The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-07-18
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

"A law passed by the Austrian
parliament regulating the traffic in
butter, cheese, lard and their sub
stitutes recently took effect. The OBJ
ject of the law is to protect the pro-
ducer against unfair competition and
the consumer against fraud. The ar
tificial butter made from oils and suet
which has been sold by retail dealers
as genuine butter can no longer be
dealt in except specifically and dis
tinctly as margarine. All prepara-
tions of or from margarine must be
labeled SO as to show exactly what
they are. The sale of mixtures of
margarine must be sesame oil, which
can be easily detected chemically. The
outer sign of the substitute must be
broad red stripe and in addition 10
this an exact designation of the con-
tents must appear on all wrappings.
Over 100000 persons in Germany
are insured against illness, says the
New oYrk Press. In England just now
the leading insurance companies are
considering the ACCESSIBILITY of return
ing to what might be called the ''legit-
innate" 1t has been said time and
again that if the King had died the
British companies would have lost
800, 100000. ThGt is an enormous sum,
and the statement is undoubtedly a
gross exaggeration. But it is a fact
that the companies issuing policies on
his life to Tom, Dick and Harry, in
their own interest, have been scared
nearly out of their wits. There is no
such thing in the United States as in
surfing a second person.. and if such
line of business ever Was thought of
by out great leaders in insurance, the
exceedingly narrow escape of the Brit
ish companies has chilled the notion.
One of the ablest insurance men in
New York tells me that our companies
are too wise ever to enter such field.
Possibly he is wrong. If there is mon
ey in it our companies will surely en-
ter it, and on a scale so broad as will
cause British companies to gasp.
One of the strangest and most un
expected of the uses to which we could
imagine leg as being put is that of
an organ of hearing, says the London
knowledge. Yet such seems to be one
at least of the functions of the fore
legs in the cricket and some other al
lied insects. On the outer side of the
tibia a small oval space may be seen
in which the strong armature which
covers the rest of the body is reduced
to a thin and membranous condition,
making thus a sort of window or drum
head. Communicating with this, in
side the leg, are the ends of a nerve,
and it can hardly be doubted, there
fore, that the whole apparatus consti-
tutes an auditory organ, so that If
these legs were amputated the insect
would become deaf. When one remem-
bers that crickets are among the nois-
lest of insects, their incessant chirrup
being most shrill and penetrating
sound, it cannot be considered strange
that distinct organs of hearing should
also be present; the sound-producer
implies the sound perceiver, the two
functions are complementary; but still
it is remarkable that the foreleg should
have been selected as the most suitable
site for this important sense.
"A dispatch from Chicago, says: A
change in the method of street railway
propulsion is the possible result of a
trial which has been made here of the
invention of P. w. LETTER, a local me-
chanic and electrician. Small electric
magnets, imbedded between the rails
of the track, are used to pull the cars.
The electro magnets form one-half of
the motor and are placed in the ground
in line half way between the tracks.
The other part, the armature, is at
tached lengthwise to the bottom of the
car. 1t is long iron bar, cut up into
ordinarily are within an inch of the
top magnet boxes. But the primary
difference between the new system and
the trolley car motor is that the new
car is not propelled by the friction of
the wheels with the track, but by the
invisible force of magnetism. Each
magnet is connected with main feed
wires, heavily insulated and bringing
electricity from the powerhouse. When
he to ~ he
magnets are not in the circuit. An
arrangement of the magnets according
to polarity is the scheme for attracting
the car and making it run smoothly.
The great saving which the inventor
claims is in the amount of electricity
required. He says rs amperes will suf-
flee for 40 cars, while with the present
trolley system rs amperes are required
for one car.
Vans for moving household furni-
ture from one city to another are COM
mon in Germany and other parts of
Europe. These vans. which are owned
by companies with agents in different
cities, are loaded with furniture and
other household goods at residences,
hauled on trucks to the railroad and
loaded on fiat cars for their destina-
ton. Here they are received by the
company's local agents and are unload
ed at the house where the furniture is
to go. When possible the van is re-
loaded in the same vicinity and sent
back to the place of starting. Thus one
may see in Italy or France furniture
vans from Berlin or Dresden. They
saving in packing. the avoidance of
extra drayage and of the danger of
breakage have made the system pop
ular, especially in Germany. The
vans in use vary in size, many of them
being almost as large as an American
box car. Recently efforts have been
made to extend the system so as to
provide for the shipment of household
goods across the ocean. A New York
storage and van company has estab-
lished connections in various parts of
| Europe and proposes to send vans
| abroad when satisfactory arrange
| ments can be made. If a man living
| in New York, for example, wishes to
remove to a city of Germany he will
be furnished with one or more vans, in
which his household goods are placed.
| The van is transferred to the ship and
| on landing at the foreign port is again
| transferred to the railway fiat car or
river boat and carried to its destina-
ton.
"A New York dispatch says: If a
moving platform is installed on the
Brooklyn bridge, as has been proposed,