The Savannah morning news., 1904-05-15
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

ITEMS OF INTEREST.
w. Loaf, the superintendent of the
survey of the fishes of the Nile, has
partly completed his labors, and found
only 100 different species in the great
river. The Congo, which has not been
Systematically worked, has yielded
over 200 species of fish.
The poorhouse in Budapest con-
tains among its inmates a woman
named Jetty Einzig, who, according to
her baptismal certificate is 116 years
old. She gave her age as 1O5, and
when confronted with the certificate
and asked why she had not told the
truth, she replied it was because she
felt ashamed to be so old.
At the end of March there were,
excluding warships, 1913 vessels under
construction in Great Britain, as COM
pared with 425 a year ago. The gross
tonnage amounted to 9SS,664 tons.
against 9746S in 1903 The tonnage of
vessels under construction in the Unit
ed States on March 81 amounted to
122, 935 tons, a decrease of 1855, 205 tons
from 1903; and in Germany 134,54 tons,
a decrease of 1851.
in a paper recently read before
the Institute of Mining Engineers in
London, j. M. McLaren gave some
curious facts about gold mining in
Great Britain and Ireland. In ALL gold
of the value of $2,O94,915 has been
found. OF this England contributed
barely $4,000; Wales, $1,400000 and
Ireland $145,000 The largest nugget,
weighing twenty-five ounces, was dis
covered in Ireland. 1t was made into
snuffbox for George III.
The Japanese sword is usually
welded with both hands. The cutting
plays a much larger part in their
sword play than the thrust and point.
They also fence with two words at
once, the long, two-handed weapon be-
ing held in the right hand, while the
left uses the shorter and lighter blade.
The fencer stands with his right foot
forward and his sword held in both
hands directly in front of him, its hilt
at about the level of his waist, its
point being at nearly the level of his
opponents eyes.
The administrator of New Guinea
has recently reported that tribe has
been found which is virtually incapable
of walking, says Leslies Weekly.
These people inhabit a marshy dis
trict which is too soft to walk in and
too solid to allow of navigation in Il
canoe. Locomotion of any kind is
thus impossible, and they have become
q purely sedentary race, leading sta
tionary existence in the dwellings
which they have built in the trees just
above the level of the swamps. 1t
would be natural to expect under these
circumstances, that they would grad
ually lose the use of the limbs and
muscles employed in walking. This re-
suit has actually come about. They
cannot perambulate on hard ground
without causing their feet to bleed with
the unusual exercise. Their extremities
have shrunk, while the trunk has be-
come bloated. The effect would be to
produce a certain resemblance to the
figure and gait of apes; but whether
the similarity is based on real physi-
cal identities is another question.
To-day the lot of the laboring man
| in Germany is in many respects better
than that of ours, writes Poultney
| Bigelow in the National Magazine. The
German state recognizes the right of
every man to live-we do not. When
the German laborer becomes old or
feeble the state pensions him honor
ably. In Germany the laboring man
can ride on the electric cars for
| cents-we pay 5. German cities have
public baths, public laundry establish
ments, big parks, free concerts and
many other features which soften pow
| erty-although they may no remove it.
The corolIary to this is that the En-
peror permits no tramps to terrorize
his highways. The police is organized
for rural n9trOl a we'll a < oifV work
and every loafer is stopped and made
to give an account of himself. In Eng
land vagrancy has been a public nui-
sance for generations-with us it has
| become of late years almost a public
danger Germany has no tramps. The
man who is without work in Germany
finds no inducement to remain idle. A
paternal government sets him to such
hard work that the would-be unem-
ployed finds it decidedly to his inter-
| est to seek some other employment as
soon as possible.
Many persons are afraid all their
lives of being buried alive, says the
New York Christian Advocate. Ere
quently in their wills they give elab-
crate instructions to be followed in
order to prevent this calamity. The
Lancet, discussing the subject of Re
markable resuscitations," says that
tthe uncertainty of the signs of death
must be acknowledged, but medical
literature contains only one or two
authenticated cases of a living person
having been actually buried" and re-
fers to BrouardeFs work on Death
and Sudden DEATH" which, while ad-
hitting that premature burial cam
not be absolutely denied, demonstrates
that it must be extremely rare. In
support OF this contention he instances
the mortuary chambers esta blished in
Germany and elsewhere in which dead
bodies are placed, a bell rope being at
tached to the hand of each. He says
that from the time that mortuary
chambers were instituted-and that at
Weimar dates from 1792-neither az
Weimar nor at Munich nor any
where else, believe, has anybody ever
rung that bell" We quote the above
for the encouragement of persons who
are timid on that point, but add that
| a greater danger exists than that OF
| being buried alive; it is the danger OF
undue haste in preparing by modern
methods the human body for burial.
George NJ. Gould. writing to Sci
| ence, on the question of right-eyed-
ness and left-eyedness, declares that
ambidexterity should be discouraged
rather than stimulated. He thinks
that if child prefers left-handedness
there will be a greater celebrity and
unity by means of the location of the
three organs dominating action in one