The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-07-03
ITEMS OF INTEREST


The average duration of life in Eng
land is % years; in Scotland the same; in
ireland rs. The average for the civilized
world is 27.5.
In so years the imports of the United
kingdom increased from $76OOO0,OOO to 81
OS5,000,OOO; and the exports from $4s5, 0OO, 900
to $l,4SO, 100000.
Emperor Menelik of Abyssinia, will
soon be able to communicate with the out
side world by telegraph. A line is being
laid from Harar to his capital.
The Red Lion hotel, Ardmore, Pa,
has been licensed since 179S, and is about
entering its one-hundredth year of con-
tinuous service as a public house.
Prof. Skeat is attacking the subjunc-
tive mood, says the Westminster Gazette
He says there Is no further need for 1t,
and, except for antiquarian purposes, it
ought to be abolished altogether. 1t is
even now moTibund, and is with difficulty
kept alive in the interests mercy of Pc
dantry People may preserve it in a few
petrihed phrases, such as, "if 1t be- or
ii II were not," but otherwise they may
treat the subjunctive mood as disrespect-
fully as a scofaer once did the equator. 1t
IS pity learned men did not arrive at
this decision years ago. Many birches
would have remained unused and hours Of
mental agony spared to thousands Of boys
whose opinion Of the subjunctiVe was none
the highest.
That book sold in London this week
for the amazing price of 1900 is q Maza-
rine Bible only in the sense that it and the
real Mazarine Bible are specimens of the
same edition-the first of all editions print
ed from movable types, says the New
York Times. But though 1t was the Bible
upon which Gutenberg and his partners
first tried his new invention. there were
some queer features, not at all indicative
of piety, about their enterprise. Not only
did they cut the types in close imitation
OF the handwriting of a famous copyist,
the monk Godefalcus or Gotts1halk, but
Faust took the printed b bles to Amster-
dam and declared to possible buyers that
they were written by hand The general
impression that the fathers of printing
were semi-saints is not well founded.
-Adulterated tea which is being sold all
over the European continsnt, is described
in a German medical paper This prepa-
ration has long been known in Russia,
where it is sold under the name of reg
ogeski" 1t is made In the following way;
The manufacturers OF this surrogate buy
n the tea houses the residue from the
teapots-leaves which have already been
used-and mix these leaves while still
moist with other leaves and very little
genuine tea. The mixture is heated with
an addition of extract of caramel and
campeche wood in order to improve the
color and the taste The we ght is also
increased by the addition of sand or soil,
and just before being dried the leaves are
rolled between the hands. The adultera-
ton is so difficult to recognize that a
chemical test is necessary to prove it, If
tea prepared in this way is dipped into a
cold saturated solution of copper the blue
color of this solution will not be changed,
not even if the adulterated tea is allowed
to remain in it for three or four months.
II the tea Is fresh and has not previously
been soaked. the solution will turn green
within a short time.
-Grandfathers and grandmothers are
very proud when they can boast of having
a paltry score or two of descendants, but
no one seems to be ware of the grounds
he has for bOasting the number of his an
cestors, says London Answers. Has it
ever occurred to you to count back in a
direct line? If not, try it now and you
will be astonished. At the first remove
you have two-father and mother. At the
next step you have four-tWo grandfathers
and two grandmothers. Each of these
has had a father and a mother, so you
have four great grandfathers and four
great grandmotherS. Each of these again
has had two parents, so that a the fourth
generation back you have is ancestors, a
the fifth you have 30, at the sixth, GA, and
a the seventh you have 12S. AS you go
a little further they rise to the thousands,
tens of thousands and hundreds of thous-
ands, so that II all your direct ancestors
for twenty generations be added together
they amount to over a million, and II you
go back another twenty degrees they to-
tai 1000 O00, co., 00-or more people than
there are in the world at the present mo-
ment. if you leave out Asia. Now as for
ty generations are equal to only about
1900 years, If you were to calculate back
TO the beginning of the world you SIM
ply couldn't find figures to express the
number of your blood relations.
The Chinese find in the deep roar of
the great and sacred rivers the keynotes
of nature, says Harper's Round Table,
They say that the aggregate sound OF ma
ture such as Is heard in the roar of the
great rivers, the soughing of the wind in
tall forest tree, the hum of great cities,
etc, is a definite single tone of quite an
appreciable pitch. Prof. Rice. In his Chi
nese Music, says that the Chinese recog-
nized thousands of years ago this fact
in regard to sound, which the scientists
JAeN
AS proof Of this he quotes from their
writings, THE waters Of the Hoang-ho,
rushing by, intoned the great kung," call
ed the great tone" In Chinese music, and
he shows this to correspond with the f,
considered by modern physicists to be
the actual tonic of nature" Prof. b. Sill
liman, too, in his Principles Of Physics"
says that this tone Is held to be the
middle + Of the piano, which may, there
fore, be considered the keynote Of nature"
This can easily be put to the test by any
one in the following way: Go outside
some fine night, when sounds are clear.
and listen to the general sound OF nature
as from a distance. 1t will suggest a tone
of a certain pitch. Keeping this In your
mind, go inside and strike the middle f
OF the piano. The two sounds will be
found to correspond in pitch.
In the Nashville exposition building
which Is used jointly for the displays made
by Mexico. Chill. and New Mexico, In the
space allotted to the latter territory there
hangs a bell, battered, cracked, and rust
ed with age--a bell which certainly II It
could speak Ia language that we could
understand. would tell an interesting tale
says the ST. Louis Globe-Democnat. II was