The morning news., 1898-11-18
ITEMS OF INTEREST.


are required to pay the policeman for his
trouble in taking them to jail
Wait a While,a railroad station in New
South Wales, has just won a fight to re-
tain its name. which the railroad company
wished to change.
A Havana paper soberly asserts that
lin many of our cigar factories the work
ers hire men and women to read and sing
10 them while they work, so that they VIII
not talk to one another and neglect their
tasks"
Russia is going to turn the harbor of
L!bau, on the Baltic. near Riga, into
irst-class naval station and fortress. The
port win be closed to merchantmen and
foreigners for whom the harbor of Win
dau is being fitted up.
The present royal crown of Great Bri-
tain was made especially for the corona
ton of Queen Victoria. To manufacture
1t number of old crowns belonging to
the preceding sovereigns were broken up
and the gems extracted for use in the
Queens crown.
Bank of England notes are made from
new white linen cuttings-never from any
thing that has been worn. So carefully is
the paper prepared that even the number
of dips into the pulp made by each work
man is registered on a dial by machinery.
The JapaAese always bury their dead
with the head to the north, and for this
reason no japanese will sleep with his
head in that position. Many private
houses and hotels have a diagram of the
points of the compass posted on the bed
room ceiling for the convenience of guests.
Near a hotel at South Molunkus, Me,
the resort of many sportsmen at present,
a young taXidermist has placed a stuffed
deer. The animal Is within sight of the
house, and all the neWcoming sportsmen
have had a shot at the mounted deer,
with the result that cigars are in great
demand there.
The simplest public railway now oper-
ated is thought to be one between Ataml
and Ogawara, in Japan. 1t is a narrow
gauge road and is run by man power. The
cars have seats for four passengers each,
Who sit back to back. A train consists
of two or three dozen cars, and is drawn
uphill by half a dozen coolies.
Stockholm has an opera house which is
said to be the finest in Europe, although
others have a larger seating capacity. It
took seven years to complete it, and the
cost was more than S1,6O0,OO0. Private en-
terprise made the scheme possible, al
though the property has already passed
into the possession of the municipality.
George Frederick Watts proposes to
have an open gallery, like an Italian log
gia, built around the church yard of st.
Botolph's, Aldersgate, in London, and to
erect in it memorials to heroes in hum
BE life" He is preparing a monument
to Alice Ayres, a young girl who. in
fire in 1885, saved the lives of three chill
dren, but lost her own.
"A company With a capital stock of $500,
Co., in which several wealthy Mexican cap
italists of Monterey are Interested, has
been organized for the purpose of devel-
oping the oil fields of Mexico, and to
place the product on the market In that
and other countries. There are several
productive oil fields in Mexico one of the
richest of them being located in the state
of Tamaulipas.
"A Belfast, Me, couple in the last thir-
teen years have played over 2S5OO games
of cribbage, and one day last week scored
seventy games apart. During the series
they have held two twenty-eight hands
and one twenty-nine hand. On one occa-
sion both held tWenty-four hands on the
same DEAL all the cards being fours, fives
and skies.
William Reed of Fredericksburg, Va,
has secured from the Charlottesville bat
tlefield a novel relic of the war of 1861
65 1t is an open pocket knife, over the
blade of which has grown about three
inches of the white oak tree, into the
trunk of which the knife was evidently
stuck by soldier and then forgotten.
The three inches of wood represents the
growth of the tree since that time.
1t is generally known that any small
dead mammal or bird, when left near an
ant HILL will ultimately be found picked
clean of flesh quickly. 1t has been lately
demonstrated that they can be made use
full in the direction of skeletonizing speci-
mems. Prof. Bernard has been employ
ing ants as his servants. While In Florida
he had fox squirrel thus skeletonized in
single day. The only agents employed
were ants.
Rats are playing havoc with the un-
derground telephone and telegraph cables
in st. Louis. They have discovered that
the wires are covered with parafflned pa
per, and they like the taste. To satisfy
their appetites they must gnaw Through
the lead casting around the wires. It has
happened in a number of cases that the
rats; in gnawing through the lead cables
to get al the creased paper have barred
the copper wires so that they touch each
other and cross in such a manner as TO
make it impossible TO establish commune
cation over them.
From experiments made on the Righi,
one of the Alps, covering a period of two
years, RiJckevorsel and Bemmelon con-
clude that they consider it proved that if
there is any influence of altitude on terres-
trial magnetism it is so exceedingly small
that it can hardy be detected with pres
ent surveying instruments, and it is,
therefore, unnecessary 70 take altitude in
to account in magnetic surveys; if, how
ever il should be found that there is such