Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-04-06
AS YOU LIKE IT.
Some Stray Leaves from Reporter's
 Note Book.

| S~~~~s~' E ' l If the real estate boom which lstruck Waterbury recently contin- |ues, every other fellow one runs into,
 will be in that line of business About
 steen new agents have started the
 past year.
 l It would be a joke If a couple
 of those highly odoriferous pills
 which when they break emit such a sweet scented smell would crack in the pockets of the persons who take
 so much delight in throwing them
 where other people get the effect. l Evidently events in this city the
 past two weeks have made many of
 the citizens wonder If there is not
 much truth in those old sayings, "A
 sucker is born every minute" and "A
 fool and his money are easily parted.
 Waterbury has been proving bo- lnanza for the film Hammers who must be enjoying a good laugh to think that there are such marks in this town.
 I In the equipment of the Dempsey
 Lumber company's new sawmill at
 Tacoma. Wash, is the largest single leather belt in the world. It is S4
 inches in width, three-ply in thick
 neses and weighs just 2,300 pounds.
 The belt Is IA feet long. It took
 the centers of the hides of 225 steers
 to make it, and each piece of this
 leather was separately stretched be-
 fore being placed in the belt. In putting the belt together no pegs,
 rivets or fasteneings of any kind were
 used except cement of the best quail Iity. and the plies were cemented to- gether under hydraulic pressure of | 250 tons.
 In many of the Greek islands div ing for sponges forms considerable part of the occupation of the inhabi- tants. The natives make it trade
 to gather these. and their income from this source is far from contemp- tible. In one of the islands a girl is not permitted to marry until she has brought up certain number of sponges and given proof of her skill by taking them from certain depth. But in some of the islands this custom lis reversed. The father of marriage able daughters bestows her on the best diver among her suitors. He who can stay longest in the water and bring up the biggest cargo of sponges marries the maid.
 At the present time the College of cardinals has fifty-six members. of whom thirty7five. almost two-thirds, are Italians. And yet Italy consti- tutes only one-sixth of the whole Catholic world. The complete col- lege consists of seventy cardinals, and proportionately Italy should have only eleven. There are in the United States. as per Catholic reports. about 14,000,000 Catholics, with 6,5OO,OOO in the Philippines and 1000, ,000 in Porto Rico, Hawaii and Guam, to- tai of 21.500,000. There are also 1,S00,000 in Cuba. On the estimate of population there should be eight cardinals for the United States and
 
 one-Cardinal Gibbons, of Baltimore. Australia, with only 1,50O,00O Catho- lie population, has one.
 The As You Like u Man heard couple of barristers discussing yes terday the advisability of urging the prominent men of the town to appear before the board of aldermen to in- duce that body to take some steps to- wards the erection of hall of rec ords in this city. Both admitted that there had been much said in the past but very few good suggestions had ever been made to the aldermen. Tt is all right to say that something must be done, but the thing to do is to show what ought to be done. The town clerks office has long since become inadequate for the business carried on there and although there Is scarcely room to turn around, of- ten there are as many as fifteen per- sons in the good sized closet" said one of the attorneys. Moreover, there are half a million dollars worth of maps in the city engineers office which could never be duplicated, yet they are in danger of being de- stroyed at any moment. The sit uation in my opinion demands atten- tion and I wonder that things are al- lowed to go on under the present 
 Although the majority of the peo- pie continue to wear heavy garments | during the winter. the light cloth- l Ing" class is growing yearly and dur l ing the past six months more thin l raiment was worn than ever before | in cold weather. Although the great er part of the people wno claim that | too much clothing is worn when the i Ice and snow are on the ground, don | their fiannels at least during the l coldest weather. there are many who l continue to carry their light under garments during the breezy blasts of i winter. A we'll known doctor of | this city. speaking on the subject. stated that while he believed in not being too heavily laden with clothes. nevertheless asserted that 1t was the height of folly to face the winds of winter without heavy set of under wear. He said that it was almost certain to bring on a cold or some- hing more serious and attributed many of the colds of the past few months to that cause. The same physician did not believe there was much harm in wearing low shoes pro- Tided woolen stockings went with