The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-12-08
ITEMS OF INTEREST.


was excavated IN the vicinity of the Oar
danelles about twenty-four years ago, and
after passing through various HANDS, was
placed in one OF the museums OF Paris.
1t was sent to the Chicago Worlds Fair.
at the close of which il was purchased
by the University of Pennsylvania. Its
date has been fixed at about 125 A. D.,
and it was probably executed while the
emperor was on one Of his trips through
Asia Minor.
The regions of the Little Colorado riv-
er in Arizona abound in wonderful veGe-
table petrificatiOns-WhO forests being
round in some places which are hard as
nint but which look as if but recently
stripped of their foliage. Some Of these
stone trees are standing just as natural as
life, while others are piled across each
other just like the fallen mOnarchs of a
real wood forest. Biologists say that these
stone trees We're once covered to the depth
of LOCO feet with mari, which transformed
them from wood to solid rock. This mari,
after the lapse of ages. washed out, leav-
ing some of the trees standing in an up-
right position. The majority of thern, how
ever, are piled helter-skelter in all direc-
tions, thousands of cords being sometimes
piled up on an acre of ground.
Capt Netrio, known as the man with
tne iron stomach, gave an exhibition of
his gastric powers before a small party
OF newspaper and medical men at the
Sinclair house last evening, says the New
York World. Illustrative of the non
effect Of poison upon the lining of his
stomach, he swallowed several concoc-
tions which were certainly poisonous
looking, and while the spectators were
gaping with amazement he meditatively
chewed flower pot. Between whites he
told stories of occasions when he sub
sisted for fourteen consecutive days upon
poisons and crockery. He seemed to rel
lSh ordinary poison, but strenuOusly OBJ
jected to any mixture containing an acid,
Tor FEAR OF corroding the iron lining of his
stomach. Towards the end of the exhi-
hungry, for he took a luncheon of tallow
candle, plain bread and morphine mix
ture, and then smilingly bowed the spec
tators from the room.
Joe" Chamberlain, English secretary
for the colonies, has a collection of or
chids worth from $4,000 to 100000. Miss
Alice Rothschild is one of the most onthu-
SlaStic lady horticulturiSts in the world,
and her collection of roses alone is valued
a. $4,000 That these beautiful flowers are
OFTEN very expensive will be seen from the
fact that an American millionaire recently
paid $1,000 to an English grower for the
stock of single variety. The Archduke
Joseph of Austria owns S275000 worth OF
flowers, while the collection of shat ia
nous amateur Sir Trevor Lawrence is
valued at $275000. Lord Portman. Mr.. Ha-
mar Bass, Mr.. w. w. Astor, Lord Roths-
expert horticulturists. and their collec-
lions are worth huge fortunes; but it is
to Baron Schroeder of Egham that the dis
tinction of possessing the most costly gar
den in the world belongs. for were his or
chidS alone put in the market at an ad-
vantageous time they would unquestion-
aDly reallze $JJOOUO.
AT st. Petersburg. says Tit Bits the
average yearly deaths are from 800 to s.
600 in excess of the births in a population
of nearly a million. In the years from 1868
to 1882 the death rate varied from 297 per
thousand to 1876, while the births were
only 3l1 per thousand. In 1888, %, III chill
dren were born alive, while there were 30
100 deaths, an excess in this year of about
1900 But these figures are apt to be mis-
leading. The workmen who come up to the
capital almost invariably leave their wives
and children in the provinces. Thus, many
births take place in the provinces which
are not reckoned to the account of the cap
ital The fact that about seventy Eight per
cent. OF the population are over sixteen
years of age testites to the universally
of the practice of leaving the children in
the country. The same fact is demonstrat-
ed by the presence of twelve men in every
ten women in st. Petersburg whereas in
Versed. 1t will thus be seen that though
the deaths are in excess of the births
there Is not likely TO be any diminution in
the actual population of the town. In fact,
its population increased twenty nine per
cent. between 1859 and 1881.
The tongue of a lion is so rough that
close look at it will almost take the skin
off the IoOker, says the Westminster Bud
get 1t is not safe to allow a lion to lick
your hand, for il he licked the skin off
and got taste of the underlying blood,
surprising it to be there, he would want
the hand and everything adjoining there
to. Nothing more perfect in modern ma
chinery exists than the mechanism by
which a lion works his claws. He has five
toes on each of his fore feet and four on
each of his hind feet Each toe has a claw
Nothing about lion is without reason,
and the reason he has more toes and
claws on his fore than on his hind feet is
that he has more use for them. If this were
not so, the majority would be the other
way. The lion is nocturnal by choice He
has no particular objection to daylight
but likes to spend it in the bosom of his
family, or at least adjacent to it. 1t should
not be supposed that because he roams
about at night he neglects his family. He
roams in order 10 fill the family larder He
kills to eat. not for amusement. He never
bothers small game so long as there is big
game within reach. When feeling fit, he
can take an OK in his mouth and jump
fences and bitches like professional stee-
plechaSer.
All house demolishers, drain repair
ers and so on, says the Boston Traveller,
know well that rats have as keen an
eye for bright objects of metal and glass
as ever raven, parrot or any bird has,
and they look out accordingly when dis
turbing rats about dwelling houses said
the sanitary inspector of one of the dis
tricts of London. Take it as a fact from
me, after forty years of experience in
routing rats from their holes, that finds
well worth considering are often lighted
upon, for not only are coins, rings
and other bright and valuable objects
dragged to their nests by rats, but scraps
of paper, designed either for lining the
nests or for nibbling at are also acquired
nibbled f10-note was taken out of a rats
hole in Great Ormand street Holborn.
1t was the property of the basement loda-
er of the house, and had been missed sew
eral months before, ats disappearance
causing not little trouble l could name
two other cases of bank-notes within nv
own experience, but l have often seen
other very curious scraps of paper found
in the same way, one of these only the
other day being of a ticket-of-leave Bur
it is for small articles of jewelry and coins
that the workmen always look, and 7
myself had to do indirectly with a case
where workman found in a rat hote in
an old house in Lambeth a diamond
worth $3.50. This spade guinea wear on
my watch chain was found in an old rat
hole at New Cross, and it must have heen
there for many years. l am speakine Or
cases where the coin could not nossib1Ie
have rolled into the hole-cases where ~
articles have been carried through aII
sorts of devious turnings. In one boIa
there will often be a variety of obiects
as though the owner had an eve for co.
lecting; and l have seen in one nest a
child's coral necklace, a 3-pennv-piece
some card counters of mother-of-pearl ana
a glass button. 4iU
Awarded