The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1895-11-14
MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.


The Yankee genius has left untried
fcw materials which might be available
for the purpose of pen making. Among
the inventions patented have been pens
made of hickory and other kinds of
flexible wood found in our forests.
AS a division of time, the week has
been used in the east from immemorial
ages. 1t does not seem to be natural
division of time, though several periods
of animal economy, such as the incu-
baton of eggs, correspond with weeks.
One of the most famous log chutes
in the west, at La Grande, Ore, is to be
cut up for cordwood, all the timber i'm
mediately tributary to it having been
cut away. The chute is 11a miles
long from top to bottom, and during
its period of use more than 100000
feet of logs have coasted through it.
down the mountain side.
"A German statistician finds that
the most unluclly day of the week, so
far as accidents to human beings are
concerned, is not Friday, but Monday;
1914 per cent. of all accidents occur
Mondays; 1917 per cent. Tuesdays;
1851 per cent. Wednesdays; 1913 per
cent. Thursdays; 1888 per cent. Fri
days; the same per cent. Saturdays,
and 2.69 per cent. Sundays.
A Geneva clock maker has per-
fected and patented an application of
the photograph to the old-fashioned
repeater, whose springs and hammers
have been replaced by disk of vulcan
lied India rubber. AS the point moves
over the surface, it emits articulated
sounds, indicating the hour, being an
exact reproduction of the human voice,
which can be heard in an adjoining
room.
-Mongolian pheasants have been
successfully introduced for game pur-
poses in various parts of Oregon and
| Washington in the last few wears, and
now an attempt is being made to prop
agate them for the same purpose in
| California. A number have been i'm
ported into Santa Clara county from
Oregon, and lettuce seed is to be planted
by the mountain springs to provide
food for them. They are protected by
statute for three years.
Councilman Towle, of Oakland Cal,
recently introduced and engineered
| to Il second reading an ordinance COM
| peiling all bathers within the city linn
| its of that town to tie up their heads
in sack while bathing. The ordi-
nance provided that all bathers must
wear "a shirt or jersey covering the en-
tire upper part of the body except the
arms" The ordinance passed to the
printers. and it was the often-abused
| intelligent compositor who discovered
that if it passed the council every
| bather in Oakland would be compelled
by law to bag his head.
Gangs of "skinners," men who
| slaughter deer wholesale solely for the
hides, are again at work in the noun
tuins of Curry county, Ore. A hunting
party Just returned from that region
relate that it was not unusual to come
across dozen or more carcasses of deer
in the course of a day. left to rot by the
| law vioators. 1t is estimated that
more than 700 deer have been killed in
that section this summer solely for
! their hides. The "skinners' find a
ready sale for the hides, and make much
| money at the wretched business.
The San Francisco Examiner says
| there is one curious fact respecting the
| animal creation with which one will
never become acquainted if he depends
on his textbooks for information. 1t
is this: No living representative of the
animal kingdom has more than five
| toes, digits or claws to each foot, hand
or limb. The horse is the type of one
toed creation, the camel of the two
! toed, the rhinocerous of the three-toed
and the hippopotamus of the fourtoed
animal life. The elephant and hun
! dreds of other animals belonging to
different orders belong to the great
five-toed tribe.