The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-10-29
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

|
| municipal control. Two cases in point
| are Leeds and Dover, both of which
| towns have recently adopted electric in
| place Of animal traction The Leeds line
! IS about seven miles long, double-track;
but the Dover system is only four mics
/ In length, and in this case the current for
| its operation is supplied by a public light
| ing company with which the town council
| has entered into a contract. This agree
| ment is supposed to be especially advanta-
| geous to both parties as il saves the town
| council the expense of a new station and
| the added custom enables the supply COM
pany to furnish the lighting current more
| economically.
New designs have been made for mark
ing letters in the postoffice and for can
collation. of postage, says the Boston
| Transcript. They have been tried in the
station at South Boston, and are likely to
| be adopted for the whole of the Boston
| postal district by Jan. l. Postage has
| been cancelled in all the offices and sta
| tons with stamp that prints seven
waving lines and thirteen stars in the up
! per left hand corner, suggesting the Amer
lean flag, but in the new stamp there are
no stars. and the name of the station is
printed in the. field, in as large and clear
! type as possible. The stars had more
significance than was generally known.
| When they are arranged in lines it means
tileel TIC 4SANrl was u6EOSlAtu III Il SlI6tt
| letter box, and when they appear in the
| shape of an oval they signify that the
| letter was mailed in the postoffice. .Usu-
| ally there is a letter or number in the
| middle of the flag showing who handled
| the letter in the postoffice.
-Tetricus, the barbarian, was the first
| gentleman to weaE trousers, says the Pitts
| burg Dispatch. He had no heart in the
| Inauguration of the new fashion, he sim
| ply had to do It, Aurelain the Roman had
| captured Tetricus on one of his raids and
| determined to carry him in triumph to
] Rome as one of the spoils of conquest. To
| make the captive appear as ridiculous as
| possible he was arrayed in a two-part
| garment, which in Boston might have been
| called pants" Instead of appearing rid
| iculous, Tetricus seems to have made "a
| hit, for the garment he wore slowly but
| surely grew in favor with the people of
| Rome. We might find the origin of many
| customs in the same way. 1t is known that
| Charles VII. of France wore a long coat
| to conceal his crooked legs. Not all the
| French were crooked, but coats became
| fashionable nevertheless. The process by
| which Peter the Great put civilized clothes
| on his uncivilzed subjects had more meth
| cd in it. The gates of the towns were hung
| with garments of the new fashion and the
people were obliged to adopt them or be
| publicly punished.
Unused boilers may be effectually pre-
served, it is said, by the following method:
They are completely filed with fresh wa
| ter, and in the case of large boilers with
| large tubes, there is added to the water
a certain amount of milk Of lime or a So
| luton of Soda in the case of tubular
boilers with small tubes milk of lime or
soda is added, the solution, however, not
! being SO strong as for the larger tubes,
! in order to avoid any danger of contract
| ing the effective area by deposit from the
solution. The strength of the solution
is to be just sufficient to neutralize any
acidity of the water. Care is enjoined to
be taken to preserve the outside of the
steel or iron tubes in those boilers which
are not to be used for long periods; such
are for this purpose painted with red lead
or coal tar as far as it is possible to reach,
while for those portions which are mac
cessible a protective coating is obtained
by burning under the tubes a certain
amount of tar or coal tar, the smoke of
these forming coating of SCOT which
prevents the air from reaching the sur
face of the tubes. Besides this treatment,
the boiler casing is closed and kept air
tight. after some quicklime has been plac-
ed inside. Periodical inspections of these
boilers should be made to insure the COM
plete filling of the tubes.
Archibald Forbes, the famous war cor
respondent, writes of the BLACK Watch
The regiment was in service against fort
Ticonderoga Q75O. The assault, which
was made on most imperfect information
of the strength of the fortifications was
a disastrous failure. The BLACK Watch, ="
which could hardly be called back from
the attack, lost 647 men, of whom nearly
a half (31D were killed. The proportion
of killed to the total strength was not
less than one in three. At Waterloo,
which was not affair Of rose water,
1t was one in seventeen. The regiment
} was not present at Quebec, but 1t took
part in the campaign of 1860, a series of
successful and comparatively inexpensive
operations, which resulted in adding Can
ada to the empire. Its second battalion
had been serving meanwhile in the West
Indies. To that region the whole regi-
ment was again transferred in 1861, select
ed, as was stated in the dispatch from
home, for their sobriety and abstemious
habits, great activity and capability for
bearing the extremes of heat and cold -
The campaign resulted in the conquest of
the Windward Islands and of the Havan-
nah. From the West Indies the "Black
Watch" was sent back to New York and
had three years of campaigning against
the Indian tribes. At last after eleven
years, what was left of the regiment-it
had lost $40 officers and men killed and
wounded-was sent home. The survivors
were not without the solace of prize mon
ey, won in the conquest of Havannah.
Each private had the magnificent sum of
"a Is. S1ad while Lord Albemarie, who
commanded, received f122, 967. Sic vos non
vob-s
In an English magazine article Sir
William White, the naval constructor.
furnishes some interesting figures show
ing the relative cost of ancient and mod
ern battleships, says the San Francisco
Chronicle. He shows that in 1897 the Sow
ereign of the Seas cost fH,00O half OF
which was for labor This was an excep-
tional outlay, and other than legitimate
expenses were charged against that YES.
sci. At the beginning of this century a
lW-gun line-of-battelship cost from f65, 900
to 10000, exclusive of armament The l21
gun sailing three-decker of 1897 cost near
ly f121,0OO, and the screw three-decker of
1857 about 100000. The use of armor add.
ed greatly to cost, and the Warrior of 1879
figured up nearly f3S0000 The Drea6-
nought of 1873 cost $4,000 and the Infiex-
ible, which followed her. cost $4,000
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