The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-10-01
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Old John Ward, who was pilloried by
Pope in the ''Dunciad." and who actually
stood in the pilory in the year 1927. when
he was said to have been worth 100000,
was, nevertheless, a pious man, says
Household Words. He had large estates
in London and Essex. and dill not omit
to pray for their welfare in the follow
ing manner: "Oh, Lord I beseech Thee
to preserve the two counties of Middle
sex and Essex from fire and earthquake;
and, as l have a mortgage in HEREFORD
shire, l beg of Thee likewise to have an
eye of compassion on that county; and for
the rest of the counties deal with them
as Thou pleasest."
1t is rumored that before long glass
umbrellas viii be in general use-that is,
umbrellas covered with the new spun
glass CLOTH says the Westminster Ga
zette. These, of course will afford no
protection from the rays of the sun, but
they Will possess one obvious advantage,
namely, that they can be held in front
of the face when meeting the wind and
rain, and at the same time the user will
be able TO see that he does not run into
unonending individuals or lamp posts. But
what say the loVerS-the seaside holiday
lovers-who are to be seen on every beach
round the coast with their backs to the
cliff or a handy boat, an unfurled old
StS 10 uAlbleIld III front OF INGnl, leaving
nothing to the gaze of the inquisitiVe save
the soles of their four shoes? Surely they
Will revolt against the innovation.
Among the superstitions engendered by
ignorance of the laws of meteoroIogy, says
the Revue Scientifque, we must include
the showers of sulphur Without abso-
lutely denying that the wind may be able
TO carry to great distances real sulphur
coming from volcanoes, it is certain that
the majority of such showers are due to
quite another cause. AT Bordeaux the phe-
nomenon of the So-called sulphur shower is
quite frequent; it is seen every year in
April and May. chiefly with fine rain and
west winds. Objects are covered by this
rain with a very fine yellow powder, which
collects in hollow places. This powder has
no odor and is impalpable; but if it is ex-
amined with the microscope it may be
shown TO consist of kidney-shaped bodies
swelled at both eXtremities The origin of
this yellow powder is not doubtful Bor-
deaux is surrounded toward the south and
west by vast pine forests. AT the period of
Towering the pollen is carried by the wind
up to the clouds. whence it falls with the
rain. The special form of the corpuscles
collected is absolutely Identical with that
of grains of vegetable pollen.
For exhibition at the congress of
minister of public instruction offered the
sultan $500 for the loan of the Koran of
Haroun-al- Raschid, to parade at the re-
ception and then to have it copied, says
London Truth. He refused This unique
volume stands in the tombhouse of the
sultans at Constantinopie at the foot of
Mahmoud IFS coffin. Its margins are il
Illuminated in the Persian style, and it is
kept with jealous care by the wearer of a
II Apfs NJ,
Grafton would be repaid, in seeing it, for
making a journey to Constantinople. M
Cambon goes often to feast his eyes on it,
He was first authorized to offer $1,000 for
loan of it for two years, and then So. OOO
the French government paying a heavy
premium of insurance. But the sultan
holds it to be invaluable, which it is He
also thought that, if lent, the faithful
would miss it from the tombhouse where
it is treated as a venerable relic. Had it
been brought to Paris under the proposed
conditions a new departure in decora tive
art might have been the consequence. '.-
The youthful elephant, Toby, is now
the '1ion'' of the Jardin d 'Acclimatation,
says a Paris letter. There are all sorts
of reasons for liOnizing him. He is a
recent gift of the Emperor Menelik He
comes, as that emperor. says from a part
of Africa whe elephants are phenome-
lldl All Their SdSdCily, ana ne Is playful
and fond of practical jokes. Toby is fond
of cakes and rice. He likes children and
gay people, but he objects to savants of
grave aspect. Has he noticed that they
do not bring cakes in their pockets? A
party of congressonists now in Paris
were greatly amused by his tricks to-
day. Toby singled out one of them whip
ped off his hat, and walked round the
enclosure, waving it triumphantly. Then
he came back and set it on the owners
head again, but he took off his spectacl
and seemed puzzled what to do with them
After looking at them attentively, he re-
stored them to the owner But this time
he took off the hat again, dropped it on
the ground, and seized the somewhat sin
gular head of hair of the learned congress
sionist, and pulled it off, for it was arti-
fetal. 1t is expected that after this feat
Toby will make the fortune of the Paris
ZOO" He must be a very shrewd baby
to have noticed the difference between a
wig and homegrown hair.
Some interesting gimpses of the work
ing of the Russian censorship-which was
maintained even against French journal
lists during President Faures vfsit-are
given in a letter from the special CORE
spondent of the London Daily News in St.
Petersburg: Calling at news agency af-
ter the review L learned that the censor
had gone to dine in the country and would
not be back before o'clock, up to which
hour no kilograms could be passed. This
was tantamount to cutting off foreign cor
respondents from telegraphic communion
ton with the rest of the world for the
night. The outlook seemed hopeless when
high Russian official who has the privi-
lege of passing kilograms, kindly consent
ed to look over mine. 1t was a great ia
vor. The improVised censor objected how
ever, to story about M. Faure's overcoat,
and accordingly 1 had to suppress il. He
was very sympathetic. I know he said
you must be metaphorcally crashing
your teeth. But 1 should get into trouble
for passing your telegram if there were
anything Objectionable in it, One of my
French colleagues wired that the Grand
Duke Alexis waited half an hour at the
landing-stage. He was pulled up by the
censor with the remark, "A Russian grand
duke waits for nobody A friend of mine
was about to write that the czarina had
grown slightly stouter since she was in
Paris, but RETAINED stated the fact, and
it was allowed to pass
Among the odd things about official life
in Germany, says a Berlin letter to the
Chicago Record, are the monopolies that
a fa1 oil ,e