The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-05-19
ITEMS OF INTEREST.


rest is not idling. but "a change of scenes
and activities" The true way to rest is
to occupy the mind with something con-
genial and unhackneyed in work and rec
reation. To sit down and do nothing leads
to brooding, which is more exhausting
than work
United States Consul Kirk at Copen-
hagen has made a report to the depart
ment of state, giving a description of an
interesting discovery in the physiology of
plants made by Johannsen of the Agri-
cultural High School of Copenhagen. The
discovery is that plants are susceptible to
the influence Of ether or chloroform, but
in their case the effect is to awaken them
instead of putting them to sleep, as would
be the result with human beings. Also
the plants are made to grow with great
rapidity in or out of season, a fact of the
greatest Importance to gardeners and flo
riSts.
The greatest diving feat ever at.
tempted was that of the raising of treas
ure that sank with the steamer near Seal
Rocks, New South Wales, says the San
Francisco Examiner, News has been re-
cetved here that every box of sovereigns
that went to the bottom has been saved
by the men who worked under the sea
at depth of twenty-seven fathoms The
names of the divers are Briggs and May
At times they were subject to a pressure
OF seventy to seventy-five pounds to the
square inch, causing, them great suffering.
The Catterthun was wrecked in August,
1875, while on the voyage from Sydney to
Hong Kong. Fifty-four of her crew and
passengers lost their lives, including
brave Capt. Shannon. The vessels cargo
consisted of produce and 10000 in sover-
eigns.
Who has not heard the question:
What becomes of pins?" Millions of
them are made in a year, millions are
sold, and yet the supply no more than
keeps pace with the demand, which seems
growing enormously all the time, says
the New York Sum- BY computation
made in London ten years ago it was
shown that at that time the weekly pro-
duction of pins in Great Britain was $780,
100000 of which 100000 600 or con-
siderably more than half, were made in
Birmingham. Then 120,O0000O were made
in France, and 10000, COO in Germany, Hol-
land and Belgium. Since that time the
production of pins has increased largely.
The biggest pin manufacturing city in the
world is Birmingham, where 81, 900 600 pins,
on the average, are manufactured every
working day. The other pin factories in
England together turn out about 100000
pins daily. The daily output of pins in
France exceeds 10000, 900, and Germany
and other countries in Europe manufac-
ture about 100000 more daily, the total
production of pins being S6,O0O,00O every
day, or COZ, 100000 a week in Europe This
is, of course, exclusive of the pin facto-
ries in the United States which number
torty-t1Ve, having a capital of 5000, 900,
giving employment to 1000 persons, and
turning out in a year pins to the value of
about $l,OO0,0OO. 1t is calculated that only
! per cent. of the pins manufactured are
worn out or broken. The other 80 Der
cent. are lost, but what becomes of them,
where they go, and who gets them, or
why some of them are not afterward
discovered and again put to use, are mys-
terles. At the rate at which pins are
manufactured and the rate at which they
are lost every third person in Europe
and North America must lose a pin a
day. and it is to be inferred, though the
statistician take no account of this that
there is some pin-losing going on, too, in
South America, Asia and Africa, though
tourists in the Dark Continent aver that
the garniture there is such that the use
of pins is indispensable. Pins are made
of copper and zinc wire The metal is
cast into ingote, which are rolled into
sheets after having been annealed sew
eral times. Afterward the sheets are cut
into strips so fine as to resemble wire
and then by machinery the wires are cut
dhu dlLcl warn the pms are pointed ana
headed. After the completion of this pro-
cess the impurities are worn off in a re-
volving iron barrel filled with sawdust
and then the pins are put in a pre9ara-
ton of tin and are polished by the fric-
ton of sawdust to the point of resemb-
lance to the pins of commerce. The pro-
cess is by no means complicated but
much ingenuity is required, for the COM
petition in pin-making is considerable and
the margin of profit from pin manufac-
ture is therefore not so large as to oer-
init the successful operation of any fac
tory not utilizing the most recent i'm
provements.
An American traveller, who went to
Japan to study japanese commercial meth
DDS and conditions, and especially the cues
ton of cheap labor says that the last issue
was made very plain to him in a few words
in casual conversation with a Japanese
gentleman who had spent ten years of his
lie IN Europe and America, says the New
York Commercial Advertiser He said:
You people are inconvenient You re-
qulre so much more than we Japanese to
keep you comfortable. Here, for exam
pie, you are paying IS (silver) a day at your
hotel, and I am paying rs sen or 40 cents
OF your money. l am just as comfortable
and happy as you are. You certainly have
tables and chairs and washstands and
pitchers and a bedstead and sofa, and
goodness knows what in your rooms.
have nothing of the sort A nice clean
tatami mat and a quilt is a good enough
bed for me. Then you have so much more
trouble at your meals with your tables and
chairs and spoons and mustard and pepper
pots. Then you are crowded together In
one room. My meals are serv-
ed on tray in my room
by pretty maid, who kneels
before me while eat, and chats and makes
herself interesting. looking after my every
want at the same time. Then you cart a
lot OF unnecessary baggage around. The
hotel furnishes me with fine silk Dress
ing gown and a nice clean night robe, and
/ can buy a toothbrush for a sen or so.
Say what yau like, you Europeans are in
convenient people. You do not 20 along
che line of least resistance. You make
too much effort to live. 1t costs you too
much in worry and anxiety, IN flesh and
blood and gray matter as we'll" Close
proximity with this happy go-lueky Ash
attic life enables the striking contrast be-
tween 1t and the amount of energy expend-
ed fba daily -