The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1895-09-12
MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Samuel Heath, druggist in Indi.
ana, is the defendant iE a S., 900 dam
age suit. He played practical joke
on an unsuspicious farmer by plying
him with strong drink. As a result
the farmer, who was not accustomed
to using liquor, got drunk and died,
and his family are now after damages.
-Rollo's oak, near Rouen, the tree
on which the first duke of Normandy,
1000 years ago, is said to have hung up
his gold chain as the token of the good
order to which he had brought his
province, seemed likely to collapse
lately. To save it solid core of ma
sonry was built in the interior of the
hollow trunk.
Max Muller ms lists that the oldest
book in the world is THE Rig Veda,"
which was in existence, complete as
we have it now, fifteen hundred years
before Christ, and not the so-called
Book of the Dead" from Egypt, con-
sisting of disjointed fragments, col
lected from many sources, the earliest
of which may possibly be dated as
early as 5000 B. c.
Gen. Annenkof, Russian geogra-
pher, is preparing an atlas on a new
principle. The places on the maps will
be put down, not according to actual
distance from a standard point. but ac-
cording to the cost of transportation.
New York, for instance, will be nearer
to London than Rochester in Kent, as
it costs less to ship food across the At
lantic than to send it twenty-eight
miles by rail to London.
If the testimony of old Egyptian
monuments can be accepted, the banjo,
in its earliest form, is one of the first
instruments we know. Something of
this kind appears upon the oldest pic
lures in Egyptian tombs, dating from
the fourth dynasty, which was proba.
bly, about 1000 B. c. The body of the
! instrument was round, the sounding
board a stretched membrane and the
long fngerboard had frets made by
winding a thread of rawhide around
the neck at the proper points.
The cooler regions of the globe are
becoming depopulated, and every
where, DIR. d. G. Brinton assures US,
| the arctic and sub-arctic zones have
| fewer inhabitants than half century
| ago. One cause is the destruction of
native tribes by the introduction of
new modes of life, new diseases, alco-
hol, and idleness. Another influence is
the fact that the arctic regions. like
| the mountains, were originally chosen
as homes only by refugees of conquered
and dispersed bands, and all who can
return to less severe climates are now
doing SO. The center of population
tends more and more to fix itself be-
tween forty-fve and fftyfve degrees
of latitude.
AS human life is known to be
lengthening among other classes, it is
pleasant to think that those to whom
its care is confided share in the general
benefit. A German doctor, who has
been studying this matter specially,
finds that in the sixteenth century the
average duration of life among them
was &c. years; in the seventeenth, As s.;
| in the eighteenth, 49.S; and at present
they reach the favorable average of
66.7. In seeking the causes, he finds
4 that the terribly fatal enemies of the
physician in the old times were the
'black pest" smallpox and the extern
sive epidemics of typhus. The annals
of medicine show that the most faith
full of doctors often fell victims to their
own fidelity.