The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-10-15
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Not a few great men have been partial
\ to cats, says Harper's Young People.
1 Petrarch had his cat embalmed; Rous-
/ seau shed genuine tears over the loss of
MS; Or. johnson, sometimes called the
Great Bear" nursed his cat day and
night during its illness, and went himself
/ for oysters 10 tempt its appetite; Southey
| raised one OF his cats to the peerage,
| with the high-sounding name of Earl of
| Tomlemagne, Baron Raticide, WaOwlher,
and Skaratchi." To Napoleon, however,
/ cats were a mortal terror. Just after
the battle of Wagram an aide-de-camp,
upon entering the emperor's room, saw
MIN half-undressed, with prOtruding eyes
and perspiring forehead, making frequent
lunges with a sword at the tapestry
around the room: In explanation he said
| there was a cat behind the tapestry, and
! that he had hated cats from his very in
fancy He had crossed the bridge at
Lodi with sublime courage, vet quivered
with excitement and terror over the pres
ence of a cat.
The brass and bronze trade is kept
alive by the religious customs of the
Hindoos, who are not allowed to use
wooden and earthenware vessels freely
ana brass and bronze are to them a s i'm
portant as glass and china to the west
erners, says the Chicago Tribune. AL
most all HtndOo utensils are of brass,
copper or bronze and IL is the custom
TO present the female portion of Hindoo
FANNY with a valuable batterie de cut
sine, made either of brass or copper,
ana a still existing Hindoo ceremony is
that OF carrying the utensils in process
sion at the wedding. The result of this
custom is that almost all the platters,
trays, bowls, nut crackers, and all brass
ana copper utensils are most beautifully
ornamented, and there are lovely COM
binations of brass and copper and silver
ana copper. All Hindoo lamps are made
OF brass. The Hindoo women used to
have lovely brass caskets covered with
ornamentations called chellams. manu-
factured in Malabar. in which they kept
their jewels, but these are fast being re-
placed by the vulgar English japanned
qlSpatch box. At Sivaganga beautiful
fy1 a.
which makes toys and most lifeike repre-
sensations of animals, lizards, frogs, etc.
The Persian city of Yezd has a small
but devoted band of 1900 followers of
Horoaster who practice the ANCIENT re-
uglon OF the country, and 1t is said to be
the only town in Persia, and almost in
the world, where they are recognized as
a separate civic community Their faith
full zeal for their ancestral faith has
proved very offensive to their Moham-
medan neighbors and the religious teach
ers of Islam in Yezd, are continually eX
horting the true believers to eXterminate
| the idolatrous n-worshippers. Recent
| letters from the prosecuted Zoroastrians
! in YeZd to their more fortunate brethren
in Bombay, tell of a long series of plum
behring's, murders and indignities of Vari-
GUS sorts for which no redress could be
had from the local authorities. The Bonn
bay Parsees took the matter up and inter-
| viewed the Persian Consul-general, pro-
testing against the treatment which their
co-reng1oniSts in y ED were suffering I'M
der. The consul general, DESTROYS of
standing well with the influential Parsee
community of Bombay telegraphed the
governor general of Ispahan, who is a
son of the shahs. He promptly adopted
the most energetic measures of relief, in
the customary oriental fashion, and
| pledged his personal protection for the
Zoroastrians for the future.
The great tower on the new Philadel-
phia city hall has reached an altitude of
ture in this country, except the Washing
ton monument About thirty feet of
IRON framework must yet be added be-
fore the apex can be reached, and then
the cap upon which the great bronze
statue of William Penn will rest must be
put in place. The contractor expects that
under favorable circumstances this work
| can be accomplished in about a month.
one OF the four bronze figures which will
base of the dome is already in position
These pieces will average fifteen tons
each In the lower portion of the dome
VIII be four clock faces, facing in each
direction. These will each be twenty
one feet in diameter. and will be sur
| mounted by four enormous bronze eagles
each weighing five tons. The plates
which will form the outside covering of
the dome are of iron. with a coating of
| copper and an outside covering of alum
| mum. from the top of the marble
/ building, where visitors are now conveyed
IN elevators a magnificent panoramic
! view of the city and the surrounding
country can be obtained. From this
| point the iron framework rises to a
! hi6ht of about $50 feet accessible only by
Coden steps and perilously perpendicu-
lar ladders. seevral flights Of rough
! stairs bring one to the second platform,
above which the shen-lilIe structure
points skyward and where, perched upon
! the girders and crossbars, the intrepid
Workmen are busy. hosting the heavy
fra network into position.
The Escurial the palace of the Spanish
king, an architectural marvel formerly
| described as the Eighth Wonder of the
| World" is seldom spoken of, even by
| those who are ready to go wild over much
! less DTetentiOnS 10
| Louis Republic. The corner stone of this
! Spanish St. Peters" was laid by Philip
| fore the monstrouS building was pro-
nOunced finished. 1t was built by Phillip
in fulfllment of vow to erect the finest
monastery in the world" should his forces
be successful in their great battle with
the French That battle was fought at
st. Quentin on Aug. 10, 1857, st. Law
saint, as well as to fulfill his VOW, the
king had the foundation of his great me-
mCrlal laid off in the shape of a gridiron;
the implement of torture upon which the
goodly Lawrence is reputed to have suf-
fered martydom. To those who have
never visited the Escurial the size of the
gigantic structure is beyond comprehen-
sion. 1t is TAO feet from north to south
and 5S012 feet from east to west: the
square towers at each corner rising to a
hight of over 200 feet. Within this mon
strous building is the kings palace.
cathedral, a monastery of 200 cells two
colleges, three chapter houses, three Ii
brary buildings, FIVE large halls, six dorm
itorleS, three hospitals and over 5000 other
rooms In order to make ST. Lawrence's
gridiron complete the building is built in
at adrangular form, with seventeen rows
or ranges of monstrous stone structures
crossing each other at right angles, these
forming the girdiron's ribs the handle
being a wing 40 feet in length The
church. which is a part of this vast pile
of masonry, is 1854 feet long, 230 feet wide
with a dome $50 feet in hight. 1t is es-
timated that the building cost $4,000, 900
The rapid spread of English, says Cham
bers' Journal, is largely to be attributed
to the simplicity of it's grammar, which
is less complicated than that of any other
western nation. It's marked poverty of
infections, as distinguished, for exam
pie, from the German. is a great point in
its favor and thus it is much easier for
German to learn English than for an
Er glishman or an American to
learn German. on the other hand
the extraordinary photographic in
consistency of the languauge is
a decided drawback, and there is little
doubt that if English were written on
phonetic principles, as Spanish or Ger
man, it's spread would be much more
rapid, to say nothing of the great boon