The Savannah morning news., 1903-04-01
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

The Automotor Journal, London,
describes a new traction engine called |
the "pedrail," which literally walks up |
stairs with the stride and sure-footed- |
ness of an elephant" and hauls loads |
far in excess of those the wheeled frac- |
ton engine can move.
The deaths from pneumonia per
/, 900 of population in 1850 were 4.4O; in |
1870, 1924; in 1880, 1888; in 1890, 1884; |
in 1900, 19.7S-an aggregate increase of |
1896 per cent. of pneumonia, as COM |
pared with an aggregate decrease of |
1915 per cent. of consumption.
In accordance with the will of JEFF |
ferson Kearny Clark. who died in st.
Louis four years ago, handsome
monument is to be erected In Bellefon-
tame Cemetery, in that city, to per-
petuate the fame of his father, Gen.
William Clark, the Northwestern pion-
eer. The monument will overlook the
Mississippi river at, the point where
Gen. Clark and Meriwether Lewis de-
barked from their celebrated exploring
trip to the mouth of the Columbia r.v-
er. |
Amos Martin of Princeton, Pa, has
just passed his 106th birthday. He was
a Highland piper at the battle of Wa
terloo. When he married his first wife,
who was spinster and owned farm,
he drove to her place with a blind
horse, found her in a shed milking a
COW, held an umbrella over her while
he proposed in a manner most uncon-
Ventional-fOr 1t was raining-and
welded her the next day. She died
when she was SO years old. Five years
ago he welded widow who was 20
years old.
Miss Alice Fletcher. president of
the Anthropological Society, has intro
duced a new departure in setting apart
the first thirty minutes of each of its
meetings as time in which members,
visitors, travellers, explorers and cab
ers may report on matters of interest
to the society of a nature too brief to
be made the subject of a paper yet of
sufficient Importance to be of value to
anthropologists. The innovation has
already proved the means of bringing
out large number of valuable sug-
geStions and bits of information which
otherwise would have escaped.
In England, under an old law still
in force, the swan is a royal fowl, as
whales and surgeons are royal fish.
All swans the property whereof is not
otherwise definable, when within the
by virtue of this prerogative. When
swans are lawfully taken into the pos
session of a private person, such rer-
son may be said to have a property in
them; but if they be at liberty they
belong to the crown. Formerly 1t was
| necessary for persons who wished to
keep these royal fowls" to obtain a
swan mark, which was granted by the
crown, and which could not be legally
| impressed without grant or prescrip-
ton.
The Persian army, according to
Henry Savage Lander, the traveller, is
a painful sight" although there are
some good Cossack cavalry which has
been drilled by Russian officers. The
infantry, however, is a ragged, lazy,
shriftless lot. He asked permission to
see the army drill. I'VE do not drill
in summer; it's too hot" said the
general. do you drill in winter?"
mo; it's too cold" Are the troops,
then, only drilled in the autumn and
spring." Sometimes. They are
principally drilled few days before
the Shah's birthday, so that they may
look we'll on the parade day before his
majesty
The Japanese world-girdler, other
wise Hara Kichi Nakamura, who is
riding around the globe on an Ameri-
can bicycle, is in New York, on his
way home. He has been wheeling since
November, 1901, through Shanghai,
Singapore, Rangoon, Calcutta, Bonn
| bay, where he took ship and worked
his way through the Suez canal, and
then wheeled through Turkey in Eu-
! rope, Italy, France and England to
Liverpool, where he got work on
steamer that brought him to Boston.
His notion was to find what opportuni-
| ties this world offers for Japanese
youth, for at home he is a teacher In
a charity school where there are 400
boys. Nakamura thinks the informa-
| ton he has gained will be of great
| service.
"A traveller of the Upper Nile thus
describes a typical native village: 1.-The
| houses are built of Nile mud, each
house accommodating a family of no
| matter what size, the inhabitants of
each village almost all related to each
other, comprising sometimes several
! hundreds of people. Their streets are
| Uttered with filth, animals of every
kind obstruct ones path, dogs growl
and snarl at the appearance and in
| truSion of a stranger, women rush
about, hiding their faces in their yash-
makS lest a white man should behold
their features Flies in swarms settle
on the children and lay their eggs on
their eyelids, unwashed, because they
| believe it to be contrary to their re-
ligion to wash or remove the flies from
their eyes,"
"A serious attempt is about TO be
made to ascend the highest mountain
in the world. Mount Everest, which
rears it's head 29,002 feet above the
level of the sea. The highest point to
which man has SO far climbed is 23,0S0
feet. This is the hight of Aconcagua,
| the Hottest summit of the main cordil-
| lera of the Andes. Aconcagua was
| scaled by the famous guide, Matthias
| Zurbrigger, and Mr.. Vines, two MEM
| bers of the expedition sent out by the
| Royal Geographical Society in 1887 UNI
der E. A. Fitzgerald who himself fail
| ed to reach the summit. Before this
event the record was held by Sir VIII
| liam Martin Conway's expedition,
which in 1892 climbed a mountain in
| the Karakoram Himalayas % 900 feet
| high. w. Graham in 1883 claimed to
have assembled Kabru (24,015 feeD, hut
| his claim is generally disall0wed. The
new expedition which has Just started
! for the Hin1alayas is under the direc-
ton of Mr.. Eckenstein.
of the many sights witnessed in
| the oceans of the globe, one of the
most curious and most weird is that
described by sailors as 1.-The milky
sea-" ships being surrounded for sew