Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1908-02-07
GlEANINGS AND GOSSIP.

Things are getting really advanced
in China. The imperial princesses are
trying to decide whether or not it is
proper for them to ride a horse astride.
The occupant of top floor office in
No. 13 Park row, New York estimates
that in going to and from his Office he
travels 129 miles each year by elevator.
A German biologist has calculated
that the human brain contains 800, 000.-
600 nerve cells. 100000 of which die
and are succeeded by new ones every
day. At this rate we get an entirely
new brain every 60 days.
California has got lot to learn. AL
ready the report is out that the orange
crop this year is bigger and better
than ever before. And within month
the report will come from Delaware
that tine peach crop is failure.
Germany had hob suicides last
year, a rate of Il to 100000 inhabitants
The rate for Prussia alone is 20; that
for the province Of Saxony SO, and for
Schleswig- Holstein SO in Catholic
and Polish Posen it is only eight.
For Berlin the rate was a.
scientific contemporary of across
HE sea tells us that at present it is
estimated there are in the worlds
oceans 100000 cubic miles of salt, and
tine most astonishing thing about it IS
that if all the salt could be taken out
in moment the level of the ocean
would not drop one single inch.
Owen Wister now wants to join the
novelists in politics. He says that he
would like 10 he elected a democratic
councilman in Philadelphia. He also
says that he voted for Mckinley and
Roosevelt and expects to vote for Taft.
But perhaps Wister is trying to prove
that he is a humorist
In Constantinople the shoemakers
| are said to be all poets. While GUS
toner is having heel repaired or a
| shoe replaced the attendant recites
eAtempOrized or memOriZed verses to
lin. AS the language is Arabic or
| Turkish, the American listener rarely
knows whether he is hearing a good or
| bad verse.
Railway whistles inflict torture on SO
many people that the efforts abroad to
check the plague have won approval
| from the people. Austria has intro
start and stop the trains. Belgium is
trying compressed air whistles instead
of steam, and Germany experiments
with horns.
The library at the British museum,
which now contains between 5000, 600
and 100000 volumes, is without ex-
ception the largest in the world. the
| only one which approaches 1t in size
| being the Bibliotheque Rationale,
Paris. To hold this immense number
of books upward of 40 miles of shelves
are required.
| Henry Farran, the French aeronaut,
who recently won the DeutSch- Arch
deacon prize. says he foresees the time
wneI an aerorlane omnibus will cover
the distance between Paris and Lon
don in five hours. He says he feels
| certain that within L months aero
planes will be able to travel rs to 100
miles at an insignificant cost compared
with the expense of running an auto
mobile for the same distance.
a young girl in Chicago was deserted
| By her husband several months ago
and decided to get even with him. To
| do this she went into training and de-
veloped her muscles. When she
thought herself strong enough she had
the man arrested and then proceeded
to thrash him in court. She knocked
him out before the police officers could
interfere. and then the judge sent her
TO jail for 80 days. She thinks it was
| worth it,
| Twice within half a minute Terence
Bradigan. a brakeman on the Lehigh
Valley railroad at Wilkesbarre Tues-
Gay saved the life of a woman who
was picking coal on the tracks near
Pittston. She did not see a train an
preaching. and Bradigan, seeing she
did not understand his shouts of warn
ing. dashed forward and ierked her
from the track just in time to save
her. The woman, excited by her mar.
row escape. then stepped on the adj
Joining track and directly in front of
! g DAM going in the Opposite direction,
BT@hsan again saved Her life, .I,dHK ii