The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-10-12


Chester. Pa, for many years has been
collector for an insurance company. On
an average he walks fifteen miles day
and has done so six days a week for
twenty years. He always stands up TO
his meals and he refuses to wear IN
| derclothing. The old gentleman is
hearty and strong. In point Of mem
bership he is the Oldest Odd Fellow in
the country.
An Iowa traveller back from the
new Northwest frontier, says Parsons
Weekly, relates some of the hardships
of life there. He says: 81 saw a col
ony of Galicians in Saskatchewan, and
they gave me the most extraordinary
exhibition of human patience and fort
itude / ever beheld. l saw from a
dozen to fifteen women hitched two
and two on an 18-inch breaking pillow,
and they marched straight ahead
through the tough ground with that
plow, tearing up five acres a day on
an average. There was a man holding
the pillow. The work these people did
was as effective as could have been
done by horses or oxen. The women
seemed to take to their hard labor as
matter of course. They are very
cheerful over it. I am told that scores
of these women who draw plows all
through the greater part of the night"
Five men who use walking canes,
says the Kansas City Journal, are
aware that the growing of walking
sticks is a colonial industry, and that
certain kinds of canes are not merely
collected as they may be found grow
ing in forests. One may find at any
store where the sticks are sold many
canes of almost precisely the same
length, weight, shape and material.
Canes having a tangle of roots at the
handle, for instance, are much sold in
England. They are grown by far
mer," who makes 1t a speciality to
trim and shape young ash plants. In
some instances the canes are secured
by the process of grabbing and prun-
ing furze and wild shrubbery, and the
men who engage in this occupation are
said to make money out of wild stuff
that goes to waste in many oth6e
places. The furze is not cultivated,
though it might be, to a profit, espe-
cially on areas that are good for little
else.
If all that is said about it be true,
a new automatic rifle which is now in
the hands of the British military au-
thorities for official trial is a tolerably
effective weapon, says an exchange.
It's inventor claims that it is far supe-
rior to other automatic rifles on ac-
count of the perfect simplicity of its
mechanism. He says that the whole
process of firing is carried out by one
spring behind the lock, which throws
out the empty cartridge, puts in an
other one, shuts the bolt, locks it again,
and fires it. The magazine is capable
of holding twenty cartridges, but is
rather clumsy when full. Ten is about
the best number for practical use. The
inventor says that well-trained man
ought to be able to discharge 200 shots
a minute, whereas So or 40 would be
a good record for existing rifles. He
himself, he declares, has made seven
bulls eyes in two seconds, but he does
not mention the range. One advan-
tage of the new weapon is that in case
of accident to the mechanism it can
be converted into a non-automatic rifle,
without either delay or difficulty. The
inventor, who is a major in the Brit
ish army, is we'll known as a gun ex-
pert.
Consul Huges, of Coburg, reports
the exploitation in Europe of cheap
and valuable freproof building mate
rial, called uralite, made of asbestos
fiber, with certain proportions of sill
cate and carbonate of soda and chalk.
and formed into sheets like cardboard,
which can be used to cover walls,
doors, ETC., TO protect them from fire,
or entire rooms can be made of the
material, which, If need occur, can be
rendered clean and sanitary by build
ing a fierce fire in them. 1t does not
conduct heat or electricity, and is
proof against damp, smoke and acids.
1t can be cut by the usual carpenters
W. n he
ed. grained polished and glued to-
gether like wood; 1t can be veneered
to form paneling for walls or parti-
lions for ships cabins or for railway
carriages: it does not split when a
nail is driven through 1t; 1t is not
affected when exposed to moisture, or
great changes of temperature, and it
can be given any desired color either
in the process of manufacture or aft
erward. 1t is the invention of a Rus
sian artillery officer and chemist named
Imschenetzky.
The Russian sanitary authorities
to whom has been entrusted the task
of fighting cholera in Manchuria re-
port that their best efforts are con-
stantly frustrated by the callousness
of the Chinese, says the New York
Post. To the danger of infection they
different. An instance of this is given
by traveller who was recently a pas
senger by train travelling southwark
from Maoschan. In the next wagon
was party of half-a- dozen Cinnamon,
one of whom died suddenly of a viru-
lent attack of cholera. The remainder
of the party stripped the body, which
they flung through the carriage win
dow, and then, after a fierce wrangle,
attired themselves in the dead mans
clothing. The body lay for more than
a week alongside the track. although
the conductors of the daily passing
trains had been duly advised: and
was finally roughly inferred at a depth
Chinese cannot be induced to take the
most elementary precautions against
contracting the disease, or against car
rying the infection among their neigh
bors. The demand, therefore, for mill
tary escorts, which has been made by
the sanitary inspection, does not seem
to be wholly unreasonable, although IL
will probably be denounced as another
Russian subterfuge.
1t seems, says Harper's Weekly,
that we were all wrong about the hurt
full and life shortening effect of Amer
lean hustle Our national motto
may be said to have been "a short
life but a strenuous one." We were
willing, as people. to have the span
shortened little if only we could have
something worth while, something ac-