The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-06-17
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

The telephone service between London
/ and Paris has been so successful that the
/ British postal authorities are about TO
lay second cable across the English
! enamel 70 meet the increasing demands
LOT the use OF the wires. The work on
] the land wires is now being proceeded
WITH on both sides Of the channel The
! second cable Is 10 be laid from L.ydden
I spout about two miles TO the west of
Dover The land wires Of the present sys-
I TEN terminate at St Margaret's Bay, from
| which point the cable starts. For the
| second cable, the English land wires
VIII branch on from the old line TO the
north OF FOlkestOne, and be continued
across 10 the cllms. II Is stated that when
the second cable is laid. Manchester and
I Liverpool and some other large centers
are likely TO be directly connected.
All the audience of the opera in Paris
rushed out of the house one night a short
| time ago thereby Occasioning great ex-
| element on the b0ulevards The scene
was really extraordinary, for the ladies
| were running along the streets in their
! low dresses, and many Of the men were
without their hats. The first impression
was that the house was on IRE, ana many
OF the persons who left the building i'm
agined that a bomb had exploded. They
had heard a tremendous noise and seen
| the ceiling of the theater with an i'm
mense hole in IL some two meters square.
| The dust which filled the air was. however
so great that those who had fed in haste
nad not, for the most part realized eX-
actly what had happened. It was dis
covered that the cause OF the alarm was
| that one Of the counter weights of the
| large chandelier had fallen, and had
crashed through the ceiling falling on
the edge Of the fourth gallery.
Recent experiments in telephone con-
nectiOn between warships and the shore
at Kiel, Germany. haved proved quite
successful Gees In future accordingly.
| lie near a buoy in Kiel harbor to be
| connected BY telephone with all parts Of
| the city, and also with each other. The
| central ONCE OF the ship telephone sys-
| TEN is in the torpedo depot. From a
| small temporary wooden building run
| wires through the water TO the same
| buoy, so that the connection is thus
| made without trouble. If a vessel leaves
| its buoy il disconnects the wire from
| the ships telephone, and If it approaches
| one II makes connection. The commu-
| nication of the ship with the different
| port authorities and with purveyors of
| provisions, hitherto fraught with so great
inconvenience and delay, has, by this
invention, been greatly facilitated, and
| it is also of noteworthy and important
use for signalling purposes.
An interesting application of electric
ity, notes the Boston Transcript, consists
in a method Of blowing a steam whistle
automatically at regularly prescribed in
terVals, and is especially valuable on
steamers in foggy and thick weather. BY
It's means one steamer is enabled to signal
another by blowing on the whistle the
I
/ the signals of the international code for
rules of the road at sea-" The adVant-
| age of this method over the ordinary bell
rope Is that the apparatus responds with
promptness and accuracy, and produces
| the blasts on the whistle quickly and in
! clear-cut manner. The apparatus con-
| sists of a clock mechanism, which closes
an electric circuit at stated intervals and
causes the whistle to blow, the clock being
| thrown into action by a button on the
| pilot house, and thrown out of action by
| one or more switches placed at convent
ent points about the ship. The same
| switches are used for signalling passing
steamers
The game of base ball will be fifty
years old this week, says the Philadelphia
Record, the first match game having been
| played at Hoboken, n. j.. on June 10, 1896
| between the Knickerbocker and New York
| clubs. Previous to that time base ball
| had been the great game, but some of the
4 devotees got their heads together and
/ evolved a series of rules which changed
| the sport so materially that they decided
| to call 1t base ball. The first team was
| organized on September g. 1S45, but it was
| not until the following June that a match
| game was played. 1t consisted of only
! four innings, the rules providing that the
| side being first to score p runs should win
| the game. 1t was not until fifteen years
| later that town ball was superseded by
| base ball in Philadelphia. The first game
| in this city was played on June II, 1860, be-
| tween the Equity and Winona clubs. The
! bitter rivalry which afterward existed be-
| the Atlantics of New York, gradually
| gave rise to professionalism, and these
clubs were the first to pay their players.
I There is a mildly developed fad for
jewelry, silver-plated and otherwise deco
rated bicycles Several silversmiths of
this city, says the New York Sun, have
| sold a few such wheels and one was turn
! ed out in Chicago, for advertising pur-
| poses, which was said to be worth 5000.
The costliest yet sold here brought $3.50.
| Another sold for $3.50, the purchaser being
| the maker of the wheel in it's undecorated
| state Most of those thus far sold were
| women's wheels. A mans wheel, elabo-
| rately decorated with silver and held at
| $780, is yet unsold. This last has ivory
| handles, with decorated silver buttons at
| the ends. The front fork is nickel-plated
| and then decorated with a scroll of ap-
piled silver. The handle has silver deco
rations, and so has the little leather tool
kit. The lamp is silver-plated, and a lit
| tie silver watch is attached to the bicycle
by means of an ingenious contrivance of
springs. The ends of the pedal spindles
are decorated in chased silver Some
wheels have been gildeG. Others have
been richly etched and engraved while
still others have been decorated at con-
spicuous points with inset jewels. One
thysts and other gems.
The London Lancet has taken up the
subject of the proper relation that should
exist between the optician and the eve
doctor. 1t is precisely because the ad-
yances of our knowledge during the last
few years have lifted the whole matter
into the professional sphere, says this
journal, that it behooves opticians to be
chary of prescribing glasses, however
competent they may be TO determine the
precise lens, or combination of lenses, re-
CURED. Even in this respect there are
| limitations to their powers for the opti-
clan would not be justified in employing
atropine, without the use of which in
many cases the appropriate glasses can
not be ascertained. Ophthalmic surgeons
have reason to be grateful to the opticians
for the beauty and perfection of the tense
they supply, and for many useful sugges-
tons they have made in regard to mount
ing, and we are sure that in the long run
those opticians will thrive best who will
devote their energies to the resources of
their art Though they may be thorough
ly competent to deal with the physical as
pect of the question, additional and spe-
cial medical knowledge is required to de-
| termine whether it is advisable to adopt
| these very measures which. from a physi-
cal point of view, leave nothing to be de-
sired
|