The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-12-13
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Thirteen may be an unlucky num-
Der in every state but New Jersey,
but no rule holds good there. A man
won a turkey in a rattle with No. IL
the other day and on his way home
highwayman held him up and demand
ed his money and the bird. But the
brave Jerseydte grasped the turkey
bravely by hind leg and swung 1t
at the robber. He receive the tender
white meat on the side of the head and
slept peacefully until the police got him
in cell.
One of the strangest railroad acct
dents on record is reported from Ham
mond, Ind. A hotelkeeper. Charles
Stahlbohm, was driving home one
night last week and, coming to a rail-
road tr4ck. tried to drive his horses
across ahead of the fast freight. The
engineer did not even know that he
had hit anything, but kept up the
speed of his engine until he pulled into
a station fifteen miles beyond the scene.
Then he got down to oil his engine
and was slightly startled to see Stalh-
bohm sitting on the cowcatcher a whip
in one hand and the ends of some reins
in the other. He shook him a few
times and when the hotelkeeper came
| to he asked where his hat and horses
were. He did not know that the train
had made them into soap stock.
Experiments made some time ago
by Messrs. E. C. Nichols and G. F.
Hull were thought to prove that the
detection of a comets tail on approach
ing the sun is due to pressure OF light.
A mixture of dried puffban spores and
| emery sand was poured through kind
of hour-glaSs hole in vacuum tube,
a beam of light forty times as strong
as sunlight being turned on the par
ticles, and the light puffball seeds-only
a tenth as heavy as Water-Were blown
aside, while the emery continued to
fall vertically. Corrected calculations
| now indicate that the problem is not
as near solution as it was supposed.
The effect is ten times as great as the
pressure of light could produce, some
| unknown force seeming to have taken
part, and further experiments will be
made, using, if possible, lighter parti-
Giles and a more perfect vacuum.
An attempt on a large scale to in
| troduce English song birds into Brit
ish Columbia is at present being made.
| The Victoria (B. CO Natural History
Society is taking out from England
| about 500 birds consisting of 100 pairs
| of goldfinches, 100 pairs of larks, and
/ lALly RdlIS VI IODDtIlS. L DGy go ny
way of New York to Victoria. In ac-
cordance with the arrangements that
have been made, half of the consign-
| ment will be placed in Vancouver and
| taken care of there until next spring
when they will be distributed through
out the woodlands of the lower main
land. The remainder will be placed in
Beacon Hill Park aviary and kept until
spring, when they will be given their
/ of oY~7 xrsa1s
| Island. 1t will be very interesting to
hear if this extensive scheme of accli-
| matization proves a success.
IA remarkable example of the art
Of the initator is the fac smile of the
coronation chair which has been made
for presentation to one of the Cana
| dian museums, says the London Globe.
In all the most minute details. down
! to the deep scratchinGs and the dis
! figuring carved initials which are to
be found on the original chair in West
minister Abbey, this venerated historic
relic has been copied. The oak for
| the chair, which is the work of Messrs.
| Hamptons artists, and is attracting
much attention in Pail Mall. is 300
! years old, and the worn and faded vel
vet provided for the arm pads is gen
| uine antique. Underneath the chair
/
| Jacobs head is said to have rested
when he saw the vision of the angels
| ladder, and so perfect is the simula-
ton of the whole thing that we mag
| inc if the real and the imitation were
| put side by side it would not be easy
| to tell one chair from the other The
idea of setting up this copy in a colo
NAL museum is an excellent one, which
| in turn might well be initiated. Con-
sidering, too, how closely the antigua
rian is now able to suggest the actual
| appearance of the genuine coronation
chair before the period of its injury and
neglect, the initiative artist might now
seek to reproduce it lin all the fresh
ness of its glass mosaics and its his
| toricated gliding" of which Sir Gil
bert Scott wrote in his book on the
subject.
The extraordinary activity of the
American Bible Society is made clear
by the recent statement by DR.. John
Fox that during the past year the So
ciety, in cooperation with other socie-
ties, sold 425.0 900 Bibles, says the Phil
adelphia Ledger. The total number
of Bibles issued last year by the So
ciety, including those sold, was nearly
100000 copies, and the British and
Foreign Society issued nearly 5000, 900
copies. AT the beginning of the nine
! teenth century the number of transla-
| tions was a little over fifty. Now the
translations into foreign languages and
| dialects amount to the extraordinary
number of 450. In China, for instance
the Mandarin language is the general
| language of the majority of the peo-
pie, but there are 10000, 900 who do not
| use it. They are divided from each
other by linguistic barriers as complete
as those which separate the Dutch
| from the English or the French from
the Italian, and in order to introduce
the Bible to these people the American
Bible Society has been concerned in
| twenty different translations of the
Bible into twenty Chinese dialects. The
barbarous hordes of Africa are not
neglected. Three million debased
tribesmen of the West Coast speak a
! jargon called the Sheetswa, and the
New Testament has just been trans
lated after the greatest difficulty for
their benefit. Agents of the society
distribute the Bibles in the jungles Of
South America and on the plains of
Asia. The Zulu Bible is carried from
Durham to Lake Nyassa, and colper-
tours range from the Cairo to the
headwaters of the Blue Nile.
of New Yorks foreign population
Germany contributes $4,000, Ireland
comes next, with 275,0OO, Russia and
italy following, each with about $780,
"a VnY.Ir FTrih