The Savannah morning news., 1903-02-07
ITEMS OF INTEREST.


connective cab. This apparatus can be
4 used as a telephone. and it also works
/ automatically in signaling stoppages
/ of train. 1t is reported that the
4 French government is to equip all the
state lines with the system, which is
known as the rail telephone, at a cost
of $1,50O,00O.
The problem of getting satisfactory
railroad ties, at once cheap and dura-
bic, is becoming more and more serious
year by year. The latest expedient to
meet the demand is the treating of ties
of poor and cheap wood with preserva-
| tives.- Tests have lately been made
with various kinds of timber in the
Gulf states. Loblolly pine, red oak,
swamp oak tamarack, hemlock beech,
true fir and lodge pole pine-all quick
rotting stuff-are recommended. Low
grade, cheap timber with open pores
that costs little to begin with, but will
| absorb large quantity of preserVa-
tive such as tar oil, zinc chloride or
| other preparations of established repu-
tation, have been found most desira-
BILE. An untreated beech tie will last
about four years, while but 10 per cent.
of lot of creosOted beech ties on
certain French railroad have been talk
en- out in a period of twenty-seven
years.
The opinion prevails in many cir
cles in Rome that the Pope no longer
celebrates mass, or else that he cele-
brates the whole, or at least half, of
the mass in a sitting posture, says The
Tablet. This is quite incorrect The
| Pope says mass every day, and stand
ing from beginning to end. The vener-
able old man, in spite of the burden
OF his advanced age, performs every
genufeotiOn completely to the ground,
and reads the liturgical prayers so ac-
| curately that he takes three-quarters
of an hour to celebrate. He is assisted
at mass by his private chaplain and
master of ceremonies, Mgr. Marzolini
whilst his personal servant, Contra
serves the mass. The holy father says
his week day mass in the little pri-
vate chapel next to his bedroom, but
on Sunday in the domestic chapel be-
| hind the apartment of the Noble
| Guard. After mass the Pope always
hears another one said by Mgr Mar
zolini
One of the projected concessions
for the Worlds Fair is village of
the last of the ancient Pueblo Indians
of New Mexico, the lineal descendants
of the interesting cliff dwelers of pre-
historic times on this continent AL
| though of pure Toltec strain, the San
! Juan Pueblos are blanket Indians, but
they lend to this primitive dress an
air of gayety and rude splendor that
characterized the Aztecs of the time
of COrtez. Their blankets and head
| dresses are emblazoned with Patterns
| OF 9ayly cOlored beads and silver or
naments Of their own smithing, which
| set Off their costumes with more or
less effect. They have their own mis-
sion schools, conducted by Catholic
| missionaries, and are a really intelli-
gent and fairly we'll educated race.
! They manufacture a kind of pottery,
something similar to the celebrated
ware of the Zuni Indians, and are a
strictly agricultural people. A surviv-
al of ancient Aztec days is their ma
tlonal dance, Los Machines
1t may be doubted says Leslie's
Weekly, whether the dictates of fash
ion have ever led to anything more
cruel and repulsive than the practice
| described in "A French medical publ
| cation as the one adopted to procure
those sinister-looking animals whose
| fierce and hideous attitudes are repro
| duced in the jewelry worn to-day by
! fashionable Partisan beauties. The art
| list who provides these morbid designs
| lives in village near Paris, and in diff
| ferent cages keeps cats, rats and many
! other animals whom he slowly starVes
| to DEATH Though he lives among his
! victims, the artist has grown callous
! to their cries, and as the wretched an
imals writhe in their agony he gets the
| horrible and fantastic forms he de-
sires for the jeWelry destined to adorn
! the beautiful women of the French
capital. If anything could be more in
congruous than this practice when
| brought into contrast with the gentle
and sympathetic traits usually ascribed
to women it would be difficult to saw
where it could be found. II IS charita-
BILE to believe that the women who
wear such jewelry are not aware of the
methods by which it is produced
In the thirty-eig annual report
of the home for aged and infrm col
ored people of Philadelphia, says Amer
lean Medicine. there is an account of
one of the inmates. Mary Mcdonald
| who IF So" must be over 131 years of
| age. The only proof of the ''if So is
that the woman remembers persons liv-
ing and events taking place in 1777 and
| lfS. We have entire sympathy for
the cause of the care of the aged and
infirm, but this must not be allowed to
enfluence the statistics of centenarians
1t is very doubtful if anybody has ever
lived Isl years, and when the sole proof
OF such Il claim is the memory of events
Transporting and persons living over 100
years ago, there is no dependence what
ever to be placed upon the report Psy-
biologists know how readily the mind
transforms the record of things told by
others into memory of things expert
enced by self. All who have carefully
attended to their subtle mental pro
ceSses have probably detected the UNI
conscious method of the mind where
by what elders have. said becomes
what have seem. This habit may be-
come almost the single prop of self
esteem in old age.
Those fortunate enough to enioy an
Alpine holiday during the present
month are almost sure to espy the sal
danella or snowbell, a dainty little
plant about three inches high, bearing
two pendant fringed white or violet
bells on each flower stalk, saws the
Westminster Gazette. They may often
be found with the snow still firmly
frozen round the stem, and the oues-
ton naturally arises How did the
blossoms, SO much larger in circumfer-
ence make their way through? Bot
anists tell us that the plant forms its
flower buds under the snow. and in the
process of breathing evolves so much
heat that the encircling snow is melted
and trickles down the stalk. round
which it frequently freezes again. Thus
gradually dome shaped cavity is
formed round the blossoms. and the