The Savannah morning news., 1904-01-04
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

1t is stated in a London journal
that the proposal of the German Com
mittee of the Virchow Memorial to
erect statue of Virchow in one Of
the public streets of Berlin near the
place where his scientific work was
conducted, will be carried out. An
obellsk OF unpublished grey granite has
been Placed over Virchow's grave in
the old Matthaikirchof, Berlin. 1t
bears on one side a black marble
tablet.
Even Greenland's icy mountains
have their plutocrats. One Kor-ko-ya
of East Baffinsland literally stupefies
his fellow tribesmen with his luxury.
he lives IN wooden house, owns a Ia
BILE and paraffin lamp and recently
to celebrate the fortieth anniversary
of the foundation of his business he
stood cod liver oil all around to his en-
ployes. Such a scene of unrestrained
revelry had never been witnessed in
the country before.
Under the hand of it's new mistress,
the American wife of Baron Won
Sternburg, the German embassy in
Washington has emerged from the
character of somewhat nondescript
bachelor abode it has presented of re-
cent years and begins now to have
cabinet of its own and to reflect some
thing of the taste and individuality of
the woman to whom for the time being
it is home. The Baroness was Miss
Laughlin before her marriage.
Samples of mussels and cookies
from Billingsgate Market, London, have
bten submitted to a physician for
bacterial examination, a case of enteric
fever being traced to that source, and
it has been found that both musSels
and cookies were polluted with sew
age, some of them to a dangerous eX-
tent, and that the cooking of the mol
luscs had been very imperfectly done.
The sale of cookies from Leighton
Sea, where these had been obtained, has
been prohibited in the London mar
kets. Warnings were issued some
months ago, and directions given for
a minimum period of boiling to be
adopted, which seem to have been dis
regarded.
For a long time the plague has been
endemic in Hongkong, the disease re-
appearing after a period of intermis-
sion in an inexplicable manner. Prof.
Simpson has lately pointed out that do
nestle animals and poultry may con-
tract plague in a latent form from
feeding upon plague-infected material,
and that infected food may be a po-
tent source in disseminating the dis
ease. The Governor has recently in
stituted an investigation of the in
habitants and Vermin of a, large native
quarter in the colony certified to be
free from plague. This has revealed
that considerable number of bugs,
fieas, spiders and Cockroaches contain
plague bacilli. Samples of blood from
supposed healthy natives upon exami-
nation showed the presence of plague
bacilH in per cent. of the specimens.
Under favorable conditions such in
fected persons and vermin become pos
sible sources of danger and sporadic
outbreaks must be expected while they
are present. 1t is difficult also to see
what measures can be taken to
eradicate the disease in these cir
cumstances.
We have before new, says the Hos
pital, had occasion to call attention
to the Japanese custom of employing
the blind a s maSseurs as one worthy
of imitation in this country, and we
are pleased to notice that an institute
for massage by the blind in England is
in process of organization at the pres
ent moment under the patronage of the
Duke of Cambridge. 1t is a fact that
blind people become particularly skill
full in the performance of massage,
partly, no doubt, on account of the
well-known circumstance that the loss
of one sense usually leads to a spe-
cial cultivation of the senses that re-
main. And, as massage is an art the
successful performance of which de-
ponds in a high degree upon delicacy
of touch and manipulative ability, it
is one which the blind are pre- emf
nently suited to perform. The ad-
Vantages which may be expected from
the organization mentioned are mani
fold. In the first place, the afflicted
individual who has lost the power of
vision will be enabled to earn a live
lihood and will be provided with a
regular occupation and object for ex-
istence, without which any degree of
happiness is seldom to be found, and,
secondly, the community as a whole
will benefit by the employment in use
full labor of those whose powers would
otherwise run to waste.
The London cable news the other
day which told us that latest Informs
ton from Lhassa is to the effect that
the forbidden city and country are
dominated by priests is scarcely news,
says the New York Times. From such
information as we have of the mys-
ferrous region, Wnlcn mas Deen ClOSeu
to foreigners since the seventeenth CEN
fury, though it has been reached as
lately as 1882 by Sarat Chandra Dass,
it appears that the Priest King, the
Dalai Lama, is surrounded in Lhassa
by no fewer than 10000 monks in
total population Of $4,000. The sway
of the Dalai Lama, now 2S years old,
who is believed to be the incarnation
of the celestial Buddha, is sustained
by no fewer than 5000 monasteries in
Thibet which have from 5000 to 49,,
900 monks each. There are also many
orders of nuns, and unless these fig
ures, which are given on the authori-
ty of the Swami Abhedananda, now
visiting this country, are a strain on
the credulity, it would be strange, in
deed, if Lamaism did not possess the
land. 1t is by strange kind of wis
dom, or perhaps instinct of preserva-
ton, that the Thibetans have resolute-
ly kept foreigners from their portals.
Perhaps they have had their own in
telligence department at work, and
have been warned of the fate of the
Eastern nations which have admitted