The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-10-04
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

the great central hall very little the worse
Grated with Tich and nd bright frescoes. The
most remarkable feature about the room
is the marble furniture. Everything was
Of marble pure and white.
The Black Flags Of Formosa are a
kind of water and land pirates. Not only
do they fight by the sword but carry on
warfare by poison When in 1881 the
into the interior they found themselves
baked by a novel defense. All the lakes,
springs and rivers had been poisoned. 1t
Is natlVe drug used by the formosans
and as deadly as arsenic or strychnine.
The Buddhist bible is commonly repre-
sented as Of immense extent, a mass OF
MLilihgs SO vast as 10 de1y examination.
This, however, is an exaggeration due TO
ignorant misconception. The Bible of
Christendom, embracing both Old and New
Testaments, contains not far from $4,000
words. In the Buddhist scriptures very
many repetitions occur, and some of the
important books are wholly made up of
extracts from other books.
Elias Howe almost beggared himself
before he discovered wnere the eye of the
needle of a sewing machine should be To-
Gated, says the Philadelphia Times. His
original idea was TO follow the model of
the eye at the heel. 1t never occurred to
him that it should be placed near the
point, and he might have failed alto
gether If he had not dreamed he was
building a sewing machine for a savage
king in strange country. Just as in his
actual waking experience, he was rather
perplexed about the needles eye. He
thought the king gave him twenty-four
hours to complete a machine and make IL
sew. If not finished in that time, death
was to be the punishment. Howe worked
and worked and puzzled and puzzled, and
finally gave it up. Then ne thought he
was taken out to be executed. He noticed
| that the warriors carried spears that
were pierced near the head. Instantly
came the solution OF the difhculty, ana
while the inventor was begging for time
| he awoke He jumped out of bed, ran
| to his workshop, and by nine a needle
| with an eye at the point had been rude
| ly modelled. After that it was easy. This
| is the true story of an important incident
| in the invention of the sewing machine.
One of the strangest and most profit
/ able trades of London is the wholesale
and retail business Of horse meat Tor
cat and dog food, says the New York
| World. In barrows, pony traps, and hand
| carts, the hawkers of horseftesh cry their
| wares throughout the city and find Il
| ready and constant sale for them. There
| is hardly a householder that fails to
| buy of the "cat's-meat man." Actually
| 25,UO0 horses, played out, MANNED ana
| aged, are killed and cut up in the English
| metropolis every year for this purpose.
| All day long and all night long the STAY
| ing of these beasts goes on and the three
| or four establishments that cater TO the
/ trade continually have their hands full.
| Each horse means, on an average, 725
| pounds of meat, and as 5000 horses year
| means 500 a week, it follows that the
| cats and dogs of London whose masters
and mistresses patronize the ''horse-food''
| man manage to dispose of over ten tons
| halt-pennyw orths, a pound cutting up
| into six of these portions, each being
properly skewered. An interesting fact
| in relation TO the skewers is that half u
! ton of them are used each day or 1929
| tons of dead wood a year. The ten tons
| day of dead horse are cut up into 1874 400
| meals. The magnitude of the trade can
be seen from the fact that it keeps con-
stantly employed thirty wholesale sales
men.
The dime museum freak of the order
| of batrachians is the ugly little four-foot-
| ed oddly known to scientists as the Su-
| rlnam toad His place among the reptilia
| is in the genus urodea sub-genus pipa
| There is but one locality in the world in
| which this rare little animal has been
| found and that is in the northern part of
| South America, in the little country
| known as Surinam, or Dutch Guiana. 1t
| is peculiarly hideous creature with
| long point nose, wide mouth and no
tongue. Like several other varieties of the
toad family, its five-fngered hind feet are
webbed, while the four digits of its front
| feet are perfectly free. The real oddity
| about this ugly specimen of animal life is
its queer mode OF Matching its young. Nat
urally the females back is as free from
| indentations as is that of the male but
as the breeding season comes on queer
change may be observed. AS soon as she
commences to lay eggs a series of fits or
| depression come in her back, and into
these holes the male puts all the eggs his
partner lays, pressing them well down
with his feet In due course of time a nat
ural membrane forms over these pits, and
after proper season of incubation has
elapsed, they hatch and young brood of
little Surinam tOads appear. Despite the
repulsive looks OF this curious little reptile
It is regarded as being a choice article of
food.
Mr.. F. G. jackson, according to the
London Spectator. has marvellous tales
to tell of the reindeer, their speed and en-
DURANGO as animals Of draft-so marvel
GUS indeed that he must forgive us for
suggesting that he has made a mistake
in his figures. Il have myself" he
writes driven three reindeer distance
of 100 rersts within twelve hours without
feeding them, and l heard of a case
where a Zirian drove three deer from
Ishma, on the Pechora river to Obdorsk,
twenty-four hours. A reindeer or
Samoyed verst, by the way. is equal to
four Russian Versts" In other words,
Mr.. Jackson says he has driven three deer
for twelve hours at the rate of forty Rus
| sian versts, or twenty-seven English miles
an hour. And the zirian, with similar
team, covered 40 miles in twenty-four
hours. The latter, by the way, must have
crossed the Ural mountains and one or
two rivers into the bargain. Surely there
must be some mistake. There exists, it
is true. well-known tradition of rein
deer which once-about 100, we believe
| carried important dispatches for the king
of Sweden 500 miles in forty-eight hours,
and, dying in the service of its king, is
still preserved-in skeleton form-in a
northern museum. But that, after all, is
only a tradition. Better authenticated
records do not give higher rate of speed
than $50 miles to nineteen hours, which
tanned by any other animal.
To the casual observer the motions of
the moon appear to be exceedingly whim-
steal and irregular, says the st. Louis Re
public. If it's PLACE in the sky is watched
1t will be found that it is first north and
then south of the suns path, and that it
is sometimes east and sometimes west of
that iuminary. The last two motions are
steady and regular, from east to west,
| carrying the moon in its endless swing
around the heavens starting at new moon
near the sun and progressing until at full
moon the whole visible portion of the
sky separates the two bodies. After this
there are two weeks in which the moon
still appears to move backward, approach
ing the sun from the other side, then
| again apparently all of a sudden it pass
es the sun and we behold a new moon -
The north and south motions of the moon
are entirely different. While performing
it's endless journey from west to east
there are two special periods in which il
either moves far northward or takes up
its position low down in the south. In
spring the first motion is north but after
ward the general motion is reversed In
December you will note that the full moon
occurs at the most northerly point in her
course, and in June at the most southerly.
This is why we have most light from 7 ne