The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-11-14
ITEMS OF INTEREST.
Gardening was the pet hobby Of GounC
the distinguished composer.

telephone depot says. the London News
Myriads OF wires run from it darkeninP the
air: Everyone in Sweden uses the teleph one
and uses IL, moreover very much. A writer
in the "Cornhill. - who has been sOiourning in
boarding house in the Swedish apitaJ, de
clares that the most significant feature in the
routine OF the establishment was the never
ending telephone babble. When he aWoke in
the morning 1t was to hear the jingle Of the
bells in the corridor outside his room and the
, iteration of the word .'hvad? (what0. One
morning he asked the landlord who was al
the machine, what it all meant. His wife, hi
replied was buying some stores and was
telling him about them and
| their prices, and he on his part was shouting
back 10 tell her in which particulars the pri-
ces seemed reasonable and in which unrea-
sonable. Another day the writers landlord
went Tor sledge drive into the country.
w men ne had been gone two hours the tele-
phone began TO be annoying. and his wife
stayed at 1t a long time, crying, OH ano
'ah.n and yes" and no" 1t is monsieur, "
explained young lady who happened to be
standing by. He Is resting for dinner at -
and IS informing madam about the incidents
OF MS excursion and the details of the meal
that Is being prepared for him.
ITO transact the business of the railways,
says writer in the Cincinnati Enquirer
there were required last year the services OF
81 l36 locomotives, of which SS48 were EN-
ployed in passenger service, 1859 in freight
service and 6729 in yard service and IN service
not specified. To perform the passenger
/
cars were employed, and the freight service
OF the country gave employment to 966,9So;
369O1 cars were required in the service Of the
railways themselves. Putting these figures
in more concrete and definite form. the To-
| comotiyeS of the railways Of the United
States, If marShaled, with their tenders,
| into single line, would make a train
35T miles long. With the passenger cars
reported owned last year, we might make a
train that would reach from Boston to within
hfteen miles OF Philadelphia. But the most
civ,
lar arrangement of cars in freight service.
Placing these cars together in continuous
train, II seems almost incredible that this
train would be 7,028 miles long but so the
hgures make 1t appear, and, allowing the
distance from Boston to San Francisco to
be B. 600 miles, one train of freight cars would
reach from Boston 30 San Francisco, from
san Francisco back to Boston. and from BOS-
ton again as far west as Chicago. What
tonnage they would move at single load l
leave you 10 conceive If you can"
There is no doubt, says the Popular
Science Monthly that birds take delight in
the gorgeousness Of their own feathers and
the more brilliant their hues the greater the
vanity they display. Conspicuous examples
or this love OF admiration, and fOndnesS of
para1ing their hnery are the peacock and
bird of paradise. The decoration of its bou-
doir by the bower bird. as described by Mr..
Gould in his History of the Birds of New
South Wales" indicates decided and dis
criminative preference for bright and varie-
gated OBJECTS and eYfnceS no small amount
of aesthetic feeling and artistic taste in select
ing and arranging them. The bower is built
OF sticks and slender twigs grace
fully interviewer, so that the tapering
points meet at the top, and adorned
with the rOSe-cOlOred tail feathers of the inca
cOckatoo and the gay plumes of other parrots,
tinted shells, bleached bones, rags of divers
hueS, and whatsoever gaudY or glittering
trlnkets that may have pleased the birds
fancy. Sometimes the space IN front of the
bower is covered with half bushel of things
OF this sort, laid out like q parterre with the
winding walks, in which the happy posseSsor
of the garnered treasures struts about with
the pride and pleasure of a cOnnoisseur in a
gallery OF paintings, or a bibliophie who has
his shelves filed with incunabula and other
rare editions. These objects have often been
brought from a great distance. and are of no
possible use to the bird except as they crafty
its love of the beautiful and appeal to what we
call in man the aesthetic sense.
Fer the healthy the nap in the afternoon is
not necessary. and the brain will not demand
it, says the Hospital. If1a man finds himself
mapping at that time, either he has eaten too
much at his midday meal. or his cerebral cir
culation is feeble. 1t is the universal ha bit Of
the pig that is being fattened to sleep in his
sty after his midday meal. The working
horse, on the other hand, which gets nothing
at midday but feed of cOrn-a small but
highly nutritious meal-does not sleep at all
after it, but is fresh and ready for work in
half an hour. One would like to persuade all
literary workers to work in the day and to
sleep at night. They should never 90 for
more than eight hours a day. Early rising
would be good for most OF them. cup OF
coffee and a piece Of toast at $50 o'clock
might be followed by an hours work from :
to 3. The whole hour between and should
be devoted to thoroughly good break
fast and a short walk. Work from to 12
Half an hour should be spent in gentle
sauntering in the fresh air and light lunch
should follow-say chop and bread, with
modicum of light pudding. From / to 2 a
pipe and a saunter, and at ? a cup of black
coffee From to work; at a cup of after
noon tea and rest until ;. From to or
$50 work, and at 81 the real labors OF the
day should be over and completed. At z
o'clock good, well-COOked, appetiZing slow
ly-eaten dinner, followed by one Gun of black
coffee, but no tea. At l0:45 O'Clock a small
cup of cocoa and one or two pieces Of toast
At IL O'Clock go to bed and sleep till 6 or $50
O'Clock. The rain worker should not work
more than five days week in this fashion
He should have two days of leisure in the
week The first of these should be devoted
to brisk and thoroughly fatiguing exercise in
the open air, and the second to lolling, loung-
ing, little light reading and the like This
Is the kind of life which physiology would
suggest for the brain-worker, and in this
scheme OF life there is neither place nor
necessity for the afternoon nap
About fifty species of fishes have been
found to possess electrical organs, but their
electrical properties have been studied in de-
Jdll only III lNe or SIX, says the FOrtnightlV
Review. The best known are various species
Of torpedo belonging to the skate famiIv1
found in the Mediterranean and Adriatic
seas; the gymnOtuS, an eel found in the Ia
goons IN the region Of the Orlnoco, IN South
America; the Malapterurus. the raash or
thunderer fish OF the Arabs. native Of the
Nile, the Niger, the Senegal, and other Afrf.
can rivers, and various species of skates
tRala. found IN our own seas. 1t is curious
that the Nile is rich in electrical fishes SOW
eral species OF plke-l1ke creatures (dormyrus
and hyperop1sus) possessing electrical organs
the structure OF which has Teen quite recently
investigated by F'ritsch. The electrical
nShes do not belong to any one class or groID
and some are found in fresh water whiie
others inhabit the ocean. Two distinrt
types of electrical organs eyiet
One is closely related in structuTe ~
muscle. as found in the torpedo. gymnotps
and skate, while the other presents more Of
the characters of the structure of n secretin,r
gland, as illustrated by the electric organ If
the thundeler fish. Both types are bniIt mn
OF vast number Of minute-indeed. nicrdp1
scoplcal- elements, and each element is SIM.
pied with nerve fiber. These nerve fibers
come from large nerves that originate in the
nerve centerS-brain or spinal cortland in
these centers we find special large nerve cells
with which the nerve fibers of the electric or
gan are connected and from which tba,
spring. We may therefore consider tbe whole
electric apparatus as consisting Of three
parts; % Electric CenterS in the brain on
spinal cord, (2l electric nerves passing to tho
electric organ and (3) the electric Organ IL
SELF. 1t must not be suppos ed however, tbnt
the electricity is generated in the elect rio 80