The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-02-09

Henry Hall, of Three Rivers, Michi
 gan, has branched out extensively in ;
 new farming industry, the production
 of peppermint oil. On his 900-acre farm
 last year he had over 100 men worlint
 in the mint fields, and from his croI
 10000 pounds of the oil were produced
 and it brought from $1.50 to $2 a pound
 Tn England, too. The board of studies
 of Cambridge university, on account of
 the ungrammatical English written by
 their undergraduates, recommends that
 English composition be made part of
 the previous examination, and that an
 English essay be required of all candi-
 dates for honors. The blame is put on
 the preparatory schools.
 The friends of municipal suffrage for
 women can point with pride to the
 fact that fully 20 per cent of the assess
 able property in Philadelphia is owned
 by women, whose real estate holdings represent a money value of $153, 757, ,566,
 while their personal belongings are es- timated at $S5. 7S4 1SS,6S. It is doubt ful, however, if there is another city in the world that shows such a record.
 Nearly a hundred schemes have been devised utilizing culm, the name given to the fine dust or refuse of coal that Is shipped from the mines, Many of these schemes have proved useless. It is now suggested that electrical power plants be established at all coal mines where culm accumulates, and that 1t be used as fuel for generating power, which could then be conveyed by wire to neigh boring cities
 Miss Estelle Reel, in working for the position of State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Wyoming, intro- duced a new sort of campaign document into politics. She procured a list of addresses, an immense stock of the daintiest stationery and a correspond ing supply of photographs of herself. Irl- closing the picture with a personal ap- peal to every known and unknown friend, she induced the rough rides of the State to travel in many cases as much as fifty miles to vote for the pretty girl who thus honored them.
 
 In his ascension from Cincinnati Pro- lessor Henry had a curious experience with coal gas as a means of infiating a balloon. Like the air, ordinary illu- DOT in warm weather than in cold, and as 1t was warm when he ascended, his | gas was charged with vapor. As soon as he struck cold current of air this | vapor was frozen and he had hail 1 storm inside of his balloon. After list l ening to it's rattle for some time he | opened the valve, and more than bushel of hail escaped from the balloon the amount of water present on a hot and murky day in ordinary Illuminating gas.
 At Bangalore, in southern India, gran lite slabs as large as 60 by 40 feet and half foot thick are quarried by means of wood fires. A narrow line of fire, about seven feet long, made of dry logs of light wood, is gradually length ened and moved forward over an even surface of solid rock. It is left in posi- tion till strokes with a hammer show that the rock in front of the fire has become detached from the main mass beneath; the burning wood is then pushed on few inches. The rock keeps splitting about five inches below the surface. It takes about eight hours and 15 hundred weight of wood to set free a slab measuring TAO square feet. Afterward the plate is easily cut with blunt chisels into strips 21s feet wide. The Lewiston (Maine) Journal has 1 this to say about bipartisan legisla- ( tion: The taxpayers of many Ameri- can cities have paid high price for 1 learning that the spells system has l imposed no small part of the over-taxa- , tion from which they suffer; but it is s to be hoped they will not have to pay 1 further for another lesson. The idea r that bipartisan boards will run things V admirably in cities is not justified, either i n the false assumption on which the c .heory rests or in the practice which I t evolves. Experience shows that E when men are chosen to run any de- V 1artment of city affairs because of y heir fitness for the function, we have \ nund the clue in municinal business 9