The Savannah morning news., 1902-03-15
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

modern French school," which he had
been told was the fashionable thing.
Having received the painting, he is
shocked to discover that ii is the work
of an American painter with French
name. He knows it is by an Ameri-
can because one Of the prominent fig
ures is that of a laborer at his noon
day rest, holding in his hand a piece
of pie. The pie has no place in the la
borers menu except in this country.
"A mono rail tramway between st.
Petersburg and Moscow, which, it is
/ claimed, would reduce the journey now
| covered by an express train in thir-
teen hours to tenth of that time, is
the latest project in which Mr.. Yerkes
is asked to interest himself. NJ. Ro-
manoff, a Russian engineer, puts the
speed on the new system, at a mod
est 200 miles an hour, and his idea is
to have 400 cars running continuously
suspended on rails. The invention pro-
vides for the automatic stopping of all
the cars should an accident happen to
any one of them.
The Japanese legation in Vienna
asked the Swiss postal authorities re-
Gently to allow "a number of young
Japanese TO enter the postal service
of Switzerland, with a view to becom-
ing acquainted with its methods. Per-
mission was giYenssat once, and al
ready (says a correspondent of the
London Glyobe) some Japanese who
happened to be in Europe have been
taken into service at Berne. So soon
as these students of postal methods
have acquired. the necessary amount
of knowledge, they will return to ia
pan for the purpose of organizing the
postal system of their country accord
ing to Swiss methods.
The theft of the famous Madonna by
Sassoferrato from the Church of Saint
Sabina, in Rome, has had a curious
sequel. The picture, which is valued
at 10000, was (says the Pail Mall Ga
zette correspondent most ingeniously
recovered by a detective who got into
communication with the thieves by pos
ing as an art collector, but it has not
been restored to the church, the gov
eminent claiming it under the terms
of the regulation providing that every
ancient work of art allowed to be re-
moved from public collection reverts
to the state. AS the Church of Saint
Sabina is the titular church of Cardinal
Matthew, a French member of the Sa-
cred College, both the cardinal and
the French ambassador to the Quirinal
have made representations to the Ital-
ian government. Up to the present,
however, the government retains pos
session of its prize.
"A good many Danes, men and wo-
men, have become Mormons in recent
years, and Denmark is now regarded
as a most promising field for mission
work on behalf of the sect. A newspa-
per organ and a publishing house for
AI,1 Il -, ,.C4
have been established in Copenhagen,
and it is proposed also to found a
temple there like the parent Taberna-
Gle in Salt Lake City. Money for this
purpose is being collected in the Unit
ed States, to which about five hundred
Mormon converts come annually.
There is local opposition to the tenn
pie and the propaganda, but the work
goes on secretly or openly without
abatement the site of the structure
being bought and paid for, though the
hostile Danish press asserts that it will
never be allowed TO be built.
"A, traveller in Tehuantepec, Mex
leo, says: lone evening some of our
party of sixteen were kindly given
nights shelter, Mexican fashion, at
hacienda, or farmhouse. Sitting on the
wide veranda to receive us we beheld
the entire family. On the right of the
door was the lady of the house, in a
white cotton gown, smoking a cigar;
below her were the daughters and
hand-maidens, also smoking. On the
other side of the door were the ran
ohero, or master himself, with his sons
and men servants. Every one was en-
ployed in rolling tobacco leaf into
cigars and every one was smoking, in
Guiding little boy not quite years
old, who had a full-sized cigar in his
baby mouth, which he puffed at most
professionally while in his left hand
he held a banana, from which he took
bites between the puffs, occasionally
stopping to play with small dog"
Japan is to have a grand interna-
tional exhibition next year, and every
:nducement will be given to manufac-
turers all over the world to contribute
to it. Osaka, which is at once the Man
chester and the Venice of Japan, is
the chosen place, and as, next to Toxic,
it is the most populous city in the en-
pire, a better selection could not have
been made. The first industrial ex-
hibition was held in Toxic in 1877, the
same year that saw the abolition of the
wearing of swords by the Samural.
That was purely national and since
then several exhibitions have been
held in the capital. Osaka is so crowd
ed with houses and intersected by ca
nails that there might be a difficulty
in finding space for an exhibition
ground were it not for the fact that
most of the buildings are of SO fiimsy
a description that they can be cleared
away and built again at a very small
expense of labor and money.
"A Washington dispatch to the New
York Evening Post says: Happy Re-
turn is the rather suggestive title of
a claim which has been resurrected
from the records of more than hum
bred years ago. Congress is asked to
pay the loss oceasioned by the capture
of the brig Happy Return by a French
privateer on the 22d of May, 1897. The
capture was made by the Italie Con-
quise, ninety miles from Sombrero,
near the Island of st. Martin. The
brig was thither taken and condemned
as a prize. Simeon Martin owned the
Happy Return: he lived at Seekonk,
Mass. Ezekiel Durfey was master of
the vessel. which sailed from Newport,
R. l., in October, 1896, bound for Surf
nam. But she was compelled by stress
of weather to run for Demerara where
she disposed of her cargo and took on
sugar, rum and tobacco. The losses
occasioned by the mishap on the re-
turn were footed up as follows: Value
of vessel, 1921; freight earnings, 81
900; value of cargo, Sill $50; total, $751;
311.
"A dispatch from ST. Petersburg,
says: A cable dispach from this city