The Savannah morning news., 1904-08-16
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

One diamond mine, the Premier,
near Pretoria, in the Transvaal, yield
ed 1881 carats during the month of
May. The value of this output is es-
timated at $525,0O0.
The largest peanut fields in the
world are supposed to be in Guiana
on the north coast of Africa. There
they are grown by hundreds of tons.
The quality is inferior, however, and
the bulk is shipped to Marseilles,
France.
-Occidentals are all called Euro
peans' in Japan, no geographical dis
tinction being made between Paris,
France, and Paris, Tex, or Rome,
Italy, and. Rome, Ga. Europeans are
just people who wear many kinds of
strange clothes, who eat various mar
velous foods with knives and forks off
huge dishes, who sleep on beds and
sit on chairs, and do many other fool
ish and troublesome things.
Fifty sparrows, desperately fighting
a large cat for the possession of a
young bird made things interesting in
Baltimore the other day. The cat had
caught a young sparrow and started
llOl I'll vi 0HdIISS street, Wn6n IeW
other birds saw him. They flew at the
cat SO savagely that he was compelled
to hunt for shelter. More birds joined
in the attack, and when the cat reach
ed the Northampton Hotel he ran
against the windows in quest for a
place of safety.
"A magnificent elm tree on the Wal
ter Wellington estate. in Lexington,
dates from 1892, and was planted by
the father of Jonathan Harrington,
who was small drummer boy in the
Revolutionary War. The boys father
was a farmer and sold his produce in
Salem. On returning home from mar
ket one day the horse was weary and
tagging in his gait; so to urge him
along Farmer Harrington plucked a
small Sapling elm from the roadside
to encourage a. swifter gait. When he
got home the sapling was so straight
and evidently alive that he put it in
the ground. The switch has become a
great tree.
The largest piece of cut glass in the
world, vase as tall as a man and as
brilliant in every part as the finest
small piece, has just been completed
and will be shipped in a few
days to the st. Louis Exposition, where
it will be placed in the industrial art
display. The vase is 5 feet TX inches
in hight and every inch of it is per-
fectly worked in sunbursts, chrysan-
themums, and beaded and notched eff
fects that shed prismatic rays of bril-
lance and luster. The sunbursts on
the start are too large to be desig-
mated by that usual cut glass term, so
they have been given a new name, the
Louisiana Purchase Star. In all there
are 100000 cuts or deep incisions on the
vase, which required turning it 900
times. The vase weighs 200 pounds.
1t was produced by nine men who
spent 1000 working hours on it. The
man who made the blank is 6 feet z
inches tall. A shorter man could not
have handled the great piece of glass.
Twenty blanks were turned out before
perfect one was produced.
The internal revenue statistics re-
lating to tobacco show that in one
industry there is prosperity OF a high
order. During the fiscal year closed
June 30 last the revenue from 6,707,-
471,863 cigars was $20,122, 1859, which
is falling off in revenue of $685.
1861, and a decline in cigar produc-
ton for the year of 7S,91S,670 cigars
In chewing and smoking tobacco there
was, however, a tremendous increase.
These. two forms of 'the filthy weed"
yielded a revenue of $19,719, O42. 81,
which was an increase of 1,077, 79O. %
in one year. The quantity produced
was 1928, $780, 10 pounds, which was an
increase of nearly 100000 pounds in
a twelvemonth. There is a notable in
crease in the production of little Cd
gars, and the cigarettes manufactured
numbered 1925, $50, 261, or an increase
of 1874, 7SS,529. There is a tradition still
extant to the effect that women were
largely given to the use of snuff a
good many years ago, and there is
a general belief that the practice has
died out. The internal revenue statis-
tics show that a huge mountain of
snuff was made last year-20, 157, $50
pounds-and that the increase over
the previous year in snuff manufacture
was 1,316.S33 pounds. The habit of
chewing tobacco is dying out in GER
tain localities, but the smokers are
becoming a larger band every year,
and they are using tobacco during
good times and bad times.
"A Maine man in New York reports
that in his state-and particularly in
Franklin county's wide stretches of
white-birch forests-are located the
mills that supply 80 per cent. of the
toothpicks used in this country. THE
fame of American manufacturers" &C
cording to the representative of
Maine toothpick factory, as quoted by
the visitor just mentioned, may APP
propriately be said to be in everybody's
mouth Poplar wood is sometimes
used; but the white-birch, on account
of it's pliability and forest odor, gives
a practical monopoly to Maine forests.
During the spring over a hundred men
are employed on machines each of
which can clip out almost a million a
day of the sharp wooden slivers that
help to keep down dentists bills. What
are termed the fancy or orangewood
toothpicks are not made in this coun-
try nor could we duplicate them at
four times the price. In the country
districts of Spain and Portugal these
pickers are sharpened like needles and
smoothed laboriously by young girls
who are paid the munificent sum OF
five cents a day. The japanese tooth
pick is probably the best and is in in
creasing demand. This toothpick is
fashioned from very fine reed; and
while delicate and thin as tissue pa
per- it is strong and more pliable
than our clumsy product. My expe-
rience teaches that the American hab-
II of chewing a toothpick on the street
and elsewhere is decadent. However,
without this gratuitous Advertising
the demand is constant"
Many valuable jewels are fished out
of the Red Sea. The pearl fisheries
in that body of water are very little
known, but according to United States