The Savannah morning news., 1901-12-23
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

a lew l1IIfGSL LHlUESs OURSELVES Lie
alphabet on a pinhead, the free silver
craze, what Van Wyck got at the polls,
Germans chances for the presidency,
etc. The iittlest church is in the viii
lage of st. Lawrence, Isle of Wight. 1t
originally had sittings for twelve peo-
pie. The littlest kingdom in the world
is Monaco. The littlest man on record
was Philetas of Cos, who had to carry
weights in his clothes to prevent his
being blown away. The littlest navy in
proportion to population is MeXicos.
Twelve million people are protected"
by a fleet" of two dispatch vessels,
two unarmored gun vessels carrying
one four ton muzzle-loading cannon
and four small breech-loaders, and five
second class torpedo boats. This fleet
is manned by ninety officers and 500
men.
Dress reformers have found new
ally in the Princess Marie d'Ysem-
burg, the sister of Henry XXI, Prince
of Reuss. The Princess has chosen
the columns of the North American
Review wherein to illuminate against
modern feminine costume. OF course,
says writer in the Pittsburg Dis
patch, she mathematics the corset
all dress reformers begin f1ogging that
dead horse (noW more defunct than
ever, / am told, since the new corsets
which were invented by a great French
doctor)-and she goes on to ordain
that no dresses should attempt to fit
the figure, but fall straight from the
shoulders. The skirts are not to reach
the ankles, no heels are to- be worn,
and shoes should be as open as SAN
dals. The neck is to be absolutely
bare of any kind of collar or covering,
and, above all, wells of any kind are
to be abjured. Her serene highness
should at least accompany her doc
trnes by a portrait of herself in the
simple CARLISLE advoca tes- with SO
much earnestness. We have had so
many dress leagues of one Kind and
another of late that not even a Prin-
cess can thrill us violently.
The notorious sociability of the
Car of Russia extends, we are told by
a writer in Pearsons Magazine, to his
servants, and he initiates the late
Queen Victoria in having eolored at
tendants. One of these, James Hercu-
les, halls from the West Indies, and is
very anxious that no one should for
get-not even his Imperial master and
mistress-that "he is a British sub
ject" The faithful black fellow is a
great favorite with the Cars children,
as they call him, for participation in
their nursery sports. You are not
looking so we'll to-day" His Majesty
will say TO one of his body servants.
ut pains me to see you like that. You
had better take a rest" And, forthwith
the attendant in question is excused
from duty and perhaps is given an
extra money grant and an entire
change of scene. When at dinner a col
ored servant stands behind His Ma
jesty's chair. The dress of the Indian
attendants varies from simple cos
tume-something like that worn by
Queen Victoria's Hindoo retainers-to
an elaborate state livery worn on cere-
monial occasions. They are given, fort
nightly, alternate terms of duty, and
are lodged, as are all the Tsars male
domestics, in a special building away
from the palace.
-"Engineers are not as afraid of
concretes as they used to be-" says
Engineering News. There was a time
and it still exists in the minds of
many members of the profession
when concrete always had to be COW
cred up with stone. It was an ac-
cepted maxim that concrete must not
be exposed to water or weather or
wear. Cut stone-facing was the thing
for such places. AS examples of how
ideas have changed, we may instance
the st. Croix dam in which
the stone and concrete have their
places reversed from the usual posi-
ton, the stone being on the inside and
the concrete being an outside facing.
This was done because a very soft
stone was the only thing available for
the DAM" Another example of a dam
with rubble-stone heart and concrete
face is given by the same paper; but
the concrete facing was adopted here
merely to save the expense of cutting
the face stones of the dam to make
a smooth overfall. Doubtless many
engineers will look askance at such a
construction; yet we see no reason why
It should not be entirely satisfactory.
The dam is in a region where ice will
never trouble 1t, and if heavy drift
wood going over during high water
should gouge a hole or two in the con-
crete facing, it would not endanger the
SAFETY of the dam and could be made
good as new at low water" H4rl
The ordinary person, says Pear
sons, makes no distinction between one
cloud and another though by some me-
teorologists they are divided into four
distinct groups; the heaped up cumu-
lus; the delicate, feathery, curling lit
tie clouds, named cirrus, so high as tn
be frozen, often into minute needles
or ice; the wide-spreading sheets of
cloud named stratus, which. seldom
more than half mile above the earth.
OFTEN come down to envelop us in fogs
OF mist; and the dark, unmistakable
nlmbus, very soon causing the water
that left the earth as vapor to be re-
stored as rain. The clouds owe their
different forms to different physical
states of the atmosphere, to which are
also due the aerial currents, which Of
ten flow in directions other than the
currents or winds prevailing close 10
the earth. In weather forecasting, no
clouds are worthy of such attention
as the cirrus clouds, which attain a
greater elevation than any others. av
eraging in summer a hight of five or
six miles above the earth. Their sud-
den appearance in a clear sky is gem
orally signal of foul weather, espec-
lally when their streamers have an I'M
ward tendency, for this indicates that
the clouds are falling. After heavy
rams on the other hand, the formation
OF THESE clouds is often a sign of i'm
proVement. When cirrus clouds appear
IN summer, the assumption is that rain
VIII occur IN two or three days. They
are seldom seen in winter, and never
lor long When cirrus clouds assume
the form OF stratus, at an altitude of
TOUR or nVe miles, their persistence is
an almost certain sign of rainy wealth
er' III, on the contrary, they remain
of small size. and quickly disannaar
no change is to be unprecedented Among
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