The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1894-03-31
FOREIGN GOSSIP.

-Dueling in Russia has become so
common that the government has been
compelled to decree code of punish
ment. If a duelist kills an antagonist.
it will cost him six years in prison; for
severe wounding, the penalty will be
three years; duel without injury, six
months; provoking duel, six weeks to
three months.
-Offenbach was the French Gilmore.
He always tried to please rather than
instruct, and of the sixty-four operas
that he wrote in less than twenty-five
years only one had the good fortune
to last more than three or four years.
His maxim was "a grain of wit is bet
ter than bushel of learning" and
never tired of repeating it.
in Hawaii, last year. 2,2s2 persons
"deserting contract service" BOT for
gambling, 10 for murder, n for VIOLA
ton of carriage ordinances, 1 for per
hitting ferocious beast abroad" for
attempting to leave the kingdom
without permit, "and III for disturb
ing the quiet of the night"
"A massage stone" is coming into
use in England that is made of UNI
glazed china and provided with sort
of dorsal lump for holding in the hand,
and has the rubbing slightly undulat-
ed, not to say ridged. The stone is
white, and even when used on recently
washed skin it soon becomes darkened,
showing that it squeezes good deal of
material from the pores
The hottest region on the earth's
surface is on the southwestern coast of
Persia, on the border of the Persian
gulf. For forty consecutive days in
the months of July and August the
mercury has been known to stand
above one hundred degrees in the shade
night and day, and to run up as high
as one hundred and thirty degrees in
the middle of the afternoon.
The Vienna police have general
charge of all newspapers, and keep rec
ords of all presses and publications,
maintain a censorship over all theaters
and plays, issue licenses for the publ
cation and sale of all books. magazines
and periodicals. All plays, dialogues,
songs, dances and entertainments by
societies, clubs or individuals must
be submitted to the police and approved
before production.
BY cholera and other diseases, the
Mohammedan pilgrimage to Mecca this
year cost the lives of more than thirty
thousand people in the space of fort
night. Medieval pilgrimages to Jeru-
salem were probably the cause of not a
few plague epidemics. A Mussulman
doctor and employee of the Egyptian
government, in a treatise on the pill
grimage, demands, if not its total sup
preston, at least a considerable modi-
fication.
In the English compulsory labor
prisons the prisoners pass nine months
in solitary confinement, and are then
assigned to the public works prisons
for hard labor. By good behavior they
experience gradual amelioration in
their condition. At first they are not
allowed to write or receive letters, and
may see no visitors. Then, upon ad-
vancement, they may write and receive
OuC iCutCl CFSiJ Sih inVnbhS oiiA SOC
one visitor; then the privilege is ex-
tended to once in four months. then
once in three.
The gaekwar of Baroda has pro-
posed new law for the purpose OF
stopping early marriages. Any five
members of group of families pos.
sessing the right of intermarriage may
call general meeting of the clan,
three-fourths of them being necessary
to form quorum. Nine-sixteenths oil
those present can say whether early
marriages should be prevented or not
and penalties are prescribed for those
who disobey the rule. Whoever de
sires to live outside the law or his clan
however, can notify the wahiwatdar te
that effect, and receive license to do a:
he pleases. Early marriages are made
to include not only the marriages Of
boys to girls, but also of bride o.
twenty-nine with a bridegroom o.
fifty"