The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-04-10
OUT OF THE ORDINARY.


tuition, and is not allowed to make a profit.
It's surplus goes to charitable purposes.
A full grown black ostrich is seven feet
high and easily carries on its back with
the speed Of a horse man of average size.
AS far as calculations can decide the tenn
perature of comets is believed to be two
thousand times tiercer than that of red-hot
iron.
At the present rate of increase the popula-
ton of the earth will double itself in 260
years.
At sea level an object one hundred feet
high is visible little over thirteen miles,
and if $50 feet high it is visible nearly thirty
miles
fruitful for at least four hundred years. 1t
is supposed to be equal to the oak as re-
CARDS longevity.
In India the rhododendron grows to
height of thirty feet. Marigolds and camo-
miles in North Africa reach height of
four or five feet.
The longest fence in the world is wire
netting fence in Australia 236 miles long,
its object being to keep the rabbits from
the cultivated fields.
An average of three British seamen lose
their lives every day by drowning, and three
hundred British steamers and sailing YES
sells are lost yearly at sea.
In proportion to.its population, the United
Kingdom has greater number OF women
workers than any country, and among them
no fewer than $4,000 are set down as dress
makers.
During the siege of Paris no fewer that
twenty-five million letters sailed out of the
city in the fifty-four balloons. dispatched
between the 18th of September, 1870, and the
18th of January, 1871.
Munster, in Westphalia. has public
school which has just celebrated the one
thousandth anniversary of its foundation.
1t is the St. Paul Gymnasium, and was
originally a convent school.
Maxim's cavalry gun, which fires 700 shots
a minute, weighs but thirty pounds and can
be carried strapped to soldiers back. The
gun he made for the Sultan fires 40 shots
a minute, but it is a field piece on wheels.
Hunger stones" have been seen in the
Rhine this winter. They appear only when
the river is very low, and the date of their
appearance is then cut into them. They are
believed to forehode year of bad crops~
An apron is the royal standard of Persia.
Cos, Persian, who was a blacksmith by
full, and his leather apron, covered with
jewels, is still borne in the van Of Persian
armies
The greatest density of population in the
world is claimed for Bombay, and is only
disputed by Agra The population of Bonn
bay amounts to 100 persons per acre in GER
tain areas, and in these sections the street
area only occupies one-fourth of the whole.
In the West Indies lemon bath is almost
a daily luxury. Three or four lines or lem
onS are sliced into the water and allowed
to. lie for half an hour in order that the
juice may be extracted A remarkable sense
of freshness and cleanliness is given to the
skin.
The most offensive thing you can say to
Tuscan is that he is ignorant or ill-bred.
You may call him a fool, or thief, or a
liar, and he will only grin at you but every
peasant considers himself a gentleman, and
desires to run knife into anyone who QueS-
tons his manners.
Turkey and Greece are the only European
countries into which the telephone has not
yet been introduced. Sweden has the largest
number of telephones per capita of any
world having TO
lis persons, and Switzerland comes next
with one to every 1Z.
A German statistician estimates the
worlds population at the present time at
1885, 100000, making a total gain over the
year Immediately preceding of q, 100000 To
this increase Europe is credited with hav-
ing contributed 100000, Asia 100000, At
RIGA 100000 and America 100000.
Charles e. Ashe, of Cardville, Me-, is pos
ing as a second Noah in Penobscot county.
Having predicted flood, which he says will
the country, he is now engaged in the con-
struction of an ark in which to escape with
his family and his household goods.
The hottest region on the earth is on the
southwestern coast of Persia, where Persia
borders the gulf of the same name. For
forty consecutive days in July and August
the thermometer has been known not to
fall lower than 100 degrees, night or day,
and often to run up as high as 12S degrees.
Bootblacks are seldom seen on the streets
of Berlin, owing to the fact that it is one
of the duties of German servant girls to
shine shoes in the household, and of porters
to attend to it in hotels. There are boot
blacks at the principal railway depots, but
they find more patrons among women than
among men.
Epernay, in France, is a vast subterranean
city. the streets for miles being hewn out of
solid chalk, thanked with piles of champagne
of all blends and qualities. The largest
champagne manufacturers in Epernay pos
sess underground cellars which cover no
fewer than forty-five acres and contain five
million bottles of wine.
At Roubaix, one of the Socialist strong
holds of France, the 11;O00 public school chill
dren receive free food and clothing at the
expense Of the town. Their dinner at school
consists of soup. bread, vegetables, meat
and a glass of beer. AT the beginning of
summer and of winter each child receives a
complete suit of clothes.
The Phoenix was the name of the first fire
company in England, and it was estab-
lished in 1882. At that time, in the towns
SquirtS or SyringeS were used for eX-
tinguishing fire, and their length did not
exceed two or three feet, with pipes of
leather. Water-tight seamless hose was
first made at Bethnal Green in 1T2O.
Tristan dAcuha in the South Atlantic
has sent out its annual mail to the world.
There are sixty-four persons on the island
eighteen men, nineteen women, fifteen boys,
and twelve girls. They have nine hundred
head of cattle, nearly double what the ISL
and can pasture, and five hundred sheep.
They are anxious to sell the superfiuous
cattle and are in need of vegetable seeds,