The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1904-09-11

THIS AND THAT

During a visit to the London docks not
long ago the queen of England was told
that the stock of ivory then shown to
her represented an annual killing of
something like 10000 African elephants.
Even if Rider Haggards famous ele-
plant hunter were still in the business,
however 10000 elephants looks for a
years sport like a rather large order,
and, as a matter of fact, certain author
tiles insist that of the ivory that comes
yearly to market something like So per
cent is dead ivory and has been picked
up, literally, in the boarded stores of the
native African chieftains. Much of this
dead ivory is obtained, not by the ac-
,tual killing of elephants but by the dis
covery of elephant cemeteries-places
where the great beasts have been resort
ing to die for centuries. Much of our
modern ivory is therefore hundreds of
years old already, and comparatively lit
tie of 1t is obtained by the danger and
excitement of hunting Elephants
Proverbially it's an i'll wind that blows
nobody good, and the story now comes
from Port Spain. Trinidad, to the effect
that the owls and bats have learned to
take advantage of the recently installed
ielectric arc lamps as rather unsports-
manlke way of insect catching Trini-
dad is well populated with bats, owls
and flying insects; and to the insects,
there as elsewhere. the arc light presents
a powerful and fatal fascination Every
morning the ground under the lights Is
almost covered with thousands of them.
Naturally the Port Spain owls and bats
have discovered these centers of attrac-
ton for dainty insects and after the
lights are turned on they gather in the
neighboring trees and dash smartly out
whenever particularly promising and
bewildered bug goes laundering its way
into the circle of illumination. The oper-
alton is a snap for the owls and under
the circumstances rather a happy dis
patch for the bugs.
In the newest of New Yorzs fashiona-
BILE hotels there is what seems to be
an entirely new device for the bene-
fit of persons who like to follow the la
test hotel fashion and take breakfast In
the seclusion of their hotel apartments.
,You order the breakfast by telephone,
rs has been easy enough to do ever since
the hotels put in the telephone service
that is now part and parcel of every big
modern carayansary, but you no longer
remove the contents of your table in or
fast table comes UP on an elevator into
buffers pantry not very rar from the
guests apartment and there 1t is taken
by the waiter, breakfast, breakfast ia
BILE and all, and brought bodily to who
ever has ordered it, The table Is placed
wherever the guest wishes to sit down
TO breakfast and when the meal is over
the whole outfit is carried bodily out
again.
Judging by the recently published vol
nme on the Native Tribes or Central Aus
tralia-w written in collaboration by pro-
fessor in the University OF Melbourne
md a sub-protector of aborigines who GER
tainly ought to know about them-the
Australian natives are a much maligned
people many of whose ideas of living
might be happily Incorporated in an Am
erican populist platform. They have no
chiefs and their legislative matters are
settled by an informal council of old
men sitting In what is apparently not
altogether unlike an American commit
tee meeting. The different trit es never
make war on each other for the acquisi-
ton of territory. The savage gentleman
with hungry brother blood relation or
otherwise. is rubbed and prodded in the
stomach with a heavy stone until he
decides that charity is the best policy.
There is sort of an old age pension in
that the younger men are compelled to
support the aged
aside from food getting the greater part