The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-08-16
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

I coon Win the sea by an Arlllcldl Cldl--
/ mel a harbor has been obtained large
enough 10 hold the whole French fleet,
and as safe as II II were an artificial Da-
sin in the center of France
The statistical man who can tell you
/ how many pounds OF leather you VIII
wear from your shoes in q lifetime and
how many tons Of food you viii eat. pro-
| vlding you live to the biblical limit OF
three score and ten" has just finished
| some odd statistics on finger nail growth
I He finds that the average human being
cuts away about one-thirty-second part
/ OF an inch OF mail each week, or a little
more than an inch and half each year.
he also finds that the average length OF
/ life the world over is about 40 years; that
/ there are /, 90. 0f0.e00 miles of finger nails
/ in each generation.
| Watch the express train as * dashes
/ past you with speed of 60 miles per hour,
/ and, after It is lost in the distance sit
/ down on the track and figure little on the
| velocity or light, says the St. Louis Re
/ public The train has passed with a mighty
rush and great noise. but the silent beam
OF light fiits past with speed 1119, $50
times greater! The initial velocity of a
ball fired from a 12-pOundeF is .765 feet
| per second; that of light, 15e0, 134 feet in
| the same length of time. Comparisons
/ give US but very poor idea Of the velocity
but they enable us to partially cOmpre-
bend the immensely of the universe, for
| we know that with all its prodigious
| speed, II takes light four hours TO flash
! from Neptune to our earth.
| A church has been organized in Boil
1 nnger county, missouri, with Ida Deck
| ara as chief divinity. She is young. fair
| haired and given to seeing visions Her
neighbors. rude, unleutered, superstitious-
| ~ devout. believe her to be an angel in
human form. They worship her as such,
! and the church is based upon their
| Iaitn IN her The girl is apparently single
| minded and sincere. From her frances
| she awakens with messages for the faith
! ful. messages claiming sometimes to be
| from the Deity himself, guiding them as
| he guided the patriarchs of old. Also
| she brings word from the blessed dead IN
| heaven-according to the belief of her
| foiloWers-and from lost souls in hades.
| Her communications are listened to by these
| primitive people with all the reverence
due to amounted sainthood The new
| church of the mountains has now
/ membership of about l00-a centurian band
OF mountaineer neighbors. firm and ar
dent in their remarkable faith. They pro-
pose from now on to proselyte for their
out the world
An old lumberman just in from the
headwaters OF the Allegash, above Moose
head lake, says there are 5000 hundred
dollar Violins growing on two townships
of land near Lobster lake, says the Spring
field Republican. Until lately SAYS an au-
thority on the fiddle spruce, about all the
spruce MT to make into violins was pro-
cured near Lake Saranac, n. Y, and here
II was getting to be so scarce that the men
who were sent TO hunt ii up made poor
wages. In fact, the chief supply Of fiddle
wood has of late come from the spruce
and fir floor boards of colonial mansions
1t is found that clear boards, seasoned
for years under cover, give forth very
grained and "kinky," like the true violin
spruce. Boards from the under floors of
which were laid nearest the big old CHM
neys are the best of all. Kiln drying
spells the tone of the choicest woods; but
a slow, dry heat, away from the light
under such conditions as floor boards
are dried, seems TO bring out the melody
in stock that is worthless when treated
| by the usual methods. The true fiddle
spruce" is the "abies rubra" of Gray 5
botany, and 1t seems to be fine-grained
variety OF the abies nigra, or black
beer spruce" which is common through
out the eastern states. 1t is found on
cold hillsdes at the far north and it is
a slow-growing, close-fibered wood of a
reddish tint and remarkably free from
resin. When a man discovers a tree of
this class, large and straight and free
from big limbs and knots, he. can venture
TO fell 1t, knowing that he stands about
one chance in 20 of finding fiddle spruce.
If the grain of the wood proves straight,
with a cleavage which makes toOthpicks,
ne has spoiled a timber tree for nothing.
If the wood is kinky, however, and full
of dots, like bird s-eye maple, the tree
is worth 80 cents a cubic foot where ii
lies, and three times that sum when II is
sawed and seasoned. This wood not only
gives an even, resonant sound when made
into violin, but Ii takes a beautiful polish,
which brings out the wavy and spotted
fiber in a way to make ii admired by all.
About fifty years ago a man in Newport,
n. H.. planted the cones Of a fiddle spruce
| in nursery, hoping, as he said, to raise
his own fiddles.' They grew well. but out
1
tree fit to make into vioins.
"A man of ingenious mind and appar-
. entity ample leisure has gone to the trou-
| bic of figuring out the number of lawsuits
| brought in each country in a year, and
he has reached the conclusion that the
United States is a better country for
attorneys and councillors than any other
civilized land under the SUM- says the New
York Sun. He figures as lawsuits civil
actions only, taking into no account pro
ceedings of a criminal character brought
by the public authorities against indiVid.
uals. He has ascertained that, taking the
figures for the last ten years as a fail
average, there are 10000 lawsuits brought
in England every year, 10000 in France
100000 in Italy, 100000 in Germany anC
$500. 900 in the United States. 1t is not Il
be inferred from this that the people OF
s this one country are much more prone Il
I, litigation than are the people of another
l. but the explanation is to be found in tn,
f fact that the conditions of litigation vary
& exceedingly. Going to law in England /.
t, very expensive business, for it entails out
e lays in the form of costs and expenses 81
z large that many of the courts are prac
: tically closed to persons of modest mean!
g and a long litigation unsuccessfully pur
i sued ends often in bankruptcy In France
O the number of lawsuits is kept down
I through the general practice of "arbitra
d tion," as many as 100000 cases in a year
q especially thoae arising from disputes
e over wages, being settled by this agenc,
e without onerous cost to either party. II
e Germany great majority of cases ar
/ petty ones, involving a small amount o
IS money and due, many of them, TO Gus
# toms or uSageS winch are not sufficient,
d defined to be, in all cases, similarly un
It derstood by both parties to an agreement
If This is especially the case in the farmin,
IT districts of Germany and there are man,
n legal disputes in the manufacturing dis
/ tricts, too. The number of cases credite
to the United States seems enormous blu
it is probably accurate. There are 70
example, eleven district courts for the dis
posal of civil cases in New York city Ii
T. one of these courts, by recent report tn
5 number of actions brought in a year wa
IL shown to be 8. 100 These courts have he
2 fore them each year on the average $500
le cases. The cases brought in the stat
4. courts of New York amount in a year t
lie about 10000, and of those brought in tn
m federal courts New York furnishes yer
" large number. Taking the whole countr
)r through, it is seen that the average mum
Der of cases per thousand of populatio
20 is in the neighborhood of rs to S. Tn
" number of lawyers in the United State
" is materially larger than in any otbe
{ country in the world, and the amount
Id in dispute here are much greatar tha n elso