The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-10-07
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

wettest weather, the water carts still
ply their task. The policeman is an i'm
portant civil functionary, respected and
feared. But he has his trials. Willie the
rest of the world hastens to take shell
ter from a sudden downpour, ii is his
duty to remain immovable, and as i'm
passive as circumstances viii allow, at
his post or crossing After the stoIm
has passed over, he is still to be found,
rigid to the last, his feet planted in the
center of perfectly dry circle OF as
phalt, corresponding exactly to the geo.
metrical proportion of his rotundity.
Had the crazy man who came
near wrecking Washington hotel the
other day been skilled in the use of
high explosives, he would have
wrought utter havoc and ruin instead
of making a partial joo of ii" ssiG s.
F. PrentzeI, a Philadelphia safe and
lock expert, according to the Washing
ton Post. Had he known as much as
the professional bank robbers ne would
have used nitro glycerin or liquid gela-
tine instead of dynamite A thimble-
full of either of these articles, properly
handled, would have torn the house
into fragments. The use of these high
explosives by the criminal class keeps
the makers of safes eternally busy.
the conflict of the battleship builders
and the makers of armor- piercing pro-
jectiles, and just as unceasing. The
old-style bank robber who depended on
drilling has gone forever. Since the
production of five-ply steel there hasn't
been safe looted through drilling,
period Of about twenty-six years. The
chaps who do the trick in these days
know all about glycerine and gelatine,
as many a country banker in every
part of the United States knows to his
sorrow, as does Uncle Sam, too, since
he is the biggest loser of all through
the robbery of rural postoffices.
The people OF London have been
their public clocks to ask for legis-
lation on the subjects, says the Phil
adelphia Ledger. One member of the
county council, in bringing the sub
ject before that body, went so far as
to make a test of thirty-five clocks
which are visible to the pedestrian be-
tween the Mansion House and Victoria
station. with the exception of Big
Ben and one synchronized clock" he
reports, only one clock-that of the
law courts-showed the correct time
during seven days observation; and
of the remaining thirty-two, some were
wrong to the extent of as much as six
minutes" 1t is argued that there is
no reason why London, like all the
chief American cities. should not have
synchronized clocks showing uniform
time. The value of the odd minutes
which are lost through inaccurate time
pieces has been brought to notice by
story in a little volume recently pub
lished. A large firm required a man
ager for one of its departments and
appointed IL o'clock for arrangement
of terms with the selected applicant
He arrived at 1905, to find a dozen di-
rectors waiting, the chairman watch
in hand. The chairman announced
that they could not engage a subordi-
nate who had wasted an hour of his
employers time. And on the appli-
cants deprecating such eXaggeration,
the chairman explained that each di-
rector had wasted five minutes, and
that made an hour in all Multiplying
the mistaken minutes of London clocks
by the people who are deceived some
London writers have figured out that
something like a century is wasted
week.
"A Burmese juggler recently gave
an exhibition of his powers on board
steamer proceeding from Moulmein
to Rangoon. The subject was a native
servant of an officer and the expert
ment took place on the deck of the
ship. There was no collision between
the eXperimenter and the subject, for
they were strangers to each other and
were surrounded by the passengers and
the crew. Indeed, so impressed with
the juggler's powers were some of the
Lascars that in alarm they took to
the rigging by way of securing their
safety. The subject was a native of
Madras and the Illustration given was
presumed to be one of the manner in
which the dacoits of Burma render
their victims insensible Whether this
be the case or not, the practice of the
juggler was eminently successful He
seized the neck of the patient with his
thumbs, one on each side. Then he
compressed the soft parts of the neck
below the jaw. In a few moments his
subject became insensible and fell like
log on the deck of the ship There
was much alarm naturally created. but
the Juggler was equal to the occasion.
A handkerchief was tapped across the
face of the insensible man and he
quickly recovered, although for a time
he was in dazed condition. What
the juggler did was to compress the big
carotid arteries, which pass up one on
each side of the neck, and by thus lin
iting the supply of blood to the brain
induced Inconsistencies. This is an ex-
pertinent which was certainly known to
the ancient Greeks and it bears a re-
lationship to a theory of sleep which
for long found favor in the eyes of
psychologists, who believed that sleep
was due to the withdrawal of blood
from the brain.
1t doesn't require any great length
of time to learn a language if one has
patience said a man who has mas
tered several languages, according to
the New Orleans Times-Democrat
and when l hear a man regret that
he is not able to speak French or
German or Spanish, or some other Ian
guage unknown to him, 1 cannot con-
ceal my amusement. In nine cases out
OF ten might say that the men who
express regret of this sort handle
English very poorly, if that happens
to be their language. The chances are
that their vocabularies are extremely
limited, and it would probably surprise
them to know that despite the ad-
vantages of birth and education, they
could not command more than 500 or
200 words in English if their lives de-
pended upon it. Yet they are able to
carry on intelligent conversation, and
many of them may become forcible,
and even automatic, in their sayings,
and they plunge into discussions of
literature, art, music and other sub
Jects of such fine elegance, and do it
rather successfully, too. Now, how long
ought II to take man to learn 600
or 700, or even 1000 words in any Ian
guage? Certainly it ought not to take
any great length of time, and from
my own experience I know that II doae