The Savannah morning news., 1901-11-26

ligious insurance society called the
Presbyterian Church in Ireland Fire
Insurance Trust, says a London news
paper 1t has twelve directors. The
claims paid last year were only e24
and the total expenses of management
were only G77.< With assets of little
over $4,000, and. in a sense, a coop
erative, self-supporting and religious
association, this little fire office seems
to have completely justified it's exist
enee.
The Russian has no fixed meal
time, says the London News. He eats
when he is hungry, which is often. He
has about six square meals day. lie
has at least a dozen lunches, a little
bit of salt fish or some caviare, or a.
piece of bread and cheese, washed
down with nip of fiery vodki. Iie
never passes a station without a glass
Of tea--marvelous tea, with a thin slice
of lemon floating In it. You get a
fondness for Russian tea, and forswear
bemilked decoctions forever. The Ia
BILE manners of the Russian-such as
you see in hotels and buffets-are not
pleasing. He sprawls with outstretch-
ed elbow on the table, and gets his
mouth down TO his food rather than
raise the food to his mouth. He makes
has finger bowl. and rinses his mouth
as the rest of US do when cleaning our
teeth in our bathrooms. Then he
squirts the'rwater back into the bowl.
IN time one may get used to this.
Prof G. Patrick asks in a learned
review: why do Men Swear?" Deal
ing with the question from the evolu-
rionary point of view the Professor
dc ha of
IN the lower animal to what one may
call the specialized evolution of swear
ing in man. 1t is, obvious that many
swear words are really of religious
nature, and in the development of this
art, if art it may be termed, the sug-
gestion is thrown out that what may
have originally been-gssse as an ap
peal for help has become transformed
into a term either of contempt or of
violence, intended to terrify or shock
an enemy. Why swearing is rightly
considered an immoral habit Prof.
Patrick explains from the considera-
ton that the higher we advance in CIV
ilization the more distinctly are we
taught to inhibit and to repress the
emotions of anger, while the same adj
vance would render Sprofane in the
eyes of cultured persons the misuse of
religious terms.
Why do many people take coffee
after dinner? 1t is, perhaps, little
difficult to give an adequate reason for
this practice, One explanation is that
coffee tends to neutralize the effects
of alcohol which may have been con-
sumed with the meal. The practice of
taxing cheese at the close of a meal
is supposed to be justified on the
ground that it aids the secretions of
gastric juice in the stomach. and thus
favors digestion. This is probably COR
rect, for morsel of old cheese certain
ly causes an increased flow of saliva
in the mouth and gastric juice itself.
But the coffee question can hardly be
solved on a like basis. Instead of fa-
voring digestion, both tea and coffee
distinctly retard it. Sir William Bob
erts, a distinguished physician, ques-
tons whether this delaying effect on
digestion may not after all be a bene-
fcial feature in modern life. His ar
gument is that the high advance of
civilization and the perfection of cook
ing tend to present US with our food
in condition which favors not merely
rapid digestion but even too quick as
Sanitation.
There are limits, the Electrical Re-
view thinks, to the amount of electriei-
ty that can be safely carried with wires
and insulators such as are now used.
| The first of these is the breakdown
strength Of insulating materials of va
rious kinds and of the air itself. 1t has
been lately considered that about Co.
| 600 volts is the limit imposed by the
| resisting properties of the air, as above
| this voltage the air seems to conduct
| reasonably well and leakage occurs
across the line. From the present
| knowledge of the subject it appears
| that insulatorS of porcelain are strong
enough to Withstand any electrical
| strain which can safely be borne by
the atmosphere. The present cost of
| conducting metals and insulation i'm
| poses fairly definite limit TO length
under given conditions of transmission
In most places transmission lines are
| subject to the competition of the coal
carrying railway. Unless the price of
fuel is materially advanced, or that of
conducting copper or aluminium mater
tally diminished, it is probable that in
| the Eastern states, at any rate, the
transmission distance limit will not be
large.
-SirNWilliam Roberts thinks it OBJ
vious that if food be rendered too easy
of digestion there arises risk that the
| hiSoA VIII pass lCO NuiChly ana waste
| fully into the blood, and on through the
tissues into the excretory organs, and
so out of the body before it has been
made fully and economically available
| for the sustenance of the slow nutri
| tive process. Moreover a sudden ir-
| ruptioH into the blood of newly digest
| ed elements would tend to disturb the
chemical equilibrium of that fluid, and
| so interfere with the TRANSITIONAL per-
| Torrance of its functions. 1t would
also tend to produce liver and other
congestions, TO the general disadvan-
| tage and discomfort of economy. A too
rapid digestion and absorption of food
| may be compared TO feeding q fire with
straw instead of slower burning coal.
In the former it would be necessary to
| feed often and often, and the process
would be wasteful of the fuel; for the
short-lived blaze of the whole mass
would heat up the chimney To burn
| fuel economically and to utilize the
| heat to the utmost the fire must be
| damped down, so as to insure slow as
we'll rs complete combustion. So with
human digestion, our highly prepared
and highly cooked food requires in the
| healthy and Vigorous that the digest
i've powers should be damned down in
order to insure the economical use of
| food.
| Some one has said that the Egyp-
tians were the only nation that ever
had sufficient patience to domesticate