The Savannah morning news., 1904-04-15
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

A strike of cigarmakers in Venice
threatens to develop into a general
strike in this trade throughout Italy.
Chinese laborers in British Column
bia canneries have formed a union
and demand $45 and $50 and board in
stead of $40.
-Collieries in Lancashire, England,
are still on short time, most of them
not running more than four and half
to five days a week.
"A man named Oliver Twist was
fined the other day in a London court
for being drunk and disorderly. He
probably wanted more and got it.
"A drinking cup, pronounced by the
British Museum to be 5000 years DID,
has been found in a field at Stoning-
field, Essex 1t is now in the Chelms-
ford Museum.
"A new style of reply postal card is
to be issued by the Postoffice Depart
ment as soon as the supply of the
present series shall be exhausted. The
card will bear portrait of Gen. Will
liam Tecumseh Sherman on the mes
sage side and one of Gen. Phil Sheri-
dan on the return side. Several mil
lions of the new cards are being pre-
pared for distribution.
1t will surprise many persons to
hear that pine wood, weight for
weight, is stronger than steel in the
both transverse and tensile strength.
This has been determined by call
culation, and confirmed by expert
ment. 1t is regarded as doubtful if
any metal could be made into a hol-
low rod equaling a bamboo rod in stiff
ness without exceeding it in weight.
In structures of wood the weakness is
always at the joints.
The amount Of heat lost by radia-
ton from bare pipes containing steam
at 100 pounds pressure, Prof. S. P.
Thompson estimates to be that of
about equal to two tons of coal a year
for each ten square feet of pipe sur
face. 1t was found by another expert
menter that SO per cent. of the loss
could be prevented by the best mica
covering. He states that asbestos COW
ering is much inferior to mica, and
that cement is less effective still.
Sir John Primrose, at recent ban
quet at Glasgow, made reference to a
new process for obtaining a complete
combustion of coal. He said that the
burning of the coal takes place in a
chamber surrounded by a water jack
ct, separated from the boiler, and that
only the gaseous products of combus-
ton are used for heating the boiler.
According to this new process a steam
er would require less than one-half of
the room now used for the boilers in
order to generate the same amount of
and the Waioht nf the heating
apparatus would also be diminished
more than one-half.
An inquiry by DR.. Alfred Wolff into
the mysterious cause of cancer has
yielded an unexpected conclusion which
promises temperance advocates a new
and powerful argument. DR.. Wolff dis
covers that all the districts of high
cancer mortality are districts in which
beer or cider is largely drunk. Bavaria,
for instance, heads the list in Germany,
and Salisbury in Austria-both great
beer-drinking provinces. In France
the statistics are still more striking.
There is the most marked contrast be-
tween the high cancer mortality In
beer-drinSing departments and the low
death rate from cancer elsewhere.
ALI the large vineyard owners of
California sulphur their vines as
protection against mildew and thrips
The method used is the sulphur bel
lows, which is so constructed that the
operator can expel material without
excess, thereby saving a large percen-
tage. There is a receptacle on top of
the bellows proper which is filled with
powdered sulphur. A tube passes from
the bellows through the sulphur to
the lid. This tube has a cap which has
ff1VN- lraTNf Ifn1n aT1f
on the tube by little brass spring.
When forcing air through, the tube
lifts the cap up to the holes and forces
the powdered sulphur out of the dis
charge tube.
Prof Byron Tyler of Chicago de-.
clares that that city has given birth
to an infant nation of raw food eaters,
which, Oh reaching maturity, is destin-
ed to rule the world. In illustrating
his belief in wheat as staple food for
mankind Prof. Tyler pointed to the
japanese as a people doomed to in
glorious defeat because they had lived
for centuries on rice, and, until they
learned to live on wheat, the yellow
peril need not be regarded as immi-
nent danger. Chicago is said to possess
10000 raw food eaters, and, according
to the reports of the society which ia
therS the movement, they are gaining
adherents throughout the surrounding
country. Kansas City is the second
stronghold of these devotees of I'M
cooked food, where their numbers
nearly equal those of the parent So
ciety, and at least 10000 more are scat
tered throughout the West and North
west. In his enthusiasm Prof. Tyler
endeavored to prove that the rice-fed
peoples of the earth were wholly lack
ing in initiative, or, to use his own
words, their brains have no motive
power. In this connection he again
pointed to the Chinese and Japanese
as a marked example of the truth of
his remarks; but he seems to have
forgotten that both nations possess an
ancient and very noble literature; that
they discovered and applied the art of
printing centuries before it was known
in Europe; that they invented and
used gunpowder long before the time
of Friar Bacon; and that, even to the
present day, they are famed for their
powers of prolonged physical endur-
ance.
An invention that promises to do
much toward the practicalizing of the
submarine is the invention of a Pa
risian scientist, George F. Joubert, and
is known as oxylith. This substance,
which is produced electrolytically, has
the power, when dropped in cold water,
of giving off a large volume of free and
practically pure oxygen, much in the
same manner that acetylene gas is
generated from calcium carbide by the
application Of water. While there are
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