The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-08-20
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Paris IS likely 10 have an Underground
railway. The cost is estimated at s25.-
000000.
According 10 a musical journal. there
are in London $4,000 females who are
learning music.
1t is considered that japanese men
are among the best needleworkers in the
world. their only equals being the women
Of Russia.
1t is customary for Japanese workmen
to wear on their caps and backs inscrip-
tons stating their business and the names
Of their employers.
SO many birds and monkeys crowd the
telegraph lines in Mexico at night THAI
copper wires are used, owing TO their
greater strength. says the Philadelphia
Record.
Prof. Stewart accounts for the dingy
and inconspicuous hue of the plumage
Of female birds by the statement that
were 1t otherwise 1t would fall an easy
victim to enemies during the nesting Pc
riOu.
Books bound in the skin Of departed
friends are said by the London Figaro
to be the fashion now in Paris So are
cigarette cases. tobacco pouches, pocket
books and prayer books made of the skin
OF notorious criminals.
Consul O'Hara, at San Juan del Norte
Nicaragua, says: -Four hundred bicycles
in Nicaragua would bring about more
wagon-rOad improvements in five years
than have been made during the coun-
try's 400 years Of civilization
Antioch in the beginning Of the fourth
century discovered the importance, as a
matter of safety. of lighting the streets;
but the discovery lapsed. In the middle of
the sixteenth century Paris lighted up her
streets with fires, made by pitch and ros-
in.
-Parisians who went to the cars coro-
nation were astounded at the unpavei
condition of Moscow. They found that
it would cost $4,000 900 francs to pave the
town, and that the work would be prac;i-
cally have to be done over every year on
account Of the effects Of the frost.
Although dread for water is instinc-
tive in cats, lady living near the Thames
has a cat which frequently swims across
the river to a spot which is infested wit
rats. Pussy always swims very low n
the water with tail erect and shakes her
self ike dog on coming ashore.
Some interesting discoveries have re-
Gently been made about animal life on the
Hawaiian islands. 1t appears that all the
land and fresh water shells are peculiar to
the locality. Forty-seven out of the rs
species of birds, and 700 out of the 1000
species of insects, do not exist in any other
portion of the globe.
Amongst the ancient Egyptians the
cat was sacred to Isis or the moon. tenn
pies were raised and sacrifices offered in
its honor, and its body embalmed after
death. 1t was customary, too, for the
family in whose house the cat died TO
shave their eyebrows as a sign of mourn
ing for the defunct pussy.
In China in times Of pestilence persons
are permitted to witness gratuitously
Theatrical performances and displays OF
fireworks, the object being that their
minds may be distracted from the pre-
vailing epidemic. In large towns places
are provided in which those who in des-
peration give up the battle of life quiet
ly lay down and die.
The city of Paris has just voted a
sum of 100000 for the establishment of
homes in Algeria, Tunis and Corsica for
tan hospitals. The homes are to be ar
ranged in accordance with the new theo-
ries concerning the necessity of isolating
patients in the last stages of the malady
from those who are not altogether be-
yond the hope Of recovery
They do things promptly in the state
of Washington. Recently German wo-
man came to that state with six children
to meet her husband, only to find on her
arrival that he had been killed in the
mines six weeks ago. A well-to-do French
man, who heard the story, promptly Of
fered to marry the widow and adopt the
children. She accepted the offer, and
within an hour was married and on her
way to her husbands home.
in one of the most romantic districts
of France, he lower Seine, is the antique
abbey of very ancient religious order
says an exchange. The records of the
Benedictine fraternity date back so far
as the first decade of the sixth century.
Most of their houses appear to have
been noted for the Industrial Just as
much as the ecclesiastical aim or tenden-
cy. ITO labor is to pray" seems to have
been their motto. Much doubt exists as
to the exact century in which these monks
invented the iuustrious old liquor which
to this day bears their name Benedic-
benediction on the close of many a. mod
ern banquet; but no doubt exists as to
the excellence of their product Possess
ed of the secret which they had wrung
from natures bosom, the strange secret
how to concoct this cordial, the monks
kept it as they found tia sacred mvs-
terry. For years at the venerable abbev
Of Fecamp this industry was chiefly To-
Gated and carried on under the shadow
OF the rose, which flower is supposed bv
later mystics to have impaired to the
fluid its own rich depth of color. The
French revolution came, and on the crest
of its crimson. billow was Graded the
industrious as were the Benedictine
monks, the revolution and its Caliban had
no use for them. They, and their famous
cordial, sank into temporary desuetude
But the precious secret did not perish
The monks no longer made Benedictine
openly, but it is still manufactured at
Fecamp by a curious corporation. said
to be composed chiefly of socialists. This
bears the odd title. Anonymous Asset
alton of the Distillery of the Benedictine
Cordial of the Abbey of Feca mn - II h..