The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-09-15
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

state for oil and lumber, the second for
coke and third for coal. 1t has thirty-six
railroads projected, eight of which are
under construction.
The little town of Morehead. Kan,
has a cooperative hotel, laundry, hall,
creamery and canning factory and CO.
operative dining hall, with several CO.
operative farms near by.
"A dispatch dated Chicago. Sept. Il,
says: The Illinois Central is experiment
ing with an inspection car having a mo-
tive run by gasoline. Thus far the eX
periments have been so successful that ii
is quite probable the road VIII adopt this
description of car on all of its divisions.
Several railroad men have expressed the
belief that the automobile OF the rail-
in a short time viii come into such gen.
eral use that the old handworked inspec-
ton cars VIII be but little more than leg
acies of the past The car with which
the Illinois Central is experimenting has
an average speed of twenty-five miles an
hour, but it is capable of covering the
rails much more speedily than that. One
of the inspectors of the road is said TO
have gone twenty-five miles in two hours.
A gallon of gasoline ordinarily will run
the car more than seVenty-five miles, and
there is a provision for carrying four
gallons, or enough for an unbroken run
of 800 miles.
BY almost constant overcovering, day
and night for successive generations. the
skin has, by degeneration adapted itself
to its reduced requirements, says the
Philadelphia Medical Journal. From birth
to senile death we are much overcoVered.
That a fun and vigorously developed skin
Is desidera tum, will be generally con-
coded. The tendency is for ours to degen-
exquisite structure of the skin a once in
dicates its importance as one of the or
gans of the body A homely showing of
that functional power which can be devel-
oped in the skin is indicated by the story
of the Indian. Being almost naked. and
yet apparently quite comfortable in inclem-
ent weather. he was asked why he did not
seem to suffer and be made i'll by the eX-
posture. He replied white mans face no
pain. no sick. Indian all face" By this
excessive covering our peripheral nerves
are too intensely impressed by caloric
changes, our capillary blood system TOO
feebly and iucompletely developed to bat
tie most successfully with neat. disease and
traumatic impressions. It's muscular fat
and connective-tissue substance are adj too
deficient and defective for our greatest
comfort and welfare. All its functional
powers have been reduced. Yet seldom is
heard a cry 10 develop the skin.
The story that a bronze pen, "nibbed
like a modern steel pen" has been found
at Pompeii and another "of a somewhat
different shape at Herculaneum' adds an
other proof to the statement that the
Romans did not confine themselves TO the
stylus. Yet it was not until 1880 that
Birmingham manufacturer named Harrl-
son introduced the metallic pen to Eng
land. Even then-twenty-five years later.
when barrel of them was on sale in
London-we read that they were by far
too expensive for general use. We do not
know the price then asked, but at the
time of the battle of Waterloo we read
that Sheldon of Sedgley was selling them
at is shillings the dozen. In the seven
teen years following that date the price
fell to two-thrds this sum- To-day, on
the average, $50 pens can be bought for
the price which our grandfathers paid for
one sixty years ago. Yet there is a good
deal of work to be done on the successor
of Byron's Gray Goose Quill" Each of
the millions turned out every year Git is
a thousand million in England alone) has
| to go through sixteen separate processes.
| One English writer on this subject says:
SHOULD we in place of rolling out the
| steel into strips the thickness of pens,
| pull it out into one square bar having
the width and hight of its cross area
| each three-sevenths of an inch, then we
should get a bar All miles long, which
| could be bent so that one end of the arc
| rested in London and the other end in
! Edinburgh.
Fannie +. Ward writing from Cuba to
| the Philadelphia Records says: The doctor
| says that twenty years is the limit of a
| lepers life, and that they suffer little ply
| steal pain beyond a slight burning sensa-
| ton at first Meanwhile disease in any
other form passes them by. No matter how
yellow fever, cholera, smallpox, or any
| other scourge may be raging, these
wretches who long for death are exempt.
At the beginning they are always eX-
| tremely sensitive and try to hide from hu-
| man sight After time they usually be-
| come resigned TO their affection, and even
| happy; and, strange to say as they grow
| more and more hideous, they seem actually
| proud of that which makes them disgust
| ing, and delight to show themselves off TO
| strangers. Such queer streaks has our
| poor human nature-akin to that which
| leads men and women in higher circles to
| regard their age, when nearing the fifty
| mark as something to be ashamed of and
| concealed yet when ii approaches the I'M
usual century milestone they are proud
| of it and inclined to deceive in the other
direction. They trailed after us to the
| gate as we left the place. a dreadful pro-
| cessiOn, worthy of Dante's Inferno, except
| that these mutilated shades were cheer
| full even 10 chumminess. "Adois! Adoisv'
| they cried, the familiar words often COM
| ing from lpiess jaws, and the smiling
| Chnaman, with owls eyelids, piped in a
voice shrill as southeaster: Good bly,,
Mclean leddes good bly," How sweet
the sunshine, the odor of flowers. butter
flies zigzagging in the summer breeze and
trees touching finger tips across the road
| after that awful place of Gods myster-
ious dispensations! The United States army
hospital at the opposite end of the town
fresh clean and orderly, looked like a
small Heaven in contrast to the places we
| had visited.
In 1894 the astounding total of 1872, 900, 900
gallons day was reached by the combined
water companies of London This was
| supplied to the 5,500,000 inhabitants at the
| rate of, say, thirtytwo gallons head for
| all purposes. These figures represent an
| enormous volume of water, though small
when compared with the mighty river that
flowed into old Rome. We can only deal
with the figures roughly; the supply fluct-
| mates n a con sidara HE da0rea OF