The Savannah morning news., 1901-03-21
ITEMS OF INTEREST.


fittings and fine furnishings of the mon
ster schooners built in Maine in the last
three years. The six-master George Wells,
built at Camden last summer, has a
grand piano in her cabin, and there is
plenty of room for 1t, too. Several five
masters carry pianos, most of them up
rights, and others have cabinet organs.
Not many shipmaster5 know how to play,
but their wives and daughters do, and 1t
is to make the women contented at sea
that the instruments are put in. Some OF
the largest ships and barks in long dis
lance trades also carry pianos"
-"Give me the old doctor every time"
says a Kansas soldier boy writing from
a hospital near Manila. 81 used to think
that the old fogies didn't care whether a
fellow died or not, being so used to death,
you know; but think different now. In
this hospital we have old doctors and
young doctors. Wherever there is an old
doctor you will find him working around
his ward nearly all the time, and he
doesn't seem to be happy unless he is
dosing up one fellow or plastering up an
other The young doctors come busting
in at sick call, look their men over and
then go away, to be seen no more unless
sent for in an urgent case. But the old
doctors are hanging around nearly all the
time, like a book lover among his books,
and the boys who know about it are al
ways glad to be sent to an old mans
ward
William P. Atwell, United States Con-
sui at Roubaix, France, in a recent re-
port, says: "Dr. Dassaud of the Psyche
logical Institute OF Paris gave lecture re-
Gently at the Hospital des Societies Sa-
vantes on the education of the blind and
deaf. A large audience witnessed inter
esting experiments founded on his method
of experimenting the, senses of these two
classes of unfortunates. The cinemato-
graph for the blind is a machine which
passes under the fingers of the blind a
series of reliefs representing the same
object in different positions-the branch
of tree, bird, or any other object.
The blind person has the illusion of NOV
ing scenes just as photographs passing
over a. luminous screen lend the illusion
to those with sight DR.. Dussaud has
also arranged an electric vibration fo-
the use of the deaf who are incurable.
This gives them the notion of musical
rhythm. For those not entirely deaf he
has invented a gradual amplifier of
sounds, which supplements the organs of
hearing and in some instances improves
them. The doctor gave a number of sta
tistics already furnished by him to the
Academy of Medicine, and the Society
of Biology, showing that his method had
been applied during the last four years
to more than three hundred patients af-
fected either with blindness or deafness,
and that in most cases the results OBJ
tanned had been extremely satisfactory"
Those who want to see Europe before
all traces of medivelalism are wiped out
no hot
as possible. Another little sign of mod
ern progress is recorded in Vienna. Wen
ma, like so many of the continental cities,
has never been famous for the facilities
it provides for personal cleanliness. 1t was
not SO very long ago that a stationary
bathtub in a private house was an abb
solutely unknown quantity, and what few
there were in hotels were regarded by
the natives with a mixture of reverence
and contempt. When at stated intervals
an individual decided to take a good old
fashioned scrub, with soap and hot water,
he sent out an order for his bath as he
would for his groceries, and a, huge, lum-
bering van would come to his house,
bringing a strange wooden bathtub and
tanks of hot and cold water. The tub
would be carried into the house and the
quantity of water bargained for carefully
measured out. The price of baths ranged
from twelve cents of fifty, dependent upon
the amount of water consumed. This bus
mess of supplying baths was a flourish
ing one, and several large companies paid
good dividends with the profits accruing
from it. Now it IS announced that the
last of these companies is about to wind
up it's affairs and go out of existence
There is no money in the business now,
not because the Viennese have ceased to
battle, but because tubs and hot and cold
water are no longer strangers TO the
houses.
A dispatch from New Orleans says
The manufacture of antiques is a grow
ing industry in this city The increased
demand for relics and curios of the days
of the French Empire and of the Grand
Monarch" Louis XVI, has brought more
dealers into the business, and, in the abb
sence of the genuine article, additional
artists in wood are employed. Down in
the picturesque Latin Quarter this
bunco business is carried on. In anti
quated buildings, generally in a dingy
back room, the imitators are found
renovating or manufacturing antiques
from half a century to a century old
Only the connoisseur in art, however
can detect this departure from the origi-
nal. One workman frankly told your
correspondent that he had recently made
about a dozen antique sofas for a curio
dealer, and that he received about SIS
each, while the dealer received $50 and
500 each. The work is tedious and since
no machinery is used the articles are
consequently expensive, even to the
dealer. Crockery of the days Of the En-
pire and of Louis Philippe is made by
baking 1t in an oven, so as 20 give it
the necessary "crackle." It is difficult
to make Empire clocks, but they are re-
built by taking the old works and put
ting them in new frame, which is var
nished and smoked to an old age EN-
pire dog-irons are also made to supply
the growing fad. These are machine
made, and of pig-iron. In those DAYS
dog-irons were hammered out by hand
and pig-fron was not not known. The
curio-hunter, however, rarely knows the
difference between machine and hand
work, and knows nothing of metals.
Consul General Guenther of Frankfort.
Germany, under date Of Feb II. writes
as follows to the State Department: oIn
lecture on precious stones, recently de-
livered before the Industrial Association
OF Berlin, DR.. Emmanuel Friedlander said
that the testing of diamonds is compare
lively simple. The common test for
hardness suffices. If the stone resists
strong attacks it is certain to be genu-
Inc; If 1t does not the damage is insig-
nihcant, as only an imitation has been
destroyed This test, however is doubt
Iul with rubies. If a ruby can be af-