The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-09-17
THINGS TO KNOW


 The present era is called the wire age. The word measles" formerly meant | leprosy.
 In Kansas farm lands are made fertile by windmill irrigation. In the south, S2 of the total number of wage earners are under sixteen years of age.
 1 An eminent French physician points out the danger of typhoid infection from 1 butter.
 In Russia one-half of the whole sum of direct taxes is borne by the agricul- | turists.
 Paris has the largest library in the world; New York the largest in the United States.
 1 The familiar nursery rhyme Mary Had Little Lamb" was written by Mrs. sa- rah J. Hale.
 The smoking of dried coltsfoot leaves antedated the introduction of tobacco in | England
 Ale was known as early as 404 B. C. 1 Herodotus describes the method of brew l ing barley wine
 Mount Mckinley, in Alaska, has never been climbed, although countless at | tempts have been made. The Russo-Japanese war has so raised | the price of camphor that substitute IS | being sought for.
 Nearly two hundred millions of dollars of property is destroyed by fire annually | in the United States.
 Buenos Ayres has the most complete and costly newspaper building in the world, costing s3,000O00. | The introduction of iron and steel has greatly modified the use of the mariner 8 compass on modern ships.
 Armand Gautier, a French physician, contends that a strict vegetarian diet IS impossible for white races.
 From 1884 to 1900 there occurred 2olt lynchings in the United States 2OSO In the south, 436 in the north.
 The admiral of the navy receives an annual salary of s1S.5oO. An ordinary sea man gets $19 a month
 A new serum, entirely different from tuberculin, is claimed to have been dis covered at the Pasteur institute.
 Hundreds of millions of dollars are an- nually spent in advertising Patent med icine companies spend $1,O0OOO0 a year,
 France has unique institution called 'The Drop of Milk" for the maintenance of infants for the first six months.
 Connecticut, not necessity, seems to be the mother of inventions, as most of the useful inventions are made there.
 With the exception of food, the fbrous plants of field and forest furnish all the necessities of life for the Filipino.
 There are 100000 pensioners on the rOllS or the On1teu SldleS government, iii- Volving an outlay of $140,000000 annually
 Only about one person in one hundred lives to the age of sixty-five, one-half dying before reaching the age of sixteen
 Violets were worn by the partisans of the French empire in compliment to Ma poleon, sometimes called Father Violet. ''
 The Japanese government furnishes a large number of her soldiers with eye glasses, as the men have defective vision.
 The moisture of the atmosphere in Pan anna ruined $50000.000 worth of the ma chinery used by the original company.
 News from the Russo-Japanese war came more quickly and accurately than 1t did during the Spanish-American con fict.
 Hats were first made by a Swiss. They were introduced in Paris in 14O4, and in England in 1510. silk hats were intro- duced in 1920.
 The eucalyptus, or Tasmanan ever green tree, forest may be formed in twenty years of valuable timber. attain ing great height.
 The Argentine Republics foreign com merce for 1904 reached the enormous fig ure of $A51 463, 900 in gold or nearly $90 per head. No other country in the world has so large per capita foreign trade. | At Marrakesh, in Morocco, is a great slave market. The proceedings are opened with a fervid prayer to Allah for a prosperous sale, and then the auction ger marches the slaves, tricked out in gorgeous array. round and round the slave yard, while the prospective pur- chasers feel their muscles and observe their condition and bid accordingly
 The United States army now comprises 15 regiments of cavalry, 750 officers and 12,62O enlisted men; 90 batteries of field artillery and 126 companies of coast ar tillery, 651 officers and 17742 enlisted men; 30 regiments of infantry, 150O off cers and 25. .s45 enlisted men; 3 battalions of engineers 12S3 enlisted men, command ed by officer detailed from the corps of engineers; staff corps, Indian scouts, etc, 2s77 enlisted men; 1 Porto Rican regiment, S1 officers and 554 enlisted men, 30 com panies of Filipino scouts 100 officers and 5000 men, The full strength of the entire | esta blishment is about 3S31 officers and 59 S66 enlisted men.
 (Copyright 1905. by J. E. Brigham)