The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-02-13
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

d. o. Mills, a New York million
aire, owns a $1,000 overcoat, which he
! lost the other day. The garment is
supposed to have been stolen by an
expert hall theft Mr. Mills has offer
ed a reward of 800 for its return.
-Forty-nine vessels are to be built
for the French navy during the course
of 1903. They include one anmored
| cruiser, four torpedo-boat destroyers,
| one large and eighteen small subma-
| rines and one torpedo boat for colonial
| service.
Anna. Countess de Castellane, is
said to sleep in the great bed of Nine.
| de Sevigne, the finest in the world. 1t
is made of gilded cedar, inlaid with
! precious stones, and has painted panels
| by the greatest masters of the nth and
| 18th centuries.
| The British war office has, says a
! New York Tribune cablegram from
London, decided to present medals to
Messrs Hamilton and Evan, Canadian
correspondents, who described in the
Toronto Globe Paardeburg and other
battles in South Africa.
"A 9-months-old corn-husking dog
| is the latest along the Wabash. 1t
watched it's master husk corn one
day and then began tearing the husks
from the ears as fast as an average
farm hand could do it. The next day
the dog did several hours work in the
field.
Sir Charles Russell brought to bay
Pigott, the famous forger, by getting
L,
the forged letter the word was mis-
spelled "hesitency." The day the
flight of Pigott was announced an
editor wrote the headline, THE man
who 'hesitetes' is lost"
The new German steamship Kaiser
Wilhelm II will be over 700 feet long
and 70 feet broad. The leviathan is
to have imperial sets of rooms n
the upper promenade deck, for which
$1,000 a trip will be charged. The YES
sci is expected to maintain a uniform
speed of Is knots an hour
The oak pulpit in the Seaman's
church at Sunderland, Eng, is built
of wood in the shape of boats bow
and bears on the gunwale in letters
Of sold, the inscription, Nevertheless
at thy word I will let down the net"
The pulpit was the gift of the officers
and men of fiotilla of torpedo boat
destroyers, in acknowledgment of
kindness received at Sunderland dur
ing a visit there in the spring of 1901.
The Ear of Dionysius of Syracuse
(Sicily) was a large Underground
dungeon connected with a smaller and
secret cavern in which the tyrant was
accustomed to Turk to overhear the
conversation of his prisoners. An in
genious device at the smaller end of
the larger chamber transmitted sounds
through the partition, a whisper even
being distinctly audible to the caves
dropper.
1t is reported from Paris that the
sentry who guarded Arton of Panama
fame, who was imprisoned at the Con-
ciergerie. is still regularly relieved
every two hours, although Arton was
set at liberty many months ago. 1t is
also related that at one of the French
Ministries a sentry sedately walked the
corridors for years before anyone in
quired why he was there. Then it was
found that some decades before the
walls had been newly painted, and the
sentry placed to warn passers-by of
the fact. The paint had dried, but the
sentry had not been removed
Dried holly leaves, the bark of the
willow and leaves of the stag's-horn
sumach are among the substitutes for
tobacco used by the American Indians.
In Switzerland a weed called noun
tain tobacco is smoked in great guam
| titles. 1t is powdered before using,
| and causes the smoker to become a
| mental and physical wreck. The ma
| tiVes of South Africa are peculiarly
| affected by smoking the dried leaves
| of the camphor plant. The smoker
trembles with fright at nothing, weeps
| bitterly and uses all sorts of words
which do not in the least express his
meaning. The wild dagga, another
| South African plant, poisons slowly
any one using it.
"A cable to the World from st. Pc
tersburg says: A marvel of engraving
has just been accomplished by
youth of Odessa who is known through
out South Russia for the extraordi-
| nary precision of his work On a
grain of wheat he has engraved the
music and words of the Russian Ma
| tional Anthem with the aid of a lens.
Every note is dotted and clearly de-
| fined. He was called to the imperial
| piece of work. which is framed in a
tiny silver setting. The Car, amazed
at the production, gave the engraver
gold watch with his monogram on it.
Between the two It's" of Nicolas II.
the engraver is now engraving a long
prayer for the Cars safety taken
from the Russian liturgy.
1t is a pleasure, says the New York
Post, to hear about one commodity
which the trust promoters will never
be able to monopolize. They may COR
ner our fuel, our roast beef our boots
and shoes even our clothespins but
they will never control the market for
radium. The remarks of Sir William
Crookes in London the other day put
this beyond doubt. There is less than
kilogram of radium in the world, and
a tenth of a kilo would be worth $780,
OO0: On its face this is a proposition to
tenNpt the spectators cupidity. But
no. IF half kilogram were in a bot
tie on that table, said Prof Crookes.
1T would probably kill us both. Tt
would almost certainly blind u.s." Thus
there is an awful fate in store for the
promoter who would Corner radiun1
1t is safe to predict that even though
all other industries of the world are
monopolized, teachers of economics
will still find in the radium inanufac-
tories survival of the days of free
competition.
Civilization is making way in
Abyssinia, says the London telegram
The latest innovation is-nerves rvbaso