The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-12-11
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

bottles of gin in his hands. Opening one
of these, he spilled the contents into the
grave, thus complying, as he said in a
short speech, with the wishes of his dead
comrade. The other bottle was opened for
the refreshment of the mourners.
They were good embalmers in the old
days. says the Pittsburg Dispatch. Only
a few years ago the brains OF James L of
Engla were discovered enclosed in a lit
tie leaden case in a hospice in Paris -Four
hundred and sixty-three years after Ed
ward L died he was found to be little of
at all. changed, so far as cotemporary
pictures could be trusted The flesh of
the face was little wasted--that was
all. Canute died in 1917; in 1866 his body
was found to be still quite fresh lookins.
In the tenth century the bodies of sew
eral Roman soldiers were exhumed from
an Aberdeen peat bog, and after l. 800 years
We're as fresh and as plump as if they
had only been inferred a few months. The
remains of William the Cohquerer and
his wife were found absolutely perfect
in the sixteenth century. Lady Kilsyta
and her infant were embalmed in III,
and close upon eighty years afterward
were discovered to be as perfect as at the
hour in which the burial took place. The
bodies of Thomas Gray, one time Mar
quis of Dorsetshire, and Robert Bray
brook, bishop of London in the fourteenth
century, were also strangely preserved for
centuries.
Spain and Cuba are now engaged in
bidding against each other for one of the
most formidable engines of war that has
ever existed. If Cuba is successful in the
bidding contest, Spain's vessels will be
compelled to return to their home waters
to escape humiliation. This marvel in the
art of architecture is a submarine boat
and it Is being constructed at the Eliza
bethport ship yard of Lewis Nixon. 1t
is the invention of John p. Holland, and
has received the official Endorsement of
the United States government, which has
one of the battleship destroyers under con-
structior at Baltimore. On Monday last
Mr.. Nixon received orders from the John
P. Holland Torpedo Boat Company to hur-
ry the construction of the craft. So per-
feet is the control the operator has over
the boat that within twenty seconds it can
descend twenty feet under the waves,
where it can be kept stationary or ma
neuvered with equal facility. The crew
will consist of seven men. A large quaint
ty of ammunition will also be carried, in
fact enough to blow every ship in the
Spanish navy out of existence. And it is
possible, says a correspondent. that this
is the use to which the little boat will be
put. Representatives from the Cuban
junta have made an offer for her, it is
said, but as yet it has not been accepted.
Neither has the offer of the Spanish gov
eminent.
The merit of inventing a self-acting
steam carriage is allowed to be due to
Richard Trevethick, a clever but eccen-
trio English engineer, says Hardware. He
was the first who practically applied it to
work on roads and railways In 1902 he
took out patent in England for steam
carriage, and the novel machine he eXhib-
tied to large and astonished crowds in
London. Immediately afterwards he
adapted his steam carriage for the draw
ing of wagons on railways, a duty which
is successfully executed on the Merthyr-
Tydvil railway in 1904. This was the first
railway locomotive, but it was far from
perfect. 1t drew only ten tons of bar iron
at the rate of five miles an hour. Through
the inventive talent of George Stephenson
the Stockton and Darlington railway in
1921, was the first railway in which passen-
| gers Travelled in carriages; yet, even with
this measure of assured uccess, the loco
motive was still an imperfect machine, for
| it's extreme speed was but little faster
than the walk of horse. The means of
| imparting speed had yet to be perfected.
In response to a premium offered by the
| projectors of the Liverpool and Manches-
| ter railway for the best locomotive, a trial
of which was fixed for October, 1892, the
| Rocket, constructed by Stephenson &
| II,
| high-speed locomotive, weighed four and
a half tons, averaged a speed Of fourteen
miles an hour, with a gross load of sew
| enteen tons, it's maximum speed being
twenty-nine miles.
British ship captains assert that Cali
fornia weather is a conundrum, says the
! San Francisco Call. When other parts
of the world in similar latitude and
I Ion itT1Aa Dla
wrapped UP from the cold, here it is
| case of summer skies and genial weather.
Again, when the barometer registers 29. 81
| or 80, and everybody expects fine weather,
the storm signals are hung out, and, sure
| enough, the gale comes along. Storms
| have ragged up and down the coast and
vessels that stood the full brunt of this
storm have reached port much the worse
Tor wear. They all showed the effects of
| the storm, and, in many instances, YES
| SeIs came in minus a full suit of sails
What makes the captains curious is the
fact that since they have compared notes
one and all declare that in no case did
the barometer vary more than a coupIe
OF points. While the wind howled through
the rigging and the rain came down in
torrents, the mariners standby stood firm
at 1891 and gave not the slightest warning
mat danger was ahead. Saturday last.
When the danger signal was fvinp from,
the pole over the chief wharhneer,s Of
nee, the captains along the front would
hardly believe that a southeastern was
coming, because they had more faith in
the barometer than in the weather proph-
ct. They found out their mistake before
sunday morning. Many of the skippers
mad to get out of bed in the night ana
put out extra breastlines in order TO keen
their vessels from going adrift.
Many queer instances are recorded of
hair turning suddenly white by grief or
terror says the st. Louis Republic. These
instances, if they could be established nc
facts, would prove one of the oldest 70.
puted Phenomena attributed to any por-
Ton OF the human makeup. Sir Walter
scott mentions grief of sufficient nov5er-
Iulness TO blanch at once the hair" and
most all other writer's of en.nence men
tion 1t some place in their works. The
mar OF Ludwig of Bavaria. who died in
IzSi' on learning of the innocence Of his
wlre, whom he had caused to be executed
on suspicion of infdelity, became almost
suddenly white as snow. The same thing
is SAID TO have happened to Vanvillers
I1allnntGf Ina