The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-10-19
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

The Germans are especial lovers
of cities. In the nineteen cities of
above 100000 population Sc per cent.
of the Germans in the country live.
-Maximite. the composition of which
is a government secret, is about three
times as powerful as ordinary gunpow-
der, and is a powdery substance, melt
ed by heat, and poured into shell.
The heather Chinee' has made his
appearance in a new garb at Portland,
Ore, where a militia company COM
posed entirely of Cinnamon is attract
ing much favorable attention. The
members of the company are nearly all
merchants, bankers and clerks of the
higher class. They devote much time
to drill and the study of military mat
tiers, with the result that the command
has already reached high degree of
excellence"
The Lewis and Clark fair, planned
to be held in Portland, Ore, in the
summer of 1905, is to commemorate
the centennial of the crossing of the
continent by the explorers whom JEFF
ferson induced to undertake the diff
cult task soon after the completion of
They went up the Missouri river,
crossed the Rocky mountains and fol-
lowed down the course of the Column
bia river to the Pacific.
The school authorities of New York
are making, this fall, a new and al
together sensible use of some of the
city school houses. In localities where
there is no suitable place for a neigh
borhood gathering of an evening, the
public school house has been made
available for that purpose. Twenty
of them have been in use this season,
and the people of very many neigh
borhoods have thus had a convenient
and comfortable recreation center.
In so cosmopolitan a city as Paris
there are always visitors without suf
ficient familiarity with the language to
make themselves understood readily.
To obviate some of the trouble caused
by this, the Department of Police has
prepared book containing pictures of
various articles, so that, when a
stranger loses anything, and cannot ac-
curately describe it, he finds the pic
ture of it in the book, and this gives
the necessary information. This new
kind of "sign-language" proves to be
very useful.
Calvin T. Fried. formerly an as
sistant to Thomas A. Edison. has re-
Gently made a successful demonstra-
ton of his concentrating balance
screw propeller" This is a feature of
a machine for the dry extraction of
ore, where the hydraulic system is not
available and the inventor claims that
he can recover a greater amount of the
metal than has ever been done by any
other similar process. 1t is said that
this propeller can also be used for
driving boats and for other purposes.
1t is not known just how long mos
quitoes can live, but their average life
is much longer than is ordinarily sup
posed. Thousands of them live through
winter, alternating or asleep in dark
places in barns or house cellars. In
Sparsely settled localities where they
cannot find such places for shelter,
they live through the winter in hol-
low trees; and, even though the tenn
perature may fall far below freezing,
they are not winter killed, but on the
approach of warm weather become ac-
tive again.
The United States government has
fifty buildings, mostly postoffices, I'M
der construction at present, with about
three times as many" as that author
lied. The cost. of, the buildings now
uncompleted viii be almost as much
as the total annual expenditure of the
government fifty years ago, when the
office of supervising architect was es-
tablshed. The construction of public
buildings is. one of the governments
ways of laying up or saving money.
1t cannot put it out at interest in
savings bank, as a private individual
does, but it can save rents by owning
it's own business houses. .-.
The inability of coopers of furnish
barrels rapidly enough has caused the
apple shippers of Niagara county, New
York, to adopt the plan of shipping this
fruit in boxes of convenient size. The
new plan has met with much favor,
and it appears likely that boxes will
be much used in future years, even
if barrels should again be plentiful
The fact is that in shipping apples to
European markets the fruit in boxes
is far more popular than that in bar
rels. 1t should be remembered that
the barrel is an American institution,
and the apple buyers of Europe prefer
fruit in boxes. Then again, fruit in
boxes is much more easy to handle on
shipboard and is less liable to injury.
The following is attributed by an
English newspaper to public school
boy: King Henry the Eighth was
the greatest widower that ever lived.
He was born. at Ammo Domini in the
year 1866. He had $40 wives, besides
children. The first was beheaded and
afterwards executed. The second was
revoked. She never smiled again, but
she said the word Calais would be
found written on her heart after her
death. The greatest man in this reign
was Lord Sir Garnet Wolsey. He was
surnamed the Boy Bachelor being
born at the age of Is unmarried. He
after said had he served his wife as
diligently as he served the King she
would not have deprived him of his
gray hairs. In this reign the Bible was
translated into Latin by Titus Oats,
who was ordered by the King to be
chained up in the church for greater
security. 1t was also in this reign that
the Duke of Wellington discovered
America and invented curfew bell to
prevent fires, most of the houses being
built of timber. Henry the Eighth was
succeeded on the throne by his great
grandmother, the beautiful and ac-
complished Mary Queen of Scots, some
times known as the Lady of the Lake.
or Lay of the Last Minstrel. He died
in bed in the last year of his age
-Zola in "Fecundite" and President
Roosevelt in his addresses have de-
scanted forciby on the sin of what the
latter calls race suicide The cod
fish, with it's 100000 young, seems their
ideal. Yet biology challenges the view
n1nlfinln t1x1 "a