The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-05-28
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

chilly month: February-S prokelmaand veg
citation month; March-Lentmaand. spring
/ month; April-Grasmaand, grass month;
| May-Blowmaand, flower month: June-Zom-
| ermaand, summer month July Hooymaand
nay month; August-Oostmand, harvest
| month; September-Her tsmaand. autumn
| month; October ynmaand, wine month;
| ACCOMPLISHMENTS slaughter month";
Observation-Disclosures winter month.
Bees and birds court the society of man
that is they seek the localities where fields
| and gardens abound, for they fare better when
human industry EFFORTS from the soil the
| products upon which they subsist. Maine
bee culturtst says il is the rareSt thing in the
world to find bees away from the settlements
Or from openings where flowers grow It is
| IN the small patches Of forest they are often
| est found, and generally not far from the edge
| of the woods. 1t is the same with birds
Ihere are DO song birds in the Northern
| Maine wilderness and scarcely anything that
| can be called bird life. Birds cluster around
| towns and villages.
Men are getting more effeminate than they
| use to be in many ways The man who wore
a flower in the buttonhole of his coat few
| years ago was looked upon as either dude
| or botanist, but to-day dozens of men are
| to be found in every hotel corridor with more
| or less prominent boutOnniereS, and from the
| way florists windows are arranged IL is
| quite evident a large share of their re-
| celpts come from what they call button
| holes From an aesthetic point of view the
! practice is pleasant one and is generally
| liked, but 1t is also somewhat of an indication
| of what ten years ago would have been re-
| garded as dudishness.
The Philadelphia Record says that the
original inventor of the nickel-in- the-slot ma
| chine is a Philadelphia Away down on the
| border line of the 1'wenty-seventh ward is an
oldtaSh1oned road house known as the Union
| hotel. 1t has been a road house for sixty
| three years. Long ago it was kept by old
| Capt. Serrill, who had an inventive son. now
| Jeweler on South Ninth street. In the old
road house are many ingenious clock-work
| machines constructed by young Serrill years
| ago Among them is large hen, so con-
structed that by dropping nickel in the slot
| the hen lays an egg. This it is claimed is
| the first nickel-in-t heslot machine ever con
| structed, and although it was never patented
all the present inventions were Matched from
| this old hen
The majority of travelling men sleep head
| foremost on a we'll ballasted road and feet
| foremost on a road where the cars sometimes
run on the track and sometimes on the ties
| says the st. Louis Globe Democrat. 1t is much
| pleasanter to sleep mead first, as it were, be-
| cause 1t prevents that swelled-head feeling
Whlch results from too much blood being
| forced in the direction of where a charitable
| humanity assumes the brain to be- But in
case OF an accident it is very much
| pleasanter to sleep the other way.
Nature did not provide the human neck
with as many joints as that of giraffe
| or ostrich, and when a train suddenly
| comes to standstill and the whole force of
the collision comes on the top of the skull, the
feeling is decidedly unpleasant, If not worse
| On the other hand, the knees have a kindly
| tendency to give" on the occasion Of the col
llslon, and hence II man is sleeping feet first
| he has less occasion to use bad language when
train stops little more suddenly than usual
| have been in about ten collisions in the last
| four or five years, and speak from experience
| merely adding that the device and arrange
ment is not copyrighted
Two miles out from Kamakura, and about
| twenty miles from Yokohama in Japan on
| terrace near the temple of Kamakura, sits
| the most gigantic idol, or heather god, now
| known to exist, says the Chicago Herald
| This immense braZen image of a deity was
| built or made during the reign of Shomu,
who was forty-sixth in the present line of
| emperOrS, and who died in the year 74S A. ID.
| This idol, which has been prayed to daily for
more than 100 years by the crowd of de-
| voices that hourly cluster about 1t, is still
| in perfect repair and justly reckoned as one
| of the greatest wonders of the orient. Frank
| DobbinS, who visited Dai-ButSu and has
| given the best description of the gods that
| has yet been written. says; 1.-The dimensions
| of this god are truly colossal His hight
| from the base of the lotus flower upon which
| he sits to the top of his head is 632 feet, and
| above this rises an aureOle IA feet wide above
which again rises for. several feet the flame
like glory which incloseS or arches in the whole
figure. The face proper is 16 feet long; its
width 9h feet. The eyes are 3 feet 9 inches
long from corner to corner, the eyebrows So
! feet and the ears 81 feet. The chest is 20
feet in depth and the middle finger is exactly
8 feet long Around the sides. head and shout
ders of the god, in front of the aureole, are
sixteen figures, each in a sitting posture and
| each feet in hight The leaves of the i'm
| mense lotus upon which the god sits are each
10feet long and feet wide, there being fifty
/ six of them in cluster. The casting must
| have been wonderfully we'll executed, al
| though the fineness of the leaf edges and
other parts which 1 was able to examine
and the elaborate engraving, which can be
still traced upon the flower itself in the I'M
| injured parts, leave no doubt that the
founders art was supplemented here and
there by artists with file and graver. The
right hand is open and raised upward the
left rests upon the lap The image weighs
about 450 tons, and is made of combination
of gold, tin, copper and mercury.
There are, perhaps, few substances more
widely, if indirectly, used and at the same
time less known to those outside the imme-
date industry concerned than gambler The
| very name is unfamiliar to the general pub
lie, while any knowledge of the origin and
mode of preparation of gambler is uncom-
mon. Gambler is very extensively employed
in the dyeing and tanning industries and a
large number of materials and articles of
daily use have in the course of their manu-
facture been treated with the substance under
consideration. Gambler is, moreover. a Valu-
able medicine, says the st. Louis Post Dis
patch. Similar in chemical composition to
ordinary catechu, gam bier is obtained by
boiling the leaves and twigs of the uncaria
gambler plant, native of the east, and found
either wild or cultivated in the Straits set
!
Sumatra Uncaria gambler belongs to the
natural order rubiaceB. in which are also
embraced the cipchonas or quinipe yielding
plants as we'll as coffee Z he flowers are
small and crowded together, and the plant it
self is a strong, shrubby climber. Gambler
appears to have been used in India for dye
ing purposes from very remote period, but
its introduction into Europe commenced with
the present century. The manufacture of
gambler is. still conducted on very primitive
lines and with the crudest appliances A
plantation is generally cropped some
eighteen months after being planted
and cropping may be repeated as
often as four times a year, the
operation being ofttimes conducted with no
| sparing hand. The remaining process is
exceedingly simple The leaves twigs, etc.
are boiled in rough caldron until the water
| In which they are STEPPED becomes syrup.
| The extract is then drawn off cooled and
| stirred until capitalization commences
The gambler is then cut by hand into cubes,
dried either by simple exposure to the air or
| by smoke and packed in mats for expectation
The life of a gambler plantation averages
only some ten years and in fifteen wears at
the latest 1t is abandoned. The capital re-
CURED is very small, and the returns are
rapid; hence the favor with which the indus
! try is regarded by the Chinese. Gambler has
pale brown or yellow color, with an even
earthly fracture, the cubes of commerce be-
ing about an inch square There is much va
ration in the quality of the gambler offered
for sale, and the art of adulteration has pene-
trated this branch of industry. At one time