The Washington times., 1895-06-02
ODDS AND ENDS.

At the Ogden Theater in p aris 600 manu-
script plays rereceived and readevery year.
Aman named Durandhas wona betatMar-
seiIles by standing on pedestal in public
place for four consecutive weeks. He was
nearly exhausted after the performance and
may not recover.
Poets corner in Westminster Abbey is
hidden from the outside by a block of old
houses. These are TO be torn down next
summer as preeaution against fire, thus
allowing the architecture of the chapel OF
Henry VII and the old Chapter House to
be seen from that side.
La Princesse Loint aine, )" four act play
in verse by III. Rost aud, is the latest novelty
produced by Sarah Bernhardt at the Paris
Renaissance Theater. 1t is founded on the
story of the troubadour, Geffroy Rudel, who
fell in love with the princess of Tripoli from
the fame of her beauty and died on coming
into her presence.
A Frenchman must still obtain the consent
of his parents If he wishes to marry. The
Chamber of Deputies has re jected q proposal
of Able Lamire to dispense with the consent
when the man is twenty-five and the woman
twenty-one, but passed another doing away
with the necessity for the grandparents
consent hen the parentsare dead.
NJ Dieulafoy, the explorer OF Persia, has
carefully examined the valley of Rephaim,
south of Jerusalem, where David crushed
the Philistines. He finds that the Bible
account of the battle is accurate and that
David's tactics show the highest military
capacity and were like those OF Frederick
the Great at Mollwitz and ossback and of
Napoleon at Austerlitz.
A shaft into the bowels of the earth is pro-
posedby N. p aschalGroussetas as thesensation
for the exposition of 1900. His plan is an
inversion of the idea of the Eiffel Tower.
Elevators will carry the public down the
shaft Atintervals there will be restaurants
and concert rooms, decorated so as to har-
monize with the temperature, which will
increase with the depth, as far as 2,100
feet below the surface. Beyond that point,
as the heat will be too great for comfort,
a narrow shaft is to be driven, for scientific
purposes only, to a depth greater than
has ever yet been obtained, possibly 5000
feet.
A curious case of dual brain action is de-
scribed in Brain. An insane patient varied
considerably in his mental condition in one
state he was subJectto chronic mania spoke
English, was fairly yintelligentand wasright-
handed in another state he was subject to
dementia, was almost unintelligible, but
what could be understood W as Welshand he
was then left-handed. In his English in
tervals he remembered clearly what had
happened in previous English periods but
his memory was a blank to what had
occurred during the Welsh stages. He pre-
ferred to write with his right hand and then
wrote from lefttoright, but if asked to do so,
would write with his left hand and then
the writing was done from right to left.
Mr.. Bruce, who observedthe case, infersfrom
it that the cerebral hemispheres are capable
of individual mental action, that the one
mentally active at any time can control the
motor functions and that the patient lives
two separate existences during the two
stages through which he passes, the mental
impressions in each existence being re-
corded in one cerebral hemisphere only.