The morning news., 1897-05-20
ITEMS OF INTEREST.


is nearing completion, and it is announced
that it will go into operation on June IT.
The region between the first and sec.
ond cataracts of the Nile is the hottest
on the globe. 1t never rains there and the
natives do not believe foreigners who tell
them that water can descend from the
sky.
Statistics do not bear out the assertion
that machinery is detrimental to labor.
says the New York Tribune. In no indus
try, perhaps, has machinery been so large
ly introduced as in the making of shoes
Yet, according to the figures of the CEN
sus, $4,000 people were employed in this
industry in New England in 1890, against
$4,000 in 1860, while the average wages per
capita have risen from s246 year to $469.
Rum, that once familiar tipple, has of
late fallen into such disfavor that it is by
no means an evidence of teetotalism to be
able to say that one has neither consumed
nor even seen any of it for years, says the
New York Times. The very name surviv-
ed merely as a generic term of reproach,
applicable to all intoxicants. Reports from
England, however, say that there rum has
suddenly attained mysterious popularity
Nobody knows who drinks it, but it has be-
gun to figure again in the excise returns
" d COuSlQeraple degree.
French army pensioners living in the
Hotel des Incalides, who have all receiv-
ed medals for bravery on the field. occa-
sionally drink more than is good for them
says the Cincinnati Enquirer. To prevent
such veterans making exhibitions of them
selves in public reward of 10 cents is
paid to any one who returns an inebriated
invalid to the barracks. Recently intoxi-
cation among the pensioners having in
creased greatly 1t was discovered that a
trade in rescuing had arisen, a knockout
drink costing five cents and warranted to
act at once having been devised which
left clean profit of 10 cents per drink.
I'm a recent discussion on improve
ments in the x ray apparatus, one of the
speakers mentioned that he possessed a
huorescent screen measuring feet by ~
feet. 1t is intended to show the full length
figure all at one view, says the Lancet.
and on an occasion when the apparatus
was being inspected by a number of per-
sons 1t was the means of creating an en-
barrassment almost beyond the power of
words to describe. A lady having incau-
tiously passed in the line of rays was dis
played on the large screen, and as dress
materials are very transparent to the
rays her costume, of course did not count
for much in the picture.
"A mosquito cannot live in air free
from malarial poison, says the Chicago
Chronicle. Untainted air has the same
effect on him as a healthy cc-munity on
doctor. 1t deprives him Of patients, and
he must go to less-favored localities to
practice his profession. The lymph, which
flows through an automatic valve when 1t
inserts it's proboscis, contains a modified
germ of malarial fever, and, according
to the well-settled law of incubation, the
Introduction of the weak germ renders
harmless a subsequent attack by the
strong germ. The mosquito never swal-
lows human blood. 1t cannot. The fact
that its body becomes discolored and
swells while probing is caused by the dis
coloration of the lymph in contact with
the blood and the muscular effort of in
serting the probe. A mosquito will never
insert its lancet in a person not suscep-
tible to an attack of malaria. In this re-
spect, its sense is more accurate than the
most skilled and experienced pathologist.
The French Academy of Medicine is
devoting much attention to a strange per-
son, one of the most extraordinary ever
born into this world, says the Paris CORE
spondent of the Chicago Chronicle. He is
known as the man mummy and one glance
at his ghastly face and body shows that
he deserves the title. This phenomenal
to the civil register of Paris, he is now %
years old. He is about four feet high and
he weighs only forty-three pounds. Even
with his clothes on he is a most singular
looking object-a veritable lusus naturae
His forehead is large, and over it is
stretched a thick covering of parchment
like skin. His eyes, the muscles of which
are atrophied, are quite round and are
wide open, like the eyes of night birds
His nose, too, reminds one of such BIRDS
for not only is it entirely without flesh
but it is also curved in the form of beak
dropping in this fashion over a mouth in
which the teeth can be always seen, set to-
gether as though in a grimace Altogether
the head and face are so uncanny and so
horrible that it is impossible to set down
anything like vivid description of them
on paper.
There never was the shadow Of ex-
cuse for believing that Osman Pasha,
the hero of Plevna, is a graduate of West
Point, who deserted from the confederate
army and hid his disgrace beneath the
folds of the sultan's banner, says the New
York Times. The story was nothing but
a guess, founded on ignorance of facts easy
to obtain from both American and Turk
ish records. There may have been a
Charles l.. Crawford, born in Virginia
and an inglorious bearer of arms for a
attended the West Point Military Acad-
emy, and most certainly he is not the
general whom Russia found IL so hard 70
conquer. An officer stationed at New Or
leans has deemed it worth while to inves-
tigate the first of these points, and has
kindly informed US of the results of his
researches. Only five Crawfords ever
reached West Point, and but one-Medo-
rem Crawford-was ever graduated from
IL. He was an Oregon man, admitted in
1863, and is still in the United States SER
vice. The others were Robert c. Craw-
ford of Virginia, who entered in 1929; Rob-
ert c. of Tennessee, 1850; George Wesley
of Alabama. 1874, and Francis G. of Vir-
ginia, 1881. Herlmann's Historical Reg
ister of officers of the United States Army
-17S9 to 1885," records no Charles l.. Craw.
ford.
History records two instances, accord
ing TO Mr.. Whitley Stokes in the London
Athenaeum, in which bees have been used
in warfare as weapons against besieging
forces. The first is related by Appian OF
the siege of Themiscyra, in Pontus. by Lu-