The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-03-01
ITEMS OF INTEREST. {

working hours. According to Locomotive
Engineering. however, while it is possible
TO assemble the parts of a locomotive in
less time than this, to build an engine
from specifications requires much longer.
The record in this matter is probably held
by the Baldwin works, which, on their
first great Russian order, turned out en-
gines within four weeks after the order
was given, when European builders, ac-
cording to this journal, wanted twice as
many months. 1t takes four patternmak-
ers from six to eight weeks to make the
complete set of patterns for a mogul en-
CINE Two men will be ten or twelve
days making the pattern for a cylinder
and haif-saddle and all core boxes, so
that locomotive builders are very expedi-
tious when they have an engine ready
six weeks after the Specifications have
been received, especially with the diverse
forms and special patterns now in vogue.
As a rule, the people who go to the
Zoo stare at the wild beasts with monot-
onous curiosity, but the animals seldom
regard their visitors with an equal amount
of interest, says the Philadelphia Rec
ord. On Saturday, however, all the crea-
lures in the cages were alert to catch
glimpse of George Neiderich, the fat boy
from Hilltown, Bucks county, whose joy
some presence they hailed with delight
George is as fine a specimen as ever came
from Pennsylvania Dutch parentage. Only
- years old, he is almost as wide as he
is high, aud weighs 342 pounds. When
he Waddled into the lion house old Nero,
the patriarch of the carnivora, uttered a
frightful roar of greeting and dashed
against the bars of his cage to get out.
All the other lions and tigers took up
the cry at the sight of so much fresh
meat, and George hurried away, glad
enough to escape with his life Animals
ii lrs.,
ing emotions. The elephants envied him
for his generous proportions, and the buff
falos and deer retreated to the back part
of their pens to watch with awe as he
passed by. Monkeys poked all manner of
fun at him. but George returned Cheir
jeers with Interest and generously gave
them lot Of peanuts when he left.
After May all official timekeeping in
Belgium will be done on the 1-to-24 O'Clock
principle, and clocks that obey the govern
ment regulations will be kept very busy
striking the hours as midnight approaches,
says the New York Times Whether the
Belgian people in general will readily fall
in with an innovation of this kind remains
to be seen, but already men are at work
repainting the faces of all the official
clocks, and in places like railway stations,
postoffices, etc, the dials now bear, with
in the old circle of Roman figures, another
formed of the Arabic figures from Il to
"a. This will help one over the difficulty
of translating the afternoon and evening
hours into the terms of the new system,
or rather of the old one revived and the
advocates of the change are hopeful that
it will soon be possible for every one to
say "16 o'clock or ''22 O'clock" without
performing a problem in mental arithme-
tic. The present division of the day into
two parts of twelve hours each, with the
Of cfrrfau ions
doubtless has it's advantages but few per-
sons except astronomers and sailors are
seriously inconvenenced by them, while
vast multitudes will be bothered for years
if forced to learn a new system. The tory
principle of never making a reform until
it is necessary often aggravates eager
souls, but there are arguments in it's favor
none the less, and nobody would say that
the civilized world cannot get along quite
well with its present way of keeping tab
on Father Time.
1t must not be supposed that the fam
inc which is now devastating India, hor-
rible as it is, is unique in the worlds his
tory, says Leslie's Weekly. The annals
of nations give authentic record of not
less than $50 fa rlines dating from Scrip
tural times down to the present. Famine
and pestience have always gone hand in
hand, the one causing the other, and YER
min and filth have always been among
! the chief causes. Every one recalls the
Scriptural passage regarding locusts in
Egypt, "the like of which had not been
before that time, nor shall be hereafter
This prophecy however, was not strictly
| accurate, for so recently as 1855 there
| came a great plague of locusts in Utah,
| and only the appearance of SeagullS, never
before seen so far inland, prevented the
| total destruction of the crops and conSe-
| quent famine Besides insects and YER
min there may be other causes of famine,
| some natural, some artificial Among
| these are rain, frost drought and other
| meteorological phenomena, war, defective
| agriculture, defective transport, legisla-
| tive interference, currency restrictions,
! speculation and the misappication of
| grain. In connection with this last named
| cause it may be said that although India
| has been cursed with famine more than
| any other country having had thirty
four within the past century, it is never
| theless a fact that India, as a whole
| country, always produces food enough for
| all it's inhabitants, and even in years of
| famine there are regions of plenty suffi-
! cient to feed the starving if the grain
could only be brought to them 1t is nat
ural, therefore, to suppose that the causes
! of Indian famines are quite as much arti-
| fetal as natural, and that legislative fore
sight could do much to prevent them.
One of the great forces of nature which
engineers have sought to utilize is that Of
the waves This originates, of course, in
the friction between wind and water, many
miles away, perhaps; but it is a recognized
and considerable power that at present
| goes to waste. Among the more recent at
tempts to harness the waves is that made
| by b. Morley Fletcher, a civil engineer,
of London. says the New York Tribune.
His apparatus has been tried, experiment
ally, during the last few months, in Dover
| harbor, and the results have encouraged
the inventor and his hackers to contract
for the construction of much larger mo-
tor of the same kind In Mr.. Fletcher's
device there is a metal buoy, shaped like
a cheese box, four feet in diameter. This
rises and falls with the waves. Fifteen
| feet or so below it, far enough down not
to be affected by the waves, is broad
| horizontal plane or disk, having four or
five times the area of the top of the buoy.
This plane remains stationary when the
latter rises and falls. From the center OF
the plane a guide rod reaches upward,
and, encircling this tube extends part
of the way downward from the buoy. Thus
the two chief parts of the apparatus main
tain tho same vertical axis, although they