Whether
or not the queen was willing to be q sister 20
Theodore. her government took his orphan boy
under its wing after Theodore saw the British
scaling TIE nights OF MaKdaa and shot him
self. This young man has since been living in
England. though the ways Of civilization do not
seem to agree With him. At least he has fol-
lowed the. example of too. many. of
uproarlously drunk and landing in
a police court, where he was fined the
other day, like an ordinary mortal. for dis
orderly conduct. Semi barbarous scions of
royalty do not seem TO thrive when they are
taken to England to acquire erudition and live
on pension. Alsmsyou, the heir OF another
dusky monacrh whofel before the British
arms. dropped and died In the trying English
climate whils his tutor was making civilized
young man OF him. Duleep Singh, the heir to
the throne of the Sikhs, was fayorably i'm
pressed neither by British schools nor the size
OF his quarterly allowance. When he struck
for hlg Ter wages he was turned adrift and
lived on his pa" ned Jewels until &c was partly
restored to favor. two or three years ago.
A CORRESPONDENT of lie Genie Ciua makes a
curious suggestion in regard TO the possible
use of the typewriter in cipher writing It is
well known that favo1te torn of scored cor
respondence consists in substituting certain let
ters for Others, each party having the key by
which he can replace the substituted ones by
those intended to be read. The ordinary type
writer can readily be used for cipher writing by
simply Transporting the types on the type bars
so that, for example. the touching of the KEY
marked will print c, B will print r and SO on.
After one instrument has been so transposed the
other is to be correspondingly rearranged, SO
that the key will print A, the key r will print
b. and so on. Then \, the correspondent at
one end Of the line, on receiving a cipher
dispatch from the other, Y, has only
to copy It on his typewriter Tho ma
chine, retrsnsposinz the letters automat-
icslly. will at once give an accurate
translation, while KS reply, written on the
same typewriter which translated VS. original
letters. which by copying on Us typewriter,
will be In its turn translated. The advantages
OF cipher correspondence Of this kind is that
the parties use different although reciprocal
ciphers, and comparison OF dispatches capt
ured from each will give little clew to the
meaning of either. Moreover, it would net be
very difficult with some typevriters which have
two space keys, to make the space keys operate
types so that the document would be an uain-
terrupted string of letters. Some writing is
very difficult to decipher from the bility
of telling where she words begin or end yet the
corresponding instrument BY mere copying
would translate it perfectly.
TEE Greek and the Roman galleys when com
pared with the ships OF the middle ages show
not only greater stability, but fitness for MANY
uses besides that OF merely cutting the water,
says writer in So. Nicholas In one we find at
the waters edge sheaf OF twelve huge swords
or prongs for tearing an enemy at the water
line, while above are two iron spear-headed
rams, TO be run out violently by a concealed
crew, and shaped either TO smash in bulwarks
or to hook on to or cut the enemys rigging
From the platform above archers could dis
charge their arrows, or repel boardere. Other
war gslleys were provided with catapults from
which great masses of stone or marble shot
we're hurled upon the enemys ship or amid his
rowers. some of the larger ships carried great
cranes, which. being lowered to an opposing
ship, lifted with great graphing irons her
bow or stern hixh enough in air 10
render her helpless for attack or defense,
These machines. called 'corvi," were invented
blythe famous engineer Archimedes and we're
used by him with terrible effect at the siege OF
Syracuse. where the attacking galleys accord
ing to Plutarcn, advancing too close to the walls
were speared OF grappled with great iron
prongs, and after being lifted from the water
by the ends were swayed to and fro, whirled in
mid cir, and dashed to fragments against the
rocks, Though we may doubt the saying that
there Is nothing under the sun " we
certainly find naval architecture repeating it.
self, for our modern men-of-war are abandon
ing the open hghting-t tops at their mastheads.
and using the round, basket shaped fighting
towers which appear so often in old designs Of
Roman ships, especially of the time of 9uiins
CeseH-in which we also discover a prov. ram
or oeak so closely resen bling those of the Chi
cago, Atlanta and Maine. that We might accuse
the later designers Of plagiarism. One has
bow the exact counterpart Of the British iron.