The morning news., 1897-04-17
ITEMS OF INTEREST.



one corner a vignette of Frau Luisa
Blaha. the soubrette of the Budapest
Volks theater.
The railway metals between London
and Edinburgh. a distance of 400 miles. are
210 yards longer in summer than they are
in winter, owing to the expansion caused
by the extra heat.
Some ultra progressive French Jews
have started a movement to transfer the
Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. to
adopt the Gregorian calendar, and to
make Yom Kippur coincide with the
Christian Easter festival.
In one of the Canary Islands there is
a tree that, as the evening comes on, quite
frequently rains down copious shower
of water froh its tufted foliage. This
forms pool at the base of the tree, which
the natives use as drinking water, it be-
ing absolutely pure and fresh.
"A new method of testing the hardness
of steel balls has been devised in Ger
many, says the New York Sun. The
balls are dropped from a fixed hight on
a glass plate set at an angle; if properly
tempered they rebound into one receptacle
and If they are too soft they drop into an
other.
"A six-inch Harveyized steel plate
measusing eight feet by six has stood a
severe test in England. Five 1OO-pound
Hotter projectiles We're fired at it from
distance of thirty feet with a velocity
of 1850 feet a second and were shatter-
ed without perforating it, only slight sur
face cracks being found. The backing of
the plate was merely bruised behind each
impact
The British treasury authorities have
just received from the chief constable of
Buckingham a remarkable collection of
coins, which were recently discovered at
the village of Whitechurch, through the
falling of a ceiling in an old house They
are all silver coins. and number twenty
eight, belonging entirely to the period COW
cred by the reigns of Elizabeth. James l
and Charles l. The bulk of them are in
an excellent state of preservation. The
oldest date decipherabe is 1865.
Persons informed that large peanut
oil factory has been ercted at Norfolk,
Va, are apt to ask what the oil is used
for, says the st. Louis Globe Democrat.
1t seems that it is already sold as table
oil, a base for soaps and as a lubricant
for confectioners, makers of plug tobacco
and machinists Peanut meal will be re-
fined for invalids, and the coarser mate
rial pressed into cakes for cattle. The
humble peanut may yet restore wealth to
the unproductive fields of Virginia and
other parts of the south
The French government is now dis
cussing the advisability of extending the
system of anthropimetic measurment
from criminals to soldiers of every grade,
and from the army to the entire popu-
lation, says the Philadelphia Record. OF
course, the idea meets with a good deal
of opposition by people who consider that
French citizens are already burdened with
too much red tape and state interference.
But there are many enthusiastic cham
pions of the scheme, and it is probable
that in the long run it will be adopted.
"A few years ago the world rejoicel
over the discovery of cocaine as a local
anesthedc, says the New York Press. nr.
Lambuth. who has been practicing medi-
cine in Pekin China, says that the Chi
nese have long had a similar anesthetic,
the principal ingredient of which is frog
eye juice. 1t costs 81 an ounce, and is
prepared in small, hard cakes resembling
beeswax, but of darker color and SEMI
transparent He dissolved a piece in
water, which required twenty-four hours,
and tried the solution on his lips, hands
and tongue, each of which became numb
instantly.
According to the statistics of the Rus
sian minister of finance Russia produces
annually forty times as much platina as
all the other countries of the world COM
bined. In 1880 the production amounted to
$3.50 pounds; in 1894 it was 11,06O pounds
but in 1895 it had again gone down to 800
pounds on account of the very wet sum-
mer in that year. This valuable MEAL
is found almost exclusively in the South
ern Ural mountains, and is exported in
the ore, the refining being done mostly
in Germany. At the present time the
price of a pound of the ore exported by
Russia is about 500.
in the Soochow hospital the opium
habit is kept track of, says the New York
Sun, in this way: Number of smokers
male, 1866; female, 2. Health since they
began smoking and by their own testi-
mony-better, 2; same, 40; worse, ia. Num-
ber of years smoked, average, 8. Amount
daily average, 163 grains. Reasons for
contracting the habit-Dsease, Sc; pleas
ure, H. Reasons for breaking the habit
Bat habit. 20; economy, 5S; inconveniant
to smoke. 40. The largest users of opium
are clerks and shopkeepers. Next come
the farmers, then students, teachers,
Buddhist priests, Tauist priests, weavers
and carpenters in the order named.
-Andree's North Pole balloon expedi-
ton sails on May IS, from Gothenburg
for Spitzenbergen, where, under shelter
of the balloon house erected last summer,
the equipment of the balloon will be COM
pleted, says the Philadelphia Record. The
eminent meteorologist, DIR. Ekhom, who
was Mr.. Andree's companion last year,
will not accompany him this summer. and
his place will be taken by a civil engineer
of the name of Fraenkel, while there is
talk OF an artillery lieutenant of the name
of Swedenborg going along, too. The voy-
age to Spitzbergen will be made on the
gunboat Swenslesund, and Mr.. Andree ex-
poets to have the balloon filled and ready
for ascension on June 20. He anticipates
that the balloon will be driven toward the
north coast of America.
The London Epicure says: The bon vi
want of Mons, who recently left legacy
of 5000 to five friends on condition that it
be spent i'm dinners at various restau-
rants, devised an original way of keeping
his memory green, the cheerfulness Of
which, however. is unfortunately likely
to be impaired by some of the conditions
attached to the bequest. In the first
place the testator insists upon the inclu-