The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-08-10
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

-Tomaso Delocha. an Italian resi-
dent of Boston. returned to that city
from a picnic the other day with sew
eral things he had not taken thence.
One of these things was a ram. He
did not know where he had secured it,
but after he LEFT the train it collided
with the conductor, ate the lunch left In
a neighbours basket, broke away from
its owner and dashed up Hanover
street, attacking three policemen and
being overcome only by a fourth and
a crowd of citizens. Tomaso explained
to the magistrate that it must be ''Da
little lamb of Mary"
Civilization has still lesson or two
to learn from barbarism. Prof. Bald
win Spencer, professor of biology in
the University of Melbourne, has spent
twelve months among the wild blacks
in Central Australia in the interests of
chronological science. One of his dis
coveries, narrated in a recent lecture,
was that a mother-in-law was not al
lowed to come within a mile of the
mia mia" (huD of her married daugh-
ter. If she did SO the husband was
authorized by the tribal law to use his
club. The professor is presumably a
bachelor. for he expressed admiration
of the drastic method of preserving
domestic peace and tranquility.
An English artist recently was
summoned to appear in court for al
lowing a rooster to crow in the morn
ing to the annoyance of his neighbors.
The case was amicably settled. A Lon
don newspaper thereupon printed the
following: 1T is quite possible TO keep
fowls and prevent them from Growing.
All that is needed is a slight string
over the neck and fastened to a foot.
1t is the habit of chanticIeer to throw
back his head when Growing, and he
will not crow if prevented as he may
be, by the string from doing so. The
continuance has the great merit Of in
f!cting no pain whatever. The bird
scarcely knows of the pressure of the
string still he tries to crow, and a
harmless jerk brings him to order.
The white barn-owl of Great Bri-
tain has the most exquisite eye-ar-
rangement and the most highly-devel-
oped sight of any member of the owl
family. The ball seems to be a great
globe of sight; the iris has enormous
powers of dilation, and the irradiating
power from the back of the eye is I'M
usually strong. All owls have a disk
of feathers around the eye, SO arrang-
them on the pupil, but the eye-disks of
the white barn-owl take in the whole
face, in a sort of heart-shape, circling
above the eye to the ears and coming
to point well under the chin. 1t finds
rats and mice in country barns and
old buildings on nights too dark and
dense for other owls to venture out.
The Cocos, or Keeling Islands,
which belong to the British Empire,
are the private property of G. Clunis
Ross, who lives on them and governs
their primitive population as an auto
GRAFT They are a ring of coral atolls
lying six hundred miles off Java Head
How simple the people are may be
seen from the fact that they do not
possess parson. Neither have they a
schoolmaSter, ice. horses, cows, post
office nor bank. But apparently the in
habitants do we'll enough without these
generally considered necessary con-
comitants of civilization. as they are
intelligent enough to play golf and
have links. The place has no money.
instead of filthy metallic lucre in the
shape or coins one uses curious look
ing little chits-cards good for" five.
two or one rupee, a half rupee or ten
cents. These are all signed by the
proprietor of the islands, and are ap-
parently regarded as legal tender.
The results Of recent experiment
with a caisson, representing a section
or the French coaSt-defense ship Hen
RI ~, have been made public, through
the indiscretion of a French officer.
| The caiSson was anchored and a tor
pedo charge was attached to its side.
about 10 feet below the surface of the
water, the depth at which a torpedo
| is expected to strike a vessel. The
discharge was made by means of an
electric current worked from a barge
at some distance away. The conse-
| quences exceeded all expectations, as
hole 2119 square yards in extent was
made in the side of the caisson. which
| Immediately sank. Internally, the
damage extended to three longitudinal
partitions which were in the position
or the coal bunkerS in warships. The
| hole in the first partition covered near
ly IL square yards; the second parti-
ton was shattered. and the thirds
| which has no corresponding partition
in the Henri ", had two oval holes in
1t, one by rs feet and the other az
by IA feet. The torpedo charge was
the ordinary one of from 176 pounds
to 220 pounds. 1t is evident that the
best defense against a torpedo is dis
lance. Out of its reach a vessel is safe.
Contact with 1t means humiliation.
The idea of a language based on
numbers is not new, but the sugges-
| ton has lately been brought out again
by an English philologer, who sug-
| gests that If 5000 words are enough for
| language-and few authors use more
all that is necessary is to assign a
number to each word, anG the result
| will be universal language, available
for writing, if not for speaking. But
says the Springfield Republican, the
fatal objection to the scheme IN this
form is the difficulty of remembering
numbers, difficulty which will be ap-
preciated by any one who has lived in
city where houses, streets and tele-
| phone calls all make demands on the
arithmetical memory. A more feasible
| plan is one which was suggested some
| years ago, where words would be
! grouped in the decimal system, some
| thing after the fashion of Mr.. Dewey's
ingenious and popular decimal system
| of library classification. Nine main
classes Of 999 words each, would pro-
vide vocabulary of double the size
| suggested. The figure 1 might properly
be given to edibles, and all that the
hungry traveller would need to do
would be to put 1887 and 1872 on his
card and the waiter would rush TO
bring him ham sandwich and a cup
of coffee, while 1882 and 1917 would
spell roll with chocolate.