The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-02-24
OUT OF THE ORDINARY.

The oldest known artesian we'll was sunk
at Lillers, France, in the twelfth GEN.
fury.
Mississippi has q total population of over
100000. and yet the total vote of that State
last November was under 10000.
A London journal declared that of the
100000 children of school age in the Lon
don School Board area, 100000 are always
absent.
Six hundred thousand persons are en-
ployed in the electrical industries of the
United States and about 100000 are in
vested in them.
The colonial revenues of Great Britain,
that is, the United Kingdom, have almost
quadrupled since 1850. while the population
has only doubled.
The first regular factory for manufac-
turing glass was established at Temple, n.
H.. in 1880. and was operated by imported
German glass makers.
In southern France, where beer costs 20
cents and milk Is cents quart, new wine
has been lately sale in unlimited quanti-
ties at cents a quart.
There is an excellent field for the Ameri-
can sehoo 1In In Porto Rico 1t is esti-
tives of The island can write.
The ney to the Bastile is hanging on
the wall in the hall Of the old home of
Washington. at Mount Vernon. 1t was
given to Washington by Lafayette.
Cotton has ranged in price from S1.9O a
pound during the war to less than cents
a pound in 1898. In the last two years and
a half it has risen from cents to L. rs
cents.
The first export of cotton from this coun-
try was in 17S5. in which year one bag was
sent from Charleston to Liverpool. while
twelve were sent from Philadelphia and one
from New York.
The people of North Carolina are boast
ing over the fact that the labor commits
sioner of the State reports that 81 per cent
of adult employees and 6S per cent. of chill
dren read and write.
The Mohammedan year is lunar. The
adopted to the lunar months by the cycle
of thirty years, in which nineteen have 35i
days and eleven have 355.
The Berlin police are about to be provided
with twenty bloodhounds, to be used in the
tracking of murderers. About twenty-four
murders committed In Berlin during the
last fourteen years are still unexplained.
No less than 10000 homes are held free
of debt by Southern negroes. They have
been estimated at an average value of $780,
100000. The holdings of personality by the
race are probably worth more than the
realty.
The empty mail bags not having been re-
turned from the Congo for some time il
was found on inquiry that the sacks were
regularly being stolen by the natives for
presentation to their wives, who used them
as petticoatS.
Silk worms and their eggs were first
brought TO Europe in the sixth century of
our era. A couple of monks who had trav-
eled in China missionaries brought away
a quantity of the cocoons concealed in their
walking sticks.
New York's Raines law regulating sa-
looms has yielded SCI, 900 to the State and
local treasures since it's passage five years
ago. Saloons have decreased from SO. 600 to
1900, and arrests for drunkenness dimin-
ished from twelve to nine for each 1000 of
population.
We have in America two great States.
the areas of which have probably never
been traversed. These are Maine in the
North and Texas in the South where i'm
mense treasures in woods, minerals. game
and other articles of substantial profit are
worth all the sentiment inspired by practi-
cally vakueless expeditions to frigid zones.
An ad6lteration of coffee is now being
practiced that consists in taking the worth
less coffee beans, those which are dead"
or not fully matured, and have been sep
arated from the good beans, and i'm polish
ing and painting them with a solution of
red paint The result is a beautifully
Drowned berry, which is not easy to detect
as worthless.
House of Representatives are furnished
with pocket knives and fountain pens at
the expense of the State. In Connecticut
and several other States-occasionally in
tennsylvania-such articles are furnished
under the head of stationery" and there
have been times in Connecticut when that
term embraced dictionaries, sets of Dickens
and gold-headed canes.
Among the curiosities of criminal law
brought to light by the discussion of the
Cudahy kidnapping is the fact that in
Tennessee the punishment for stealing a
horse is imprisonment for not less than
three nor more than ten years, while for
stealing child it is only from one to five
years. A bill has been introduced in the
Legislature which corrects this by making
kidnapping a crime punishable by death.