The morning news., 1897-08-17
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

tercup, which IS such a favorite flower
with children, has poisonous qualities, yet
such is the case, and an inquest has re-
Gently been held on a boy who, after eat
ing some buttercups died within a few
hours with all the symptoms of irritant
poisoning, says the Lancet. The butter
cup belongs to the Ranunculaceae, and
nearly all the members of this group pos
sess poisonous qualities. chiefly Of an ir-
ritant nature, though in a few narcotic
principles are TO be found. The virulence
of the pOisons varies very much, but
there are very few individuals of this
order which are inert. The various spe-
cies of butercups have all irritant proper
ties, and in the absence of better drugs
they have occasionally been used as vesi-
catorieS. Cows avoid buttercups but
hogs and some other animals can eat
them with impunity. The active princl-
pie is volatile, so that when the butter
cups are dried with hay or exposed to the
air they become inert. Luckily the but
tercup, though pretty to look at, does not
usually tempt children to eat it wholesale,
otherwise cases of poisoning might be less
rare than they fortunately are at present.
1t is not generally known that many,
many years ago Mr. Gladstone wrote a
play treating of the retreat Of the ia
nous 10000 under Xenophon, the leading
part being intended for Kean or Young
The drama, however, was rejected by the
manager of the day. Some enemy of the
G. o. NJ is now raking up the truth of
this preparation, and trying to get hold
of the MSS. with a view to producing
the piece on the London stage No doubt
there is a great dearth of new works,
but what has poor A=r. Gladstone done
TO warrant this cruelty to his fame? Very
likely the eX-liberal leader was stage
struck in his youth. Anybody who has
amounted to anything in after life has
usually suffered from that youthful dis
ease in some shape or other, and, as we
all know, Mr.. Gladstone has shown great
fondness for actors and actresses-partic-
ularly the latter. Miss Mary Anderson,
when she first went to England, became
a favorite with the Gladstone family, and
her beaux yeuX, ] am sure, must have
done some havoc with the great common
er. At least, let US hope he was human,
whatever his adorers now make him out
to be. Dramatic enthusiasts, however,
will feel sorry this story of his play-Writ-
ing did not materialize some years ear
lier.
An electric trolley railway without
overhead wires is the latest scheme for
the solution of the street railway propuI-
sion problem, says the Boston Journal
of Commerce 1t is the invention of
French engineer, and if it proves thor
oughly practical the system is to be in
troduced into Paris IN time for the inter-
national exposition of 1900. The inven-
ton does away entirely with overhead
conductors The inventor establishes
contacts from the electric lamp posts be-
longing to the city, the distance between
posts being somewhat smaller than the
length of the electric train, consisting of
two or three cars, so that contact is al
ways assured at one point at least
Through flexible points of contact, sus-
pended from each electric light post along
the proposed line, the current will be
taken up by means of a copper rail fast
ened along the edge of the roof of the
car, not less than fourteen or fifteen feet
from the ground. The contact point will
slide along the copper rail, so that there
is no difficulty in establishing a continu>
Gus current if the points of contact are
made sufficiently elastic The current is
allowed to return to the power station
through the track Of cI1e line, as in the
present trolley systems. The system, il
is claimed, offers all the benefits of the
overhead and underground systems with
out any of their Objectionable features.
"A Wall street boy is expected to be at
the office at o'clock in the morning, and
remain there as long as his services are
needed, though he usually gets away
Bile. He has an allowance of half an hour
at noon for luncheon, but the rest of the
time belongs TO his employer. He Is eX-
pected to be neat in appearance, clean as
to hands and face, well-mannered, truth
ful at all times, prompt in obedience, and
faithful in guarding the secrets of his en-
ployers. The duties first assigned to him
are to carry messages, deliver stocks at
other brokerage offices and obtain checks
for them. After a while he is advanced to
making comparisons of sales of stocks and
taking the checks received from other
brokers to be certified by the banks. OF
late years the stock exchange clearing
house has done away with so much of the
stock delivery by boys that the number
of them on the street is not more than half
what 1t used to be. Formerly 1t was not
uncommon to see from twenty-five to a
hundred boys waiting in line at each of
the prominent banks to get checks certi-
fed, and nearly every bank employed a
private policeman to keep the boys in
line and in order. A story is told of a new
| boy on the street who once went to make
| a delivery of stock. When the bookkeep-
| er made IN the accounts at the close of
| the day he found himself $S0NO short and
| an examination of the books showed that
| one of the boys had failed to bring back
! a check in return for some stock he had
| delivered. He was perfectly innocent
| about the matter, and said that ne had
| handed the papers in at the Office where
| ne was sent 10 make the delivery, and as
| they gave him nothing he supposed there
was nothing for him TO get. His employer
treated him kindly. and told him 10 be
| careful not to make the same mistake
again. He never did The boy Is now at
the head OF one of the largest brokerage
| houses on Broad street.
| Newton often did not know whether or
not he had had his dinner. says the Cleve-
land Plain Dealer. Swift lived in Dublin
on a monotonous Diet of mutton PIE. Shell
| ley was content with bread or anything
which happened to be at hand. Richard
son was a vegetarian and an abstainer.
and Thackeray, though partial TO French
| cookery, refrained from too free indulgence
| in IT, Darwin gorged every now ana then
| on plum cake. Byron, after fits OF ntem-
perance I'm the way of liquids, lived for
| weeks on biscuits and soda water. When
| he was abroad he purchased a goose and
/ carried IL about with him in a basket In
| his travelling carriage. But when the time
came for the slaughter the poet had be-
come so fond OF his feathered companion
| that he declined TO have IL killed. Alex
] - q alst al,