The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-09-11
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

I
/ OF his court.
If some millionaire agreed to give you
! a cubic loot OF pure gold, IL you should
/ put II in a sack and carry it across the
/ Eads Bridge and back, do you think you
/ would be equal to the task2 asks the St
/ Louis Republic. Certainly you are conf
/ dent OF your ability to perform the task,
| but want TO tell you that there would
1 not be the least danger Of the man of mon
/ ey losing his gold cube. Such a lump Of
/ virgin gold would weigh few grains over
! one thousand two hundred and three o.
! 2J3) pounds.
The bearded freak of America. since
the death Of Adam Kirpin, is James
! Brown, who at time of last accounts lived
/ near the village OF ReaIington. Braxton
| county, West Virginia. He is a splendid
| specimen of manhood, over six feet high
| ana OF proportionate weight, and boasts
/ that he has trimmed neither his beard nor
| mOustache since the war" His mus
/ tache is probably the longest in the world.
/ being almost exactly six feet from tip to
tip. A good idea of its length may be OBJ
tanned by knowledge of the fact that the
/ ends extend beyond his finger tips when
| his arms are fully outstretched.
| The Bombay governments analyst has
| been investigating the various poisOns tina
are used in India, says st. Paufs. and in
/ the course of his report he disposes of the
| old notion that pounded glass is the most
| deadly kind of substance you can mix
| with the food of any one against whom
| you entertain particular grudge. ''Poun-
/ ded glass;, he says, lis a most useful poi
| SON." He does not, of course mean by this
/ that il assists digestion or can safely be
| recommended as pick-em-up after hard
| day S work, but that 1t is useful in the
| sense OF not doing very much harm TO the
/ person whose life is aimed al and leading
/ very easily TO the detection of the would
be murderer. If it is pounded until il be-
comes very fine, it causes merely slight
| discomfort and can be detected in the first
/ mouthful of the food with which il is
| mixed. The same may be said. it appears,
of diamond dust. tigers whiskers, chopp-
/ ed hair and such like. After all, two penn
| orth of blackbeetle-killer is as goOd-or
/ as bad-aS anything and you can get this
/ at the nearest grOcer's. Where, l wonder,
! would you have to go in search of tiger S
| whiskers or diamond dust?
| -Four ink bottles from which some of
| the greatest literary works of the century
issued, are TO be on view, says the London
i News Paris correspondent at an ap-
| preaching exhibition of relics. They were
e USED isSeveTrally by Victor Huge, Lamartine,
the elder Dumas and George Sand, Madam
| Victor Hugo collected them to sell at a
| charity bazaar in Guernsey. To this end she
| had them set in frame of oak that could
! be used as a table. With each is letter
| attesting its authenticity. Victor Hugo
! said: Il did not buy or choose this ink
! it for months. 1t was asked of me for a
| work of charity, and here 1t is.-Haute-
| vile house, June 1860" Lamartine wrote:
| Presented by Lamartine to a master of
| the PEN" Dumas the elder thus certified:
Il certify that this is the ink bottle l
! used in writing my last fifteen works.-A.
| dumas, ~ April, lobU. George Sanu, IN
letter of three pages, begs Madame HUI
| go to excuse the ugliness of her box ink
| bottle, which shuts with a spring. She
used it in all her tours and wanderings,
and could only part with it for the sake
| of Madame Hugos charity.
| "A curious feature in natural history Is
| the favor bestowed upon the crocodile by
| a bird bearing its name, through remov-
| ing a certain parasitic leech veritably
| from the innermost recesses of the sau-
rian's mouth. In thus acting he, in addi-
| ton to performing an invaluable service
| to the crocodile, obtains for himself a
| leisurey and luxurious living. Herodotus
| writes that the bird and animal are on
| the most amicable terms, the former en-
| tering the latter's mouth and walking
| about with the greatest confidence. The
| gentlemen of the Smithsonian Institution
| however, are disinclined to accept this
| belief, but think the crocodile bird stands
| at a safe distance, extracting the leeches
| by thrusting its head into the animals
| mouth and again removing it before the
| crocodile can close its jaws. The saurian
| during the performance lies lazily summing
| itself on the bank, with Jaws wide open,
and seems to relish the relief which it OBJ
teins. 1t is not to be believed, however,
| that the crocodile's sense of obligation for
! the invaluable services rendered it would
be sufficient to deter it from making a
| feast upon its benefactor should an oppor-
| tunity present itself.
AT the present day the supply of amber
| Is chiefly obtained from the dreary and
| desolate region of Samland, on the east
ti1 iodAllCs Il SLIduEts NtlTu ldDu OF dow
| ing sand, shifting sand-dunes, and poverty
| stricken amber-hunters, says the Cornhill
| Magazine. 1t is cold northern Sahara.
| The district produces absolutely nothing
| but amber; vegetation it has none, and
| from konigsberg, its capital, TO the end
OF the promontory scarcely anything sub
| sits that a man could live upon. Its trade
is all retrospective and geological. 1t lives
| upon the memory of its Olgocene fertil-
ity. Most of the amber is obtained after
| stormy weather by men who wade in the
| water with long hooks in their hands, and
secure the Jumps, torn up from the sub
marine beds, among the floating seaweed.
| But a considerable portion is also got by
| diving. For the beds are almost all below
| sea-level and 1t is only after heavy storms
| that the precious resin is dislodged in any
| quantities. No wonder it seemed to ear
| lier ges a gift from the gods very mystic
and magical Kongsberg and Memel are
the centers Of the export traffic. The big
| geSt Jumps go direct to Ccnstantinople,
| Mecca, and North Africa, partly to be
used up in Mohammedan ceremonies and
partly to be carved into cigarette-ho lders
pipe-stems, and personal ornaments. The
smaller pieces are sent to Italy where
they are manufactured into beads and
other gewgaws for the annoyance of tour
lists; while much is exported to unciVilized
i countries for the further adornment of
| those duslly ladies so dear to the hearts of
| our Steyensons and our Haggards The
Jumps vary immensely in size; there is
one in the Berlin museum which weighs
fifteen pounds. At first sight, the ingen-
uous observer is apt to think no pine trees
II.
But then he should remember he is com
pairing a few hundred years of our
cleared and stunted Europe with heaven
knows how many ages of unbroken forest,
and heaven knows what big groves of gil
gantic trees.
One of the greatest curiosities among
the domesticated animals of Ceylon is a
breed of cattle known to the biologists as
the sacred running oxen" says the st.
Louis Republic. They are the dwarfs of
the whole OK family, the largest specimens
of the species never exceeding thirty
inches or two and one-half feet in hight
One sent to the Marquis of Canterbury in
the year 1891, and which is still living and
believed to be somewhere near 10 years of
age, is only twenty-five inches high and
weighs but 10915 pounds. In Ceylon they
are used for making quick trips across
the country with express matter and
| other light loads, and it is said that four
| of them can pull driver of a. two-wheeIed
cart and a 200-pound load of miscellaneous
matter sixty to seventy miles a day. They
keep up a constant swinging trot or run.
and have been. known to travel 100 miles
in a day and night without either feed
! or water. No one knows anything con-
corning the origin of this peculiar breed
| of miniature cattle. They have been
| known on the island of Ceylon and in
| other Buddhistic countries for more than
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