The Savannah morning news., 1901-07-30
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

an American VeStibule train, leaves
Moscow every Wednesday at S:35 p. M,
reaches Irkutsk at $50 p. m. on Thurs
day of the following week, and leaves
there the next morning for Lake Bal
kal, which passengers cross in the
steamer Angara in nine hours, reaching
the Mysovaia station, on the opposite
shore of Lake Baikal, at 6:3 p. m, and
arriving at Stretensk at 1887 on Mon
day, IL days from Moscow. The first
class fare is s5S.14 The route from
Stretensk to Khabarovsk is via the
Amur river and requires a week, the
fare being $2179. From Khabarovsk
The passengers take the Ussurian rail-
road to Vladivostock which requires 80
hours and costs IS. 40. This reduces
the time between Moscow and Vladi-
Vostock to 70 days. The steamships of
the volunteer fleet require six weeks
to go from Odessa to VladiVostock, and
the passage costs $257.50.
Prof. w. c. Mcintosh, whose ac-
quaintance with the habits of fishes is
well known. believes that these ma
rlne animals are endowed with the
faculty of remembering, much as
many land animals are. In a recent
issue of the journal of the Royal Mi
croscopical Society he advanced this
view. and furnished some examples in
support of it. The behavior of a large
gray skate in it's endeavor to escape
over traWl-beam more than so feet
in length, which had been arrested in
its rise by a temporary block of the
machinery just above the surface of
the sea, afforded ample evidence of
memory. The deXterity with which it
SKINNED to and fro along the beam to
find where it dipped sufficiently during
the movement of the ship to enable it
to glide over was a study If those
who have given a green cod of six or
eight inches a scale back"-a kind of
worm-and noticed, firstly how eagerly
it seized it. tested it in its pharyngeal
region, and soon elected it, never again
taking that species into it's mouth,
would be slow to deny that fishes, and
even very young fishes, have a mem
Dry.
1t has been generally held that the
African elephant is incapable of being
trained to work like his congener of
Asia, and it is, perhaps, on this ac-
count that the nations have looked SUI
pinely on while the great pachyderm
was being gradually reduced to the
extinction mark. Why this idea should
have gotten such a powerful hold on
the public has never been satisfactorily
NAPteAAACdJ DuI Tie TACT
for hundreds of years the great animal
has been only thought of sufficient
value as a producer of ivory, and a
rather conspicuous mark for the hun
ter and his shooting iron" His enor-
nous ears and receding forehead give
him the appearance of being less intel
lgent than his relative of Asia, but
these may be really only superficial
characters, and with the same training
as is given to the animal in India Siam
and elsewhere in the East, there is but
little doubt that he could be brought
to do the same kinds of heavy work
That this is possible has been proved
| IN a rev instances during recent years
In clrcuses, geological gardens and me-
nageries. In ancient times he was put
| TO the same uses as the Asiatic species
| Is to-day. Hannibal certainly used him
| IN his invasion of the Roman empire
Tor his remains have been discovered
IN the st. Gothard pass, and that he
| was used in Roman pageants and IN
the cruel sports of the arena is well
| known to every reader of classical his
| tory. Now that some movement has
| Deen made in Central Africa towards
| stopping the indiscriminate slaughter
OF the animal some attempt will be
made on large scale to prove him
to be useful as well as ornamental.
The credit of having been the first
to use movable type in printing has
been generally given to Gutenberg.
but there is abundant evidence to
prove that John Ghinaman was ac
qualnted with the process many years
before the European was born. A
| curious scrap of this evidence was ac-
cldentally discovered during the recent
troubles in China. Last January, while
some Italian soldiers were footing in
! temple within the Enclosure of the
summer palace of the Empress Dow
ager, they broke open bronze figure
| or the Buddha. Amongst the INSECT
laneous assortment of gold and silver
coins, rolls of prayers, etc, discov-
| cred in the base of the statue was a
Chinese treasury note of the year 1867
protesting to be "redeemable in silver
bullion" to the face value of $50 taels
(about $16O. The note had been print
| ed from movable types. John China
man has generally been credited with
being very far behind the times. but
there are some points in his philosophy
| which Western nations are Just begin
ming to learn. Ages ago he may have
been cognizant of things which these
same Western nations are just begin
| ming to get a glimpse of, and there
ing with the arts and sciences, may
have persisted in the general chaos
of looting and rapine in Pekin. Apro-
pos of movable types, ii may be men
toned that it is thought that the i'm
pressions on many of the cuneiform
tablets discovered on the site of Baby
Ion show undoubted signs of their
having been set up. The prototype of
the printers stick and incidentally
of his familiar devil" may thus have
to be looked for many thousands of
years before the period of the Mentz
master mind, and of DR.. Faustus.
1t is proposed to abolish honey
moons for the reason alleged that the
average man gets tired of the society
of any one person in the time usually
allotted TO honeymoons, says the Balti-
| more Sun. Honey soon clogs on the
masculine palate. In a symposium on
the subject in an English journal the
| defenders of the institution are most
| ~ women. The common argument is
that in these particular times. growing
| yearly more dispassionate and less ro-
| mantle. a man and woman suddenly
| deprived of their ordinary occupations
and surroundings. and dependent for
society entirely upon each other. fall
a ready prey to establishment and
boredom. Ennui is the great risk.
To mitigate the alleged ordeal IL is
proposed to have "A travelling brides