The Louisiana populist., 1897-07-23
NOTES AND COMMENTS,

| IhHCc HIS set up dDOuU OUU WOnu'
|! ments to more or less distinguished
Frenchmen during the last twenty five
years, and there are now 1877 commit
tees collecting money for more.
The railway companies of Great
Britain carried $50, 900, 900 passengers
in 1895, Of whom 1856 were killed. Dur
ing the same year, in the city of Lon.
don alone, 5S6 persons. were killed by
falling from buildings or out of win
dows.
A projectile from the new English
wire guns in q recent trial at Shoe:
buryness completely penetrated an
eighteen-inch steel-faced compound
armor plate backed by a six-inch
wrought iron plate, by eight feet Of
solid oak and three inches of iron, and
was found imbedded in clay bank
thirty-f yards behind the target.
Spain, according to the war office
statistics, had sent, up to the end Of
1897, l9S,O47 men and 40 generals to
Cuba. The deaths in the field and
from yellow fever and other diseases
were four generals and %, 731 men and
officers. No account is given of the
men sent home invalided, but at least
%, 600 have returned many of whom
have since died.
The new transatlantic cable, which
is to be laid between Brest and New
York during the coming summer, will,
it is said, be the longest in existence.
The length will be $3.50 nautical
miles, and the total weight of the
cable with its envelope is estimated at
1000 tons. -Four large ships are to
be employed in stretching it across the
oceans bottom.
A flock of wild pigeons so numerous
as to recall the hunting stories of days
that were supposed to have passed for
ever has taken possession Of grove in
Shasta county, Cal. When the birds
are on their foraging expeditions they
are said to form line mile in length
and from 100 to 200 yards wide, while
the sound Of their wings is like that Of
furious storm. At night they gather
in black oak forest, where, over an
area of about 100 acres, they seem to
! cover every twig and bough.
1t may be of interest to know what
church in the world is accounted the
wealthiest. This recognition is gen.
orally assigned to the Orthodox Church
of Russia. As an evidence of this, it
is stated "that it could easily pay the
national debt of the empire, amount
ing to about f2O0,OOO,0OO, or nearly
81, 900, 900, 900, and yet not be impover-
lshed." This seems almost incredible,
but it must be remembered that it has
some very lucrative sources of rev.
enue. One of the most profitable is
the sale of candles.
A floating church" has just been
built in the English fen country. The
parish Of Holme, in the diocese of Ely,
has, in consequence of the drainage of
the fens, especially the famous Whit.
tlesea Mere, 80 extended itself that
about half the population are practi-
cally out of reach of their parish
church. To assist him in getting at
these outside parishioners, the vicar is
trying the experiment of using kind
Of houseboat, which can be moved
from point to point on the large fen
dyke, or canalized river, surrounding
three-fourths of the parish.
The towns of Woodsdale, Moscow,
Springfield and Fargo. in Kansas,
which had population Of eleven hun
dred in 1890, have now only popula-
tion of eighteen, according to a cor
respondent Of "The United States In
vestor." Hugoton has three families
out OF the four hundred that used to
live there. Nine children 90 to the
$4,000 schoolhouse, and there is
standing, like monument of folly, a
waterworks system that cost some
Eastern plutocrat $4,000. The town
never paid cent of principal or inter-
est on all this and never will.
The Agricultural Departments Ex-
pertinent Station Record states that a
colony of bees, of which there ap-
peared to be at the beginning about
10000 bees, was watched from Janu-
ary to December, 1891, and at the end
OF the season it had about 10000. For
the whole time there were about 800
eggs laid per day; for the seasonDf
the honey flow (March to August 81
the number of eggs per day averaged
1,760. The highest daily average was
between March IS and April 10, and
was 1900. The colony did not swarm.
Over 300, 900 bees were hatched and
passed away. The colony made 1870
pounds Of honey.
Some idea Of the rapid growth of
the telephone service in this country
may be obtained from the statement
recently made on good authority that
the number of telephone stations in the