The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-03-05
ITEMS OF INTEREST.


academy at Annapolis. the six first and
highest members of the engineering de-
partment were all scions of the South. The
first, second and third in grade We're from
Kentucky, the fourth from Texas. the fifth
from Mississippi, and the sixth from Ark
ansas.
The setting of plaster of Paris may
be retarded by the addition of 2 to per
cent. Of powdered althea root. This adolf
ton not only retards the hardening of the
plaster, but also enables it to be cut filed,
sawed and turned. An addition of 8 per
cent. retards the complete setting of the
plaster for about an hour, so that the
mass may be used for any purpose where
it is to remain plastic during at least a
portion of that time.
Maurice Corson. a Palermo On j.
bought a quantity of calico during the
civil war, paying 50 cents yard for it.
When the price fell to cents after the
war Corson declared he would not sell a
yard of his goods unless he realized a
sum equivalent TO the price he had paid
for it. The goods remained on the shelves
in Corson's store for thirty-eight years,
and were sold last week for 2 and cents
a yard.
Chickens are sold by the piece in
Buenos Ayres. They are dressed before
being offered for sale, the only feathers
being left upon them being those of the
tail. The same custom prevails in China
as to dogs, where bit of the dogs hair is
always left on the end of the tail, even
when the animal is cooked. But this is
because the Chinese consider the flesh of
back dogs the best, and most certain to
put brave spirit into the body of the
eater
Tracing missing letters, packages, and
newspapers through the mails has been re-
duced to a science, says the indianapolis
News. Estimates made in the railway
mail service show that out of the mil
lions of pieces of mail handled every day
only one piece out of every 1900 goes
astray So many of these wandering pieces
are recovered that the per cent. Of those
permanently lost is sill further reduced.
There reaches the Indianapolis headquar-
tiers Of the railway mail service every day
a little bundle of notices showing what
mail is lost and what is found. Some
times there are enough of these narrow
slips of paper to make pile an inch high.
On other days there will not be half
dozen of them. 1t seems that more news
path in their travels through the mails,
and that people to whom they are directed
make more noise and complaints about
them than they do about missing letters.
The clerks at he Indianapolis headquar-
tiers of the mail service say that the pub
lie mind has always been imbued with
the idea that registered letter is the
safest and surest that can be dropped in
to the mails, but the methods of search
ing for common letters, postals, and news
papers have been brought to such a fine
point that now it is about as easy to le-
cover one of these pieces of mail as it is
registered parcel or letter."
A comparison of the number of species
of plants known to the various learned
men, who have lived during the past 1000
years, and whose names are more or less
familiar to US, shows, says Prof. F. H.
Knowlton in the Plant World, how mar
velously our knowledge of plants has been
increased. Thus Hippocrates, called the
Father of Medicine" who lived between
5O0-400 B. c., knew only 294 species or
kinds of plants. Theophrastus, 371-225 B.
c., who was perhaps the first real botan-
list whose name has been handed down to
us, described about 500 species of plants,
which he divided into trees, herbs and
shrubs. By Dioscorides C77 A. d. the num-
Der was raised to 600 species, and by Pliny
(23-79 A. ID to 800 species. During the en-
Suing 1900 years and more comparatively
little work was accomplished. Ray, who
wrote between 1885 and 1904, enumerated
and described IS, CPS species of plants. The
number of plants known to Linnaeus in I'LL
was only 1851 species, less than half the
number supposed to have been known to
Ray. PERSON in 1907 recognized 10000 spe-
cies of towering plants, while DeCandole
in 1909 recognized 10000 species. An esti-
mate made about five years ago placed the
number of known plants in the world at
1877 of which the seed plants made up
about 125,0OO. Considering the number of
new species published every year, it is
probable that the number now in the books
is not much short of 100000 species.
If you would be right in the swim nova
days you must have your breakfast egg
from the same hen every day, says the
New York Times and the breakfast cream
and milk must be from the same COW at
each meal. OF course there is nothing new
about having the milk from the same COW
every day. A lot of dairymen have made
a specially of that sort of thing for some
time But the egg fad is something new. 1t
has come in since w. K. Vanderbilt, Col
Astor, Gov. Morton, H. NICK. Twombly,
the Havemeyers and the rest of the gen
tlemen farmers have been shipping eggs
and milk and produce of all sorts from
their farms at fancy prices for the delec-
tation of people who don't happen to have
farms of their own. Every day your egg
comes to you labeled with the name of the
hen and the hour and the day at which
the egg was laid 1t is in a sealed box, and
So when hereafter you read on a Label,
MARY G., p. M, 3 1, '99, Echo" don't
make the mistake of thinking that it is
the label of some new kind of bitters.
Translated it means that the brown Leg
horn hen, Mary G., laid this egg at 2
o'clock in the afternoon of Feb. 1, 1899, at
the Echo farm. When it is poached it
must be, in the boiling milk of the COW
that has the honor of furnishing you with
your daily supply of milk and butter.
They're talking now of pairing shad so
that hereafter fellow can have his plank
ed shad all Matched from the same roe
"A solution of the problem why the
earliest known civllizatlon-those Of Baby
lonia, Egypt and China-should all have
made their appearance In the deltas of
tn~ Ice