The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-12-01
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Dizziness is not always an evidence of
a lack of brains. Parents should not be
discouraged because their children are not
always as bright as those Of their neigh-
bors- When Isaac Barrow was a boy he
appeared so stupid that his father said.
If God took away any of his children he
hoped it would be Isaac Yet that boy
lived to be ons of the greatest divines of
the Church of England. Douglass Jer-
rold was also a duh boy, and Napoleon's
teacher said he would need a gimlet to
put learning into the head of the future
conqueror of Europe Sir Walter Scott.
Dryden, Swift. Goldsmith, Gibbons, Chat
terton and many others were notably dull
boys.
Though not imperious, her majesty is
a rigorous upholder of old customs, es-
pecially in connection with court matters,
says the Ashton Reporter One quaint
custom, dating from the time of the sec
ond George, which is still observed, is
that of solemnly announcing for the
queens benefit at the dinner table the
name of the cook who prepared the dishes.
before each course is partaken of a clerk
in waiting of the kitchen makes the
formal announcement. Another ancient
custom which the queen keeps up is the
choosing of the password of the tower of
London. Only three persons in the whole
OF the United Kingdom are supposed to
know it,, and these, besides, of course
the sovereign, are the lord mayor of Lon
don and the constable of the tower. The
password is chosen quarterly and, after
being signed by the queen, is forwarded
to the lord mayor and the constable of
the tower. 1t is quaint old custom, rem
iniscent of the, stirring times of former
reigns.
Showers of fish. like the one recently
noted in Western Colorado, are no new
thing, and there have been showers of
rats and toads and lizards and other ro-
dents, reptiles and the like recorded from
time to time, says the New York Tribune.
Though they overcome us Ike sum-
mer cloud, they need no longer excite
special wonder. 1t often rains cats and
dogs, and nobody pays especial attention
to it, except to spread his umbrella and
grid tighter his flowing macintosh. In
1928 Maj. Forbes Mackenzie of Fodderty,
in Rosshire, Scotland, taking a walk
through his fields one day found them
covered with small herring, a phenome-
non noted some years afterward in the
island of Isay, where it rained herring off
and on for several hours, to the great ter
ror of the simple-minded folk inha biting
there, who nevertheless gathered up the
fish and smoked them. similar rain of
habad, in India, in 1910. In 1904 a memior
was presented to the French Academy by
learned naturalist of the time, describ-
ing great shower of frogs that had fall
en- near Toulouse, a short time before.
There is nothing miraculous in these oc-
currences, though they are terrifying to
supplemented and ignorant communities.
The wind simply scoops up these animate
objects, as in its less powerful manifes-
tations it carries aloft leaves and dust
and other light substances, and scatters
them wherever it will. In Norway a case
is on record where a colony of rats, while
migrating from the high to the low coun-
tries, was caught up by the wind, borne
through the air and deposited in neigh
boring valley.
There are few diseases for which there
are so many so-called cures as rheuma-
tism, says the New York Journal. A
French SCIENTIST has recently been ex-
perimenting with bees and ants as rem
edy for this affection, and claims to have
discovered, if not complete antidote at
least a strong palliative He knew that
certain Indian tribes from time immemo
rial have been accustomed to treat rheu-
matism with the sting of bees The suf-
ferer is exposed to a swarm of bees which,
on being aroused to anger, attack the sick
person with great fury. 1t has been
found that no matter how severe the rheu-
matism, it generally disappears by the
time the bees stings have subsidized. The
French SaVant thereupon made a careful
analysis of the poison, or irritant fluid,
injected by the bee, and found that il
contained a large percentage of form. c
acid. Now, formic acid is present in con-
siderable quantities in the bodies of ants
and during his researches the French
physicians attention was called to a GU
rious Russian custom, which showed him
that his discovery, while new from a scien-
tific point of view, had been known ana
applied in crude way in the land of the
car Tor many years. Especially about
the environs of Moscow, the peasants at
tackled with rheumatism treat themselves
to an ant bath. This novel bath is Dre-
pared in the following fashion: A per-
son goes in search of an ants nest, and
when he finds one, puts into a linen bag
the ants, their eggs, and necessarily con-
siderable dirt. Returning to the houqe
he plunges into the hot water of the bath
MS bag of imprisoned ants. After a few
minutes the water gives off a strong, pen.
etrattng odor of formic acid The hath
is then ready, and the patient is put in il
Such a bath has a very active irrifant
action on the skin, whence results a sorf
OF counter irritation that causes the rheu-
matte pains to disappear. Thus far the
results of the French doctors exDeriman. &c
with ordinary formic acid have been fav-
oraole, and he does not regard the use
Of ants or bee stings as being at all essen
tial 10 the preparation or application Of
the remedy.
"A man who wished to make sure that
an ailing child in a bed in an adjoining
| room kept covered through the night. and
who before he went to sleep himself made
mental memorandum to the effect that
ne must not sleep without waking more
than hour or two, really fell into a very
sound slumber, says the Philadel-
phia Press. But in the midst of II
ne was awakened by apparently hearing
the bell of the town clock not far away
strike 6 o'clock-all the strokes falling
clearly, ?, 3, A. s. 6. Now this man is ac-
customed to rise every morning at &
O'Clock and seldom sleeps past that hour.
IL mas long been for him the end of the
night and the beginning Of the day. AS he
heard the strokes naturally he had the
impression that he had slept all night and
mad neglected the child. He got IN ouicx-
~ and was surprised to find that the darlS-
ness was intense and on striking a LIGHT
ana consulting his watch he was astonish-
ed to hnd not only that he had moi silent
more than two hours, but that no he'll bad