The Savannah morning news., 1904-02-19
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

land and Scotland.
-England's worst colonoy is I'M
doubtedly British Honduras, situated
at Americas very doors, says the Bos-
ton Advertiser. 1t is a a slice of Cen
trail America, with a fine seaboard,
fringing a large and wealthy country.
1t is not utilized by Great Britain
and has no regular communication
with the mother country. Its only
connection with the outside world is
| by an occasional banana steamer from
New Orleans or a leaky logwood
schooner infested with cockroaches.
The colonists are community of her
mits so far as the great world is con-
cerned. They have no cable commu-
nication with any part of the globe
and they generally hear of a great
event about six months after it has
happened. They celebrated King Ed
wards coronation on the day original
ly appointed for it and did not hear of
his illness until weeks later. When at
last the King was crowned his royal
subjects in British Honduras were
holding intercession services to pray
for his recovery. Probably they are
now rejoicing over the close of the
Boer war, and. in a month or two
they will be exciting themselves over
the Venezuelan blockade.
Paints as now employed in the arts,
both mechanical and decorative. were
not known to the people. of ancient
times. Pigments they had in album
dance, but the art of mixing them so
as to make them enduring had not
been discovered. Nowadays when the
artisan is applying varnish he puts UP
a sign warning passers-by to beware
of paint, which shows that by the av-
erage man varnish is regarded as
species of paint. The two are, indeed,
closely related, but it will surprise
most people to learn that, while var
nish is a product known in very re-
mote ages, paint as used to-day is of
comparative recent origin. The paint
used in Babylon and Nineveh and in
Pompeii was composed of pigments
mix not with oil but with water, to
which had been added a little glue,
egg albumen or perhaps sometimes
casein, which is albuminous matter
from milk, or the gluten from cereal
grains. Glue, however, was the
most universal binding material. Such
paints are now known as fresco
paints or water colors. They have not
gone out of use, as illustrated by the
reported statement that the New
York rapid transit subway walls are
to be painted throughout with some of
these preparations.
One of the important items of the
United States army commissary is
candy, and why not? If Uncle Sam
can supply United States senators with
free quinine pills-30,000 of them
there need be no criticism of candy
for our soldiers, says the st. Louis
Globe Democrat. In fact, nothing can
be too good for them. The only ques-
| ton to be asked is whether it. is good
candy or not. We want no glucose and
white earth served out to our boys
in blue or khaki in the far-off Phil
ippines and in sweltering Panama.
None but the best, in lace paper trim
med boxes, tied with gold cord, will
do. We'd rather see them eating
candy than drinking vino. We
are not in sympathy with these
experiments of feeding them on hash
or on vegetables only The hardships
Of army life in a tropical country are
hard enough to bear. There would be
no great complaint if ice cream were
served every day at mess. The army
of the Philippines will suppress as
many Moro Instructions with ice
cream as without it. A Spartan diet
does not necessarily make q Spartan.
Our soldiers won in 1861-1S645 not be-
cause of hardtack, but in spite of 1t;
they might have won more quickly on
roast beef and apple dumplings If
they could have been had. With 100
rounds of ammunition and twenty
rounds of butterscotch there is no tell
ing what young Americans might do.
Why don't they try it instead of all
these hashes and pemmicans and other
things which inspire no enthusiasm?
The Western states and territories
contain many evidences that this con-
tinent was once. peopled by race well
advanced in the arts of civilization,
says an exchange. A wonder of APP
parently prehistoric origin has been dis
covered recently by surveyor in
Northern Idaho. 1t is the well-prs-
served remains of a dixie and lies along
the east side of swamp known as
Hoodoo lake, Kootenai county, in a
country thickly covered with timber
and underbrush. The dixie is 5000 feet
in length, is built carefully of rock and
covered with earth. In dimensions it
is four feet in hight and three feet
wide on top. The dixie is broken in two
or three places for a rod or two, and
at one point apparently it has been cut
in recent years. There are also evil
dences that parts of the dixie have been
broken and swept away by floods in
times long past. Trees over 100 years
old growing on the crest Of the dixie also
attest in some degree to it's antiquity.
The surveyor, William Ashley, was at
first inclined to the belief that il was
an old MORAN of the glacial period
such as are frequently encountered in
the Northwest. Upon close investiga-
ton, however. he was convinced that
ii was the work of man owing to the
singular regularity of its form and the
materials which compose it. The
earths surface must have undergone
some great changes since the construc-
ton Of this dixie, for the present geo
| logical formation of the locality rem
ders it useless either for reclamation
| purposes or to keep back the water. 1t
| could not have been the work of In
dams. Its origin is suggestive
of vast expanses of time and recalls the
work of the ancient mound builders.
Mature mods undoubtedly at times
as in the case of the child born without
a brain, whose case has been made pub
lie this week, says the st. James Ga
zette. Not long ago aM infant was born
| and lived for three weeks with a hole
through its heart. Thousands of us
are color blind, others have no musical
sense. And there are many Laura
Bridgmans, many Helen Kellers. The
Queen of Roumania has or had at her
court in personal attendance upon her
self the daughter of blind nobleman.
She could neither hear nor speak and
had to be taught to, communicate. by
holding the throat of a speaker and
initiating the vibration produced by
the effort But what a qrtldpa on inst