The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-09-21
lAIr News nOIt>
General Items From Al.
Over the World.
New Dungeon Discovered Under
mating Railway Tunn.1s

HIIly varieties Oh poplar trees Sio"
in Cuba.
The common earthworm promulgates
disease among animals.
Lord Kelvin contemplates immedi-
ate retirement from the chair of nat
ural philosophy in the University Of
Glasgow
A certain kind of paper is made from
seaweed which is so transparent that
it may be used as a substitute for glass
for windows.
An edition of the "Pilgrim's Prog
ress," translated into Chinese, repre-
sents Christian with a shaved head
and pigtail.
The female attendants at a Chinese
wedding are usually selected for their
ugliness, so that the brides beauty
may be enhanced by contrast.
Sir Alexander Armstrong, who has
just died, spent no less than five con-
tinuous years in the Arctic regions,
searching for Sir John Franklin.
The Church of Our Savior in Mos
COW, is one of the costliest church edi-
fees in the world. Four million dol
lars were spent on its construction.
A dispatch from Rome says that the
Pope has ordered the fusion of all the
clerical banks in Rome, which will. in
future, constitute single official bank.
Rings set with valuable stones
should always be taken off when wash
ing the hands, for the constant use of
soap is apt to discolOr the gems and
loosen the settings.
A Russian school has been estab-
lished at Picking. Instruction will be
given in the Russian language, with a
view to the subsequent employment OF
the students as interpreters and trans
lators in Manchuria.
A lady in Columbus, Ohio, refuses
to pay for a piano on the ground that
the agent forced her to buy it by first
hypnotizing her Thirty-four piano
dealers throughout the country are
eager to employ that agent.
Mr. Eugen d'Alberts new opera,
Cain" will be produced at the Royal
Opera House at Berlin next season,
shortly after Herr Siegfried Wagner's
"Barenhauter, the first performance
of which is fixed for date in Novem-
Der.
The writer of 1.-TWO Little Girls in
Blue" and other popular songs has
died in a New York hospital. Charles
Graham, despite the worldwide fame
of his songs, rarely received over $40
for his productions, and made very
scanty living. He died destitute.
The subscriptions to the Wesleyan
Twentieth Century Fund promised
throughout British Methodism amount
to total of &c., SS guineas. Of the
S14 circuits all save twelve have def
nitely stated the minimum sums they
will raise, and the total amount so far
in &c.
1t is asserted that liquid air has 20
times the explosive force Of dynamite.
During experiments at Vienna, in the
firing of cannon, the liquid air was
exploded by an electric spark, and the
results were extremely satisfactory.
No heat was developed in the guns,
and the range of the prOjectiles was
much increased.
novel way of Illuminating rail-
way tunnel has been devised in Paris.
Refiectors throw the light from many
electric lamps sixteen feet above the
rails to the side of the tunnel, where
it is again reflected by FURNISHED tin,
a soft and agreeable light. The trains
automatically turn the current on and
off on entering and leaving the tun-
mel.
The workmen who are excavating
at the Tower of London have discov-
cred dungeon under the White Tow
er to which the entrance seems to have
been by a shaft down which the pris-
oner would be lowered into the cell.
The walls reek with moisture, and the
floor is covered with mud. The sub
terranean passage was, it is supposed,
filled in by the orders of James l.,
who, after the gunpowder plot. did not
like the. idea of a subway in such close
proximity to the Royal Palace, then
standing near the White Tower.