San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1894-12-22

y
The cost of new transcOntinental line
would scarcely be felt if taken out of
several years output.
MISCELLANEOUS.
" is the wit ami policy Of sin t.
ha those we have abuscd.-Davenant
During the winter the shores OF
South Africa and South America are
alive with penguins that have swum
600 or 800 leagues from the south polar
ice fields to the nearest land.
The use of the carrier pigeon is an
Gent Ovid says that TauroSthenes,
by sending a pigeon stained purple,
gave notice to his father at Aegina of
his victory at the Olympic games.
According to Thucydides, Pericles
delivered very eloquent grafton at
the obsequies of those who fell at the
commencement of the Peloponnesian
war.
The points of a cross-bill's mandi-
bles do not meet, but cross each other.
This popularity is of great service to
the bird in forcing open the pine burrs,
on the seeds of which it feeds.
S .humann, the composer. was long
the victim of me ancholy hallucina
tion>, and frally became hopelessly
nsa e. B,f re- his confinement in an
asylum he tried to drown himself in
the Rhine. e
While wild geese are on the wing
they are talkative and noisy, but when
thev alight to feed, as they do gen.
orally at night, they are so quiet that
one may pass within few yards of 100
of them and never notice their presence
-Cottonseed oil, now so important
commercially, has been known to COM
merce for long time. New Orleans
once attempted to use it for street
lighting 1t was an old charge of
abolition Gays that slaves were fed on
cottonseed, charge Indignantly de-
MED by the Shareholders, though cot
tOnSeed was then used as food by the
peasants of southern Europe.
Out of every 100 families living on
farms in the United States, AZ are free
from incumbrance, 10 are mortgaged
and "a are rented. The mortgage in
debtedness amounts to 81 33 per acre,
averaging over all. This is not half as
bad as was supposed. The general inn
preston has been, heretofore. that the
farmers were borne down with noun
tain of debt. On mortgaged farms the
debt averages s. per acre.
The cormorant is trained by the
Chinese as a fishing bird. A ring is
placed around the birds neck, which
prevents it from swallowing the fish it
has taken. One Chinaman will utilize
a dozen of these birds during the days
fishing, sending them under the water
in regular succession. They We're for
merly used in the same manner in En-.
gland. Charles |. had an officer of his
household designated as master of the
cOrmOrantS.
u Observe" said a middle-aged
man, lin cigar store windows and else
where an increasing number of signs
of tive-cent cigars. No doubt we
are smoking more and more ive-cent
cigars-partly from a desire to humor
the financial cyclone, partly because
there is a tendency to reduce the stand
ard price from ten cents to five. Even
if that should be done it would not
bring the prices down to the prices be-
fore the war My recollection is that
the price then of what might be called
the standard cigar, corresponding to
the regular ten-cent cigar to-day, was
three cents, or two for five cents; and
an imported cigar of very good quality
-, 4 l., r. =.
Almost the whole body of the upper
ranks of the naval engineer corps is
made up of grizZled old fellows that en-
tered the navy as third assistant engi.
neers before such a thing as a cadet en-
gineer had ever appeared at the naval
academy. These men have had to ac-
quire in the course of active duty vast
deal of technical knowledge now drilled
into future engineers at the academy.
Such knowledge becomes more and
more serious in volume year by year as
war ships become more complicated
and the wonder is that busy men, some
of them of very moderate schooling in
youth, have been able to hold their ow L
with rapidly advancing science.
Among other exhibitions of their
skill given by the detachment of Brit
ish soldiers that visited this country
last year." said New York resident
twas the driving of a piece of light ar
tillery, with the horses going at gal
lop between distractions that were
scarcely further apart than the whee
tracks. without touching them. anC
very beautifully they dld II, too. 1 an
living now in the neighborhood of &
fire engine that lies in cross stree
Just off an avenue in which the ele
waited railroad runs. Well, you ough
70 see the engine turn into the avenue
from the street, between the pillars
going to fire. Of course the pillar,