The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-03-14
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Foreigners have sometimes commented
on the fact that all of our warships are
painted white, says the Philadelphia
Times. Few nations have any particular
color prescribed for their vessels of war
nor did this country prior to the civil war
Our warships in the old navy were, like
most of those of other countries, black or
very dark in color. The change was by
no means a fanciful one, but was the re-
suit of experience gained during the war
The Southern blockade runners, gunboats
ETC., were all of a dull white color, and
1t was discovered that this alone enabled
them to run the gauntlet in the dark
where black hull would have been sure
of detection In fact there is no color
that looms up more conspicuously on the
water at night than black. But in case
of war our ships would not remain the
brilliant white beauties that they are now
A coat of paint would be added which
would transform them into almost a lead
colored hue, as were the old Southern
blockade runners. OF course they would
not be quite so stylish and pretty as they
are now, but it would destroy the shining
mark they now present to an enemy's guns
by day, and by night it would render them
almost invisible.
1t is utterly untrue, says the Journal
of Commerce, that our industrial system
is making it more difficult every day for
man to earn by the sweat of his brow
that which will honestly maintain him
and those depending upon him." The pro-
portion of the population which is earn
ing its living is steadily increasing; the
wages of labor are Increasing from gen
GRAFTON to generation and from decade ~
decade; almost from year to year. The
amount of physical comfort and intel
lectual enjoyment that a days labor will
| purchase is increasing in marked ratio.
Poverty exists, but it is not all of it
| due to misfortune; the industrial system
| has serious defects; men whether rich or
poor, are selfish. But in no age of the
| world has the laborer been so well fed
| and clothed and housed as he is now;
| never before was there a better demand
| for his services; never before have pub
| lie institutions and institutions endowed
| by rich men afforded the laborer such
opportunities of raising his intellectual
| level; never before was there so much
| law within his reach for his protection;
never before were the rich more ready TO
come to his relief when the failure of his
| capitalistic employers threw him out of
| employment or disease attacked him;
never before did he have the facilities for
lettering his condition in the world, and
never before did so many men who had
nothing but their hands to make their
|
| ative independence.
"A 20O-foot shaft stands in the center
of Sydney, Australia. It's sides bear no
legend to tell of its mission and it is
| known, not appropriately as the scent
bottle as its purpose is to draw the gases
from the sewerage system of the city
Through its great throat the underground
| city breathes and the deadly sewers are
| relieved. The bottle being nearly 200
| feet high, rises above any inhabited house
| in the city, and the rushing sewers, Civ
! ing the gas a forced draft, shoot it many
feet above the top of this great gray Chin
| ney whence this dangerous aeIiform fluid
| is carried away so that il never reaches
human being. This perpendicular ges
sewer was built before 1880, and feeds the
| elements daily with enough foul stuff to
| kill the inhabitants of a good-sized city,
| or to blow Gibraltar into atoms. Since its
| construction there has not been one ex-
plosion along the line of ramified sewers
which converge to this point. The scent
| bottle is not an eye-sore. Its business is
so disguised that it is an object of beauty,
and is readily mistaken for a monument.
| Indeed, Ii is the biggest, most conspicu-
| Gus and picturesque of all the notable
| monuments in New South Wales of which
colony Sydney is the capital Hyde Park
| is the loveliest portion of the heart of this
/
of its chief gateways is in keeping with
| the other extravagances that are to be
| founds in this busting city. The scent
| bottle" however, is not an expensive
| structure, and is commended to cities in
other parts of the world as vertical lungs
for the safety of sewers.
This is a complaint, an account of
which will be found in no medical text
book M. Charles Bastide is responsible
for the naming of this fin-de-siecle dis
| ease, says the Medical Review, and in
the current number of the Fortnightly Re-
| view discourses on its origin, contagious
| ness and on its various symptoms. 1t may
| be said that, although it is more or less
| prevalent in all parts of the civilized
world, it is in France that its course is
most virulent. The incubation of the
! literal uritis' begins at an early age; the
boy at school is the first to receive its
baneful seeds into his system, and as he
| advances in years the disease
| gains firmer hold, until at
last the malady is past cure.
In a word the epidemic referred to is
that disseminated by the corrupt literal-
ture of the day. According to NJ. Bastide,
public unrest in France, the unsteadi-
ness, the tendency to excitement, the
frantic loves and hates may be in a large
measure attributable to the unwholesome
bed in which grow many poisonous fungi,
and unfortunately Paris prepares the food
and distributes it, This perhaps is
scarcely subject TO be commented on in
the pages Of "a medical journal, as it con,
Germs the physical body only indirectly.
Still, there can be no doubt that the read
ing of pernicious literature does harmful
ly affect the body through the influence
of the mind, especially with the young.
| Such books, too, tend to suggest and fos-
ter habits, which, if continued in win
eventually wreck both mind and body.
One of the curious things about Mr..
Gladstone is the difference which years
have produced both in his appearance and
| expression. At all times he must have
been a handsome man. But, strangely
| enough, when he entered the House of
Commons, in his 22d year, it was the beau
ty that seemed to point to premature
DEATH His face" says Mr.. Mccarthy.
was pallid, almost bloodless," and the
| pallor was brought into greater life by the
abundant and intensely black hair and the
large, fiery black eyes that blazed upon
the world" Different portraits of MIR.
Gladstone form an interesting study. The