The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-05-14
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

over l,OuO,W0 cat skins are used every
year in the fur trade.
An ammunition factory in London is
fianked on one side by hospital and on
the other by a graveyard.
The supreme court of Mississippi has
decided that a juryman may be witness
at one and the same time
Nearly 200 patents have been issued for
horseshoes, but not one of the inventions
has ever come into general use.
--One inch OF rain falling over the re-
gion drained by the Mississippi is equal
to 21,7S0, 900, 100000 gallons of water.
Since the year 1880 the Paris police
have arrested as many as 10000 children
who were being trained for begging and
vice.
The combined age of five couples who
recently celebrated their golden weddings
at Wazemmes, in Belgium, was just 500
years.
"A police census, just concluded. shows
the population of Washington to be 277, ASS,
an increase of 1911 during the last two
years.
Great Britain broke its record for ship
building in 1896, the number of tons
launched being 1,S26,S22, as against 1,156 571
tons in 1895.
-Coroner's Physician Albert T. Weston
reported that he had found 365 gail stones
in the body of a woman on which he held
an autopsy, says the New York Journal.
There is only one other case in medical
records that equals it. The stones found by
mr. -
to a marble half an inch in diameter. The
body is that of Mrs. Lena Gross, AZ years
old, of No. 50 West Ninetieth street. She
died at the German hospital last Wednes-
day after an operation had been perform
ed for intestinal obstruction.
In the French navy experiments are
being tried on the battleships Marceau
and Courbet and upon the cruiser LIE
Suchet for indicating the speed of the en-
gines and their direction by an electric
method, giving indications in various
parts of the ship says the Philadelphia
Record. A small dynamo is used, geared
to the main shaft in each case. and fur
nishes currents to the mains connected to
galVanometers of peculiar design in va
rlous parts of the vessel. These, by the
amount and direction of the displacement
of the needle. indicate the speed and di-
rection of the engine shaft.
Not long ago the newspapers printed an
account of two enterprising burglars who
stole a safe, carted it away and blew it
open in the woods, instead of running the
risk of disturbing the people from whose
house they took it, says the New York
Press. From England comes news which
shows that the British thief is not to be
outdone by his American cousin. Until the
other day there stood at the entrance of
the village of Slough, on the Bath road
near London drinking fountain of mar
bic and bronze, of which the villagers
were enormously proud. 1t was fourteen
feet high and weighed half a ton. One
morning the good people woke up to find
their fountain gone. A gang of original
minded thieves had stolen 1t for the sake
of the bronze, which broken UP, would
be worth large sum merely as old metal
No trace of the fountain has been discov-
cred, and the people of Slough have des-
paired of ever seeing it again.
"A writer in the Revue Technique
gives some very interesting figures reiat-
ing to the cost of horses in military ser
vice and makes out a strong case for the
use OF motor wagons for such purposes.
| he advances arguments to show that
electricity as a power is being debarred
| from such service, owing to the imprac-
| tieabiity of properly charging in the field
| or en- route so that steam and petroleum
these
| steam has the preference, for great DOW
| ers, at least, since the petroleum motors
/ at present have not proved satisfactory
| above 10 horsepower. Iron tires alone
| meet the requirements of this service.
| Practically all automobile vehicles for
! military service must be carefully design
| ed steam traction engines, capable of
! drawing trains wherever horses can go.
In the opinion of the writer, it is probable
| that machinery in warfare may soon en-
| ter the field service as extensively as it
has already entered other departments.
-'Itu not be long until we see another
rush to a new gold field" said W. N. Nc
| Balm of Tacoma Wash, at the Laclede
| hotel, says the St. Louis Globe-Demo-
| crat. For a number of years the yell
| low nuggets have been found on the banks
| of the Columbia river at and below the
! confluence with the Pend O'Reilie. Few
white men have worked on the washings,
| because the results were not profitable
| enough. Chinese have focked in however,
| and by the use of amalgamated plates
| have earned Sl.50 a day on the average.
| Below the juncture of these two rivers
| these gold deposits are found for miles on
| the banks of the Columbia, but above the
| sand deposits are as free of valuable de-
| posts as the sawdust floors of a sash and
| door factory. This circumstance has
| given rise to a belief among the Indians
| of Northwestern Canada and among
| many intelligent white settlers as we'll
| that rich deposits are somewhere to be
! found in the Pend O'Reille country. The
| Indian version is that the mother of gold
| an indefinite expression which white be-
| levers also use is somewhere in the
| Pend O'Rellle river. Old miners in this
| section speak mysteriously of sexes in the
metals, and refer to the mother of gold
| just as the farmer Of a decade or two
ago spoke of the mother of vinegar.
| There can't be the one without the 9TH
err, they say, and If blindfath is ever re-
warded new gold field is likely to soon
be opened up"
And now comes William l.. Skinner, a
st. Louis inventor, with an electrical in
vention that promises to make the deaf
hear, says the Philadelphia Record. Mr..
Skinner is a civil engineer by occupation,
but of late has been devoting the greater
part of his time to inventions. The cleo
trical ear drum is his latest project. A
patent was recently granted. If Mr.. Skin
ner's invention will do what he claims for
IL ha has UyrOup6f a n