The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-10-04
ITEMS OF INTEREST.


"A strange scene was enacted at Forest
Hills cemetery, Boston, few days ago
when the mortal remains of the late
Charles Fairbanks We're reduced to ashes
by cremation, and those ashes scattered
to the winds. according 20 the stipulation
of the Will of the deceased. Mr.. Fair
banks had been Mason and an Odd Eel
low, and these societies were represented
in large numbers.
1t is exactly two hundred years since
the cities of France have been lighted at
night though Chief of Police La Reyale
has caused lanterns to be used regularly
in Paris thirty years before. In the edict
issued by King Louis XIV in 1881 order
ing the innovation. he says: "Of all the
arrangements made in our good town of
Paris there is none whose usefulness is
clearer and more generally admitted than
that. of the. lanterns which light the
streets. and as we believe it our duty to
care no less for the safety and convent
ence of the other towns in our Kingdom
we have determined to establish the means
for continuing it forever" The system
consisted in hanging a lantern with a
lighted candle in it across each end of a
street, and one across the middle of the
longer streets.
THE fingers OF criminals" says a
medical man who has studied them, ac-
cordlng to London Answers, "are, in nine
cases out of ter, in some way or other de-
formed People who are constantly being
convicted of theft are found to have long,
thin fingers, a wide space separating the
first and second, and the little finger
crooked. In murderers the fingers are
short and thick; the thumb is long, and
the hand altogether powerful. In cases
where excessive brute force has been used
the little fingers on both hands have been
found to be weak and deformed. Knotty
fingers are prominent where craftiness is
exhibited. Among habitual criminals, es-
pecially burglars, the fingers are found to
be thicker at the tops than near the
knuckles. Out of 5000 criminals recently
examined, 30 per cent. were found to have
deformed fingers.
"A German paper-maker has recently
obtained letters patent on bottles made of
paper, for use on board of ships particu-
larly, says the New York Herald. 1t has
been cause of much damage to steamer
lines that in bad weather large number
of bottles of wine and other liquors are
broken in the storeroomS, in spite of every
precaution. The new bottles are made of
a composition which, with the solution in
which they are made water tight, is still
the inventors secret. After being inn
pregnated with this fluid the paper bottles
are slowly dried in gas stoves, and this
process of drying must be watched care
fully, for otherwise the bottles would re-
main porous and allow the fluid to leak
out. These bottles can be handled rough
ly without the least apprehension; neither
the pitching nor the rolling of a great
steamer during rough weather nor the
breaking down of a truck upon which they
are loaded loosely would be apt TO dam
age a single paper bottle.
Devices for doing work with compress
ed air are brought to a state bordering
closely on perfection at the Huntington
paint shop; in fact, it may be said that
there are few kinks with air that are UNI
known in that shop, as it is the policy to
do everything possible by means of that
useful agent, says an exchange. In glass
ornamentation with air and sand silver
foil is used largely in transferring figures
to the glass The foil is first placed on the
plain glass; a perforated pattern is then
laid on the foil, and the latter is trimmed
with a knife to the lines of the desired
ornamental ton. A coat of paraftine is then
placed on the trimmed surface, and
also on the silver foil; after which a sec
ond trimming is necessary to remove the
paraffine outside of the pattern; this oper-
alton then leaves the glass bare outside of
ready for the sand blast, and is placed in
a box six feet long. three feet high and
IS inches wide, which constitutes part
of the permanent sand blast outfit.
There is a place in California where
earthquakes may be said to be kept on
tap" said a Fresno county fruit grower
to reporter for the Pittsburg Dispatch.
1.-THE spot is at the head waters of the
OF ha ~
and Inyo counties. You can't hire an In
dian or a Mexican to go near that To-
cality They say 1t is the home of the
evil spirits. The country is rugged and
rocky-mountains with deep valleys and
precipitous cliffs. Snakes scorpions, ia
rantulas, centipedes and all sorts of hide
GUS reptiles and insects seem to have
made the neighborhood their paradise, for
they are there In very palpable abun-
dance. But in addition to these attrac-
lions, the region may be said to be in a
state of perpetual earthquake. The
ground trembles and quakes continually,
and the rocks themselves seem TO be grind
ing and grating against one another con-
stantly, as if subject to some great in
ternal force. These phenomena are said
to be more emphatic at night than in the
day time. Frequent booming discharges,
apparently deep in the earth, are heard,
and men who have heard both say they
tant artillery have never heard any
one advance any theory to satisfactorily
explain this uneasy and perpetually dis
turbed condition of nature up among the
far Keweah rocks and hills, but it is
there. If you ever happen to be in that
vicinity, ask the first Indian you meet
to guide you to the spot, and see how
quickly he will shy away and disappear"
1t has long been known that the meth
cd of deciding a wager by the cast of a
die is great antiquity, says the Chicago
Chronicle. Aboriginal tribes in almost all
of the divisions of the earth were accus-
toned to gamble with dice. Antiquarians
have found these implements in their ex-
plorations in the mounds, etc, which mark
nearly every portion of the habitable
globe. Now 1t has been demonstrated
that the ancient Britons were addicted
to this habit, and that they priced their
dice boxes and dice very highly. num-
Der of other curious relics were picked
up in some recent explorations in the
lake dwellings in Glastonbury. From the
remains of animals and from shells found
in these lake dwellings, it is concluded
that these ancient Britons, whoever they