The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-10-17
ITEMS OF INTEREST.


| transatlantic steamer La Bourgogne, says
! the Paris Messenger. Capt. Deloneie, the
1 commander Of the vessel, appears, to put
| II mildly, to have been a person of a high
! ny nervous temperament, and somewhat
| given to superstition. So subject was he to
| a presentment that he would die as he did
| that he became absolutely paralyzed and
incapable OF dealing with danger when it
/ arose. His premonition was Il matter of
some notoriety, and losers by The collision
bringing suits against the owners of the
ship are urging, with some show of reason,
that the owners, knowing of his de.usion,
ought not to have continued him in his
command.
Out in Chicago there is now in opera
ton the biggest camera and the strangest
! Photographic apparatus in the world. The
camera takes a picture % by 80 inches in
size and is mounted on a tripod fifteen feet
high. For taking flashlights the operator
has a set of fifteen poles from twelve to
twenty feet in hight On the top of these,
set up all about ROOM is placed the pow
der, which is fired simultaneously by cleo
tricity. So brilliant a fash is made that
people In conventions and at banquets are
taken in motion, as in a sunlight snap
shot. But queerest of all is the fact that
this inventive photographer has devised
| balloon bags to suspend in rooms where
the hashlight powder is burned to catch
the dense and offensive smoke made by 1t.
The bags close up automatically after the
flash.
"A learned European professor states
that insects are not free from this terri
bic vice, and he accuses the most elegant
among them, the butterfly of being given
up to it. The professor shut up in a green
house twelve males and as many female
| butterflies in order to study them at his
leisure. He was not long in finding out
that those of the fair sex" were remark
able for perfect sobriety. These winged
ladies drank nothing but water, several
drops of dew a day, to quench their thirst.
| The males, on the contrary, were of a re-
voting intemperance. "They came" said
the professor, ito the flowers whose distil-
lation produce the most alcohol, and they
drank of the juices to the point of re-
naming inanimate several hours. There
was not a day when l did not pick up
butterflies dead drunk" And the profess
sor is persuaded that the butterfly does
not merit the reputation for inconsistency
which the poets give it. When the insect
is overcome by the abuse of strong Ii
quors, it sta ggeringly takes itself TO its
| spouse to receive the attention which its
state needs. The professor conducted his
experiments so far as to intoXicate his
pupils, not with flowers, but with Yeri-
table spirits, of which he placed a few
drops on the glass of the greenhouse. The
butterflies did not hesitate; they precpi-
tated themselves upon the whisky and
I several of them succumbed. Some butter
flies at liberty were attracted by the fumes
of a glass of gin left upon table in a
garden, and fell asleep after excessive
/ libations.
The chosen people of Israel murmured
against Moses and desired to return to the
land of Egypt because they remembered
the onions and garlic, says the Baltimore
Sun. And now we have the ladies of
Cincinnati objecting to street car conduc-
tors who smell of those delightful vege>
tables. So far have the wingless angels
of the city of pigs and pork carried their
! opposition to onions that the managers Of
! the car companies have, SO ii is reported,
issued an order forbidding the use of on
ions by the conductors. If perchance 4
/ conductor should yield to the temptation
he is put into quarantine for twenty-four
hours before he can venture between the
wind and the ladies'. Women have deli
4 cate, well-bred noses, prone to turn up
upon occasion, and they have no tolera-
ton for an onion, which they regard as
a kind of vegetable polecat. The onion 70
! especially a polecat when its peculiar
flavor is admiXed with that of bad whisky
or beer with a little malodorous tobacco
/ thrown in for good measure After abol-
I
dies will direct their attention to some of
the conspicuously loud perfumes with
| which some of their own sex occasion
ally soak their pocket handkerchiets, much
to the irritation of the weak nerves of men.
Ladies are very peculiar about what they
| smell, and they are not SLOW to manifest
| their displeasure when any one lights a
/ cigar or pipe in their presence. And yet
We generally find that the three seats re-
| served in the open ears for smokers are
at least half filed with women, even
when the other seats are vacant 1t is
one of the privileges of the gentler sex
to be inconsistent and we dearly love them
for it, as we'll as for all their other wo-
manly traits. They should deal gently
! with the street car conductor. He is a
| hard worked and not Overpaid, and he re-
quires all the patience with which a boun-
teous nature has endowed him in the
prosecution Of his calling. Let him eat
onions if he wants them.
-Mantels- nowadays are almost exclu-
sively made of wood, says the New York
/ Sun. Marble is used occasionally, but
only for the most costly of all mantels,
costing perhaps thousands Of dollars The
marble mantel of the kind so familiar
| years ago is no longer made, and some
| times marble mantels of fine quality that
| cost from $500 to $500 are taken out to be
| perhaps 500. Slate mantels so widely
and commonly used a few years ago are
now rarely set up. They also have given
| place to wood. Wood mantels may easily
| be costly They gre made in hundreds of
| different STYLES and at all sorts of prices,
from $1,000 down 10 a few dollars. Many
! of them are beautiful. not a few of them
| are of great beauty and even the cheap
est may be tasteful and graceful in design
and finish There never was time when
so much art and skill went into wood
mantels as now. The woods used include
mahogany, curly birch, quartered oak,
and other hardwoods, wildwood and pine.
Perhaps more are made of whitewood
than of any other one material. The va
rious woods are finished in great variety.
The oaks, for instance, are stained in sew
enty or eighty different shades, to match,
if it should be desired, any furniture.
! Many mantels are painted and enamelled.
In the fireplace fittings of the more cost
ly mantels it is not unusual to find mar
obi al,