The Savannah morning news., 1903-06-03
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

pedition to the magnetic north pole.
The vessel in which Prof Amundsen
will sail, is the Gjoea, of only forty-six
tons. The idea is that her small d.
mansions will be of the utmost adVan-
tage when the icebergs and currents
near the magnetic pole are encountered.
Considerable stir has been OCCASION
ed in Newport by the efforts of Mr.. and
Mrs. Oliver H. P. Belmont to close GER
tain roads in that swell resort so that
their villa will not be passed by any
public thoroughfare. Ex-Gov Lippitt
offers determined opposition to the
plan, which the Belmonts vainly at
tempted to put into operation several
years ago.
Some of the insurance companies in
Denmark have a policy which insures
a girl against spinsterhood. When a
girl baby is born, $225 can be deposited
with the company. and if she Is unmar-
ried at thirty she receives an annuity
of $25, which is increased by $25 every
ten years If she marries before she is
thirty she gets the $225 back, and If she
dies, to her relatives is given $25.
Joseph Reinach has just finished the
third volume of the Dreyfus case. 1t Is
called 1.-THE Crisis" and contains
graphich details of the Esterhazy affair
the lola trial, and the fall of the Meline
ministry. There is an eloquent eulogy
of the university professors who cham
pioned Dreyfus, being animated, sus-
| tained pushed forward by the certain
ty of truth" The next volume, Re
vision" leads up to the Rennes court
martial in 1899.
Senior Sanchez Toca, Spanish Min
lister of Marine, has naval scheme in
hand which win call for an annual ex-
penditure of about $50,000,O00 for
ten years. Should the Cortes
approve his plan, Spain, at
| the end of the time indicated, will have
twelve new battleships, twelve cruisers
| twenty-four submarines, besides half
hundred destroyers and torpedo boats,
while her arsenals and dockyards at
Ferrol, Cadiz and Carthagena will be
among the best in the world.
The officers of the Canadian gov
eminent steamer Lady Laurier,- which
arrived at Halifax, N. S., the other
day from a trip to Sable Island, report
that many of the trees planted on the
island have died. The news that many
of the trees have died is disappointing
to those who had devised an elaborate
| plan to prevent the washing away of
| this desolate stretch of sand upon
whose treacherous shoals many vessels
have been lost. The Canadian govern
ment planted thousands of trees on the
island last year, the work being under
| the supervision of experts.
The British House of Lords has
long since ceased to be a strictly he
reditary body. Over 200 of its 500 MEM
bers owe their presence to other causes
than descent. Quit a number of the
| hereditary lords are debarred from Vot-
ing by the fact that they are either
minors, undischarged bankrupts or in
mates of lunatic asylums. The nom
hereditary lords comprise the archbish-
ops and bishops of the Church of
England and those who have been Gre
ated peers by Queen Victoria and King
Edward for special services rendered
by the crown.
The other day at the French naval
station. Cherbourg, the Naiade, a sub
marine. was loaded with sheep and
submerged at certain distance from
| the shore. Torpedoes were then explod-
ed at thirty and fifty meters from the
vessel. The sheep suffered no harm,
| and the experiment was then renewed
| with men on board. The result is said
| to have clearly demonstrated that tor
| pedoeS can be fired from a submarine
boat at a distance of fifty or sixty me-
tiers from the vesesl attacked, without
| the submarine boat or its crew suffer-
ing any injury.
The French and italian soldiers.
composing the international army of
Prince George at Crete, came into seri-
Gus conflict in Canea cafe a fortnight
ago. At a subsequent review of the
| troops Col. Destelle, the commander of
the foreign regiments in Crete, made
| them cross flags and addressed them:
I'm the presence of your flags, which
| have so often f1oated side by side on
| the field of honor, 1 appeal to you to
promise me to live together henceforth
on the terms of brotherly friendship
which have always united you" The
bugles sounded and the shouts of viva
la Francia!" and "Vive FItalie!" were
mingled.
According to the New York Press
one of the richest business men in that
city never allows himself to work more
than five hours a day. In his youth
he worked eighteen hours. His almost
| constant companion for twenty years,
and for while his business associate,
has kept up the eighteen-hour habit.
He is as rich as his friend, but has not
the faculty of enjoying anything be-
| sides work. At 60 he plods quite as
hard as he did at 20. Result-he is a
narrow minded bigot with chronic in
| digestion. The five-hour man is broad
| gagged happy, healthy. He accom-
| plishes more in five hours than the 9TH
er does in eighteen.
The aborigines of the Malabar Is
lands employ a perfect whistling Ian
guage, by means of which they can
communicate with each other over long
| distances. A stranger wandering over
the islands is frequently surprised to
hear from hilltop the sound of loud
whistling, which is quickly repeated on
| the next hill. and 50 is carried from
| summit to summit until it dies away
| in the distance. But perhaps the most
| curious means of communication in the
world is the drum language of a Congo
tribe. These queer people can talk to
each other with large drums made of
| bamboo hoops, over which the skin of
| some animal is stretched. The drum,
however, is used only on imperative
| occasions.
1t seems that on the very eve of the
arrival of King Edward in Paris the
French government received news that
the British flag had been hoisted on the
| Minquiers, group of rocky islets sit
uated between Jersey and St. Malo.
for the purpose of erecting a lighthouse