The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-02-16
OUT OF THE ORDINARY.

st. Peters is in the form Of a cross. IT
is CSC feet long by 4O feet wide. The dome
is AS feet high.
OF every three persons in Berlin one has
a savings IA account, or. more accurate
~, ten of every twenty-seven.
There are over 5000 firms in the world
manufacturing munitions and supplies of
war; of these, 900 are in America
Silk is the strongest of all vegetable or
animal threads. 1t is three times as strong
as a fiaxen thread of the same size.
The electric-light lowers of Aurora, H..
constructed in 1883. and the pioneer install
lation of that typ have been taken down.
The Texas penitentiary board has decided
to buy a 25.OO0-acre plantation and place all
of the State convicts at work raising sugar
beets.
The amount of gold coin in actual cir
~culation in the world is estimated by the
Bank Of England officials to be about 500
tons.
The largest sum ever spent in improving
one street was S14, 100000 On the Rue de
Rivoli. Paris. New Cannon street, Lon
don, cost s., 95O.O00
The greatest bay in the world is that of
Bengal. Measured by a straight line from
the two inclosing peninsulas its extent is
about 40, 900 square miles.
The Detroit river is the outlet of the
greatest bodies of fresh water in the world,
aggregating $1,000 square miles of lake sur
face, which, in turn, drain 125,0N square
miles of land.
Portugal is the most illiterate country in
Europe; 81 per cent. of its population can
not write. In Italy the proportion of il
literates is So per cent, in Russia 80, in
Spain 3. in Britin 32.
A full cargo of New England rum, COM
prising $40 puncheons and valued at $4,000,
was lately cleared from the port of Boston.
consigned to the use of the aborigines on
the West Africa coast.
1t is estimated that there are nearly ESQ.,
600 voters in New York city who decline to
become identified with either of the great
parties, while there are even more who take
no part in making nominations.
A traveller through Servia will often no.
tice dolls hung up inside the cottage win
dows He learns that the dolls are put up
as a sign 10 announce to wdyfarerS that a
marriageable daughter dwells in the house.
In the five years from 1895 to 1900 Ger
many for the first time gained more in
habitants (94,125 more) by immigration than
it lost through emigration. In the period
1SS0-1SS5 there had been a loss of nearly (;
million.
1t is estimated that there are fewer than
10000 wild elephants left in all the countries
on the globe, and that five of these will be
killed off where one is born. 1t is a matter
of only a few years when the last one
must go.
1t was William Pitt who originated the
income tax in Great Britain in 1898 as a
war tax. The Napoleonic wars were fought
with it. From that time TO this it has been
the resort OF all ministers TO meet war ex-
penditures.
Col. A. S. Houston, of Lawrence. Kan,
has secured a half-bushel of acorns from
the Mckinley farm in Ohio. His idea is to
give them to people who will plant them
and grow living monuments TO the mar
tyred President.
Lowell, Mass, was a great-grandson of
Maj. John Buttrick, who began the fight at
Concord Bridge, and the gun which fired
the first shot in the revolution is still pre-
served in the family.
A piece of virgin gold weighing s2.1s
ounces troy was put in the melting pot of
the United States assay Office at Helena,
Mont, negotiations for it's preservation in
nugget form having failed because of the
impossibility of an exact assay.
w. c. Arnett, of Sissons, Cal, is trying
to cure himself of govt by fasting. For
thirty-one days he took no nourishment
but that got from smoking a pipe. and re-
duced his weight from 259 pounds to 210
pounds. He has now added an orange to
his daily diet.
Physicians say that if vaccination does
not take it does not prove that the per-
son vaccinated is immune from smallpox.
One may be immune from vaccination or
smallpox this week and not the next; to-
day and not tomorrow; this morning and
not this afternoon.
Some months before the outbreak of the
war in South Africa a consignment of
10000 tumblers was sent to Cape Town.
They were engraved with the motto of the
South African Republic and meant for
drinking the health of the burgers in when
they took Cape Town.
The longest bridge in the world is the
Lion bridge near Sangang, in China. II
extends five and a quarter miles over an
arm Of the Yellow sea and is supported by
800 huge stone arches. The roadway is
seventy feet above the water and is in
closed in an iron network.
Recent statistics show that the Church
Of England provides in England and Wales
about 1000, 900 sittings In places of worship,
against over 100000 provided by the Non
conformists. The church COMMUNICATE
are said to number 1875, 629, as against
1,945, 932 in Nonconformist congregations.
A writer in a Catholic periodical notes the
striking effect on religious statistics of the
acquisition of Porto Rico and the Philip
pines by the United States. BY including
the population of the islands as given by
the Bureau of Statistics he finds that of
the church-going people under the Amer
lean flag 100000, or more than 60 per cent,
are Catholics.