The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-04-08

There are good many boys of ple- beian birth whose outlook for future prosperity and happiness is greater than that of little King Alfonso of Spain.
 The smallest race of people in the world inhabit the Andaman islands. They have an average weight of sev- enty pounds and are under four feet in height.
 The British army rife has eighty-two component parts, in the production of which 952 machines are employed. as well as various processes which do not require machinery.
 A St. Louis clergyman says that the earth will pass away before the year 2000. But, unfortunately, he neglects to state which one of the several claim ants who are after it will get it.
 An attempt to cross the Alps in a balloon starting from the Italian side, will be made next summer. The in tention is to keep at a height of 15,000 feet as long as possible, and to take photographic views and make scientific observations during the passage.
 Nickel is modern metal. It was not in use nor known of till 1715. It has now largely taken the place of silver in plated ware, and as an alloy with steel it is superior to any other metal, for it is not only noncorrodible itself, but it ransfers the same quality to steel; even when combined as low as 5 per cent. it prevents oxidation.
 The Berlin university has the largest number of students of any university in the world. There are at present 5,921 students, 2,O0O of whom are study ing medicine, 1,291 law, AS theology. The theological department is on the decline and has the least students of any time in the past five years. There are over 800 foreign students in this university 100 from the United States. Mrs. Mahala Bentley of Bloomington, H., whose mother was with Daniel Boone at the siege of Boonesboro and whose mothers sister was the first white child born in Kentucky, has en- tered upon her second century of life. She is reported to be as active as most women of 60, and with the apparent vii tality to carry her over to the next century when she will have lived in three centuries.
 Henry c. Elwell of Philadelphia in June next, if he lives till then, will complete fifty years service as s pri- vate in the Pennsylvania militia, and will claim as the senior marching sol dier of the State National Guard the first gold medal to be awarded under the will of the late General William M Reilly to the soldier with the longest continuous service in the Pennsylvania military. He is now seventy-three years old.
 In his recent address before the Dor. chester Wonan's club President Eliot of Harvard university lamented the tendency of our American families, ant especially New England families, tt scatter to all points of the globe, bu he expressed the belief that the prac tice will not last much longer. The condition of a family living together generation after generation, he said is a normal one, and the scattering O. a family all over the continent is ab normal.
 A widow of Eau Claire, Wis, ha sued a -townsman for $1,20C claiming that he "did wickedly, felon iously and with malice aforethought take, steal and carry away one kiss, tn same being the personal property 0 the plaintiff" Now $1,200 is a remark ably high price to pay for one kiss even though it be that of a widow, bu if she really values it as high as that the defendant ought to be gallan enough to give 1t back again and thu settle the matter out of court.
 s'Leslie's Weekly" says: ''The mos expensive Army chapel built at any O the United States posts has just bee completed at Fort Riley, Kansas. It i of native graystone, quarried on tn nineteen n-thousand-acre reservation be longing to the post, and handsomel finished in oak. Its seating capacit is six hundred, and it cost over S15, ,0Ot The post, which is also the training school for artillery and cavalry, ha about thirty-five hundred soldiers con stantly in the barracks. The Govern