The morning news., 1897-08-28
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

blood, is from the Spanish "sangre azur,
which implies she notion that some of the
Oldest and proudest families Of Spain, new
er tainted by intermarriages with the
Moorish invaders, kept their blood Of pur-
ar tint than that Of the common people.
William II. Prescott, the American histo-
rian, in one of his works on spanish MIS-
tory, speaks Of the anxiety shown by
the modern Spaniard to prove that the
sangre azur blue blood, flows through his
veins, uncontamina led by any Moorish or
Jewish taint." Before the invasion of
the Moors the kings and n0bes Of Spain
were almost without exception descend
ants of the Gothic conquerers OF the Pyr-
enuean peninsula, who retained the blonde
hair and the pale comp p.eXion of the Ger
man race. Among the fair-haired people
the veins of the skin are usually visible
on the hand as wei as upon the forenead.
They appear Of a blush TINT while the
blood vessels Of the dark haired races,
with olive-coiored complexion, cannot be
seen through the skin The ignorant
masses of the subiugated tribes believed
the blood of the bon e races to be really
blue. Speaking Of famil es of blue blood
meant the ruling class, the aristocracy Of
the nation, Lamartine, the French poet,
in hgurative language, mentions "the red
blood of the Gauls and the blue blood OF
the Germans"
Education is playing sad havoc with
the teeth of modern generations, says the
London Telegraph. So an experienced
dentist in the West End says, and ne
ought to know. Formerly decayed teeth
were generally attributed to a secret fond
ness for -bons, but the idea is, it APP
pears, quite a mistake. In fact, sugar is
rather nourishing than otherwise. The
truth is that the ancient sturdy, square
jaw OF the English race is changing,
through lessons and book learning, to an
angular N-shape, which presses the mo-
lars one upon the other, does not give
them room to grow, and WILL in time,
prevent some of them from cutting at all.
Indeed, tins catastrophe is not infrequent
already. In many cases the original
teeth are becoming less in number than
they ought to be, and often the wisdom
ers" fail to appear. This in an educated
jaw is lamentable. The new facial form
is, according TO the dentist, much cult
waited by ladies' who find that it is pOpu-
lar among gentlemen The latter like
women with the educated angle or chin,
which generally carries with it pearly, but
very fraiI teeth If the specialist be
right, this process of selection, aided by
further lessons and more study, will in
the course of time, produce race with
out any teeth at all. Then will the den
tist make fortunes, for people will require
complete artificial sets from babyhood on
ward.
An instrument was recently exhibited
at the Royal Society of Edinburgh by
which the minute marks on a phonograph
cylinder produced by music or speech We're
multiplied about 1909 times, so that the
form of each vibration and the number
of vibrations for any given sound could
be seen. says the St Louis GlObe-Demo-
crat Little waves, each wave being a
vibration, were recorded on a long ribbon
of paper. The inventor accomplished this
by taking advantage of Lord Kelvin's
siphon recorder In making an observa-
ton, the phonograph cylinder was moved
about ], 900 times slower than wnen II gave
out the sound, and the vibrations occur
ring in half a second of time were spread
along a ribbon of paper twenty feet in
length. Thus each vibration could be
seen. With regard to human speech, an
inspection of one of these curves proves
that word such as "Constantinople, -
or, indeed, any other word was simply a
collection of musical or other sounds run
ming rapidly into each other. The musical
sounds of the vowels predominated, but
the so-called consonants were also often
musical sounds, more or less listinct.
The word above mentioned contained 200
or 800 vibrations, according to the time
that dWelt on each tone. Each vowel had
its own pitch. 1t would be impossible, by
| looking at the curves, to read off the
word, as the tracings of the same word
would rarely, if ever, be alike, because
it was almost impossible to speak a word
twice with exactly the same quality of
tone and emphasis.
The origin of the American cocktail
it admitted obscure, and many attempts
have been made to trace it, says the
American Epicure An ingenious but un-
rfr,,s ton,
been going the round of the press gives
! it medical significance. The old doctors,
| they say, had a practice of treating certain
! diseases of the throat with a pleasant IL
quor applied with the tip end of a long
! feather plucked from a cock s tail They
| finally began to use this preparation as
a gargle, and the name cocktail clung to
it. The gargle gave way to an appetizer
| to a mixture of bitters, vermouth and Ii
! quor that is stin in occasional demand.
| For my own part l prefer infinitely the
! story Of the Mexican beauty. According to
| this legend, the original cocktail was made
| from pulque, an alcoholic beverage distill-
| ed from the juice of the maguey, or agave.
| The liquor. so It's said was discovered by
! a Toltec noble, who sent some of it 20
! the king by the hand OF his daughter. The
| monarch drank the pulque and looked at
| the maiden. Whether the lady's looks gave
picasanter flavor to the liquor, or whether
! the taste OF the liquor made the LADY seem
| the fairer is not certain; the king. at any
rate. fell in love with both. started a
| pulque plantation and married the girl.
whose name, Xochiti thus became asso-
! ciatod with the national intoXicant The
rest is easy. When Gen. Scotts troops
| came to Mexico they drank the liquor liked
| il, and, with the easy adaptablity of
| the Saxon, simDhded its Aztec name into
/ cocktail" which they carried back with
/ them to the states
"A report by Sir George Bonham OF the
! British ambassy in Madrid on Spanish
/ finance has been issued by the foreign
office. says the London Times. The bud
/ get for 1851 as finally passed I'm the
| Cortes, showed a revenues Of 1911, ,450.
ana an expenditure of $50, ,4j65Si and the
! balance thus estimated was in fact slight
/ ~ exceeded by the actual results. For
! the current financial year the estimated
! expenditure is ,635 and the revenue
f35.331, $50. The extraordinary budget for
| 1867 gave an expenditure Of f9.3G00l0.
! largely intended for naval development.
| The total public debt Is 1858 2G577l, includ-
! ing over f7000O,000 of Cuban debt. and the
/ ot1 uf nai "a. 81 az