Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1910-03-10
ODD ITEMS OF INTEREST.

IL was year ago that the London post
office directory contained for the first
time among the list of trades "aeroplane
manufacturers" There was only one
then. but now six are enumerated under
that heading. Subsidiary trades are
springing up. Two firms announce them
selves as aeroplane engine manufacturers.
two are aeroplane fabric makers and
there is one propeller maker. as well as
a provider of 'aeroplane timber and
bends.''
Whitefield. one of the founders of Meth
odism who died in 100, was a strenuous
preacher. His usual program was forty
hours solid speaking each week, and this
to congregations measured in thousands,
but he often spoke sixty hours a week.
This was not all. For after his labors,
instead of taking rest, he was engaged in
offering up prayers and intercessions or
singing hymns, as his manner was, in
every house to which he was invited
Is woman ever justified in poisoning
her husband? The question is suggested
by recent incident in Sevia. Sara Chu
mitch seems to have had an undesirable
husband, for he was notorious and i'm
placable usurer At the moment when he
was about to ruin several families who
were in debt his wife interviewed and
poisoned him. Next day she received
letter of gratitude signed by hundreds of
citizens. She was acquitted by the jury
and left the court amid cheering crowds.
Erncsto Nathan, mayor of Rome, who
declined on several occasions to accept
decoration from King Victor Emmanuel.
was finally forced by clever ruse on the
part of the king to take the grand cross
of the crown of Italy. Nathan was maxi
ing a call at the Quirinal, and when about
to depart was asked to take from the
queen little parcel to his wife. The box
contained the decoration, which the mod
est mayor was compelled to accept, and
by virtue of which he became a member
Of the small fraternity OF which his SOW
ereign is the head.
Employers of the krupp works can cas-
lily be distinguished, even when attired
in their Sunday best. Every workman,
on his enrolment, is presented with
curiously fashioned scarf pin, composed
of miniature artillery shell made of
platinum and set in silver. After twenty
years service he receives a second pin,
modelled on the same lines and mounted
in gold. The higher grades of employees,
including the engineers and those en-
ployed in the counting house, wear their
shells in the form of sleeve links. The
workmen are very proud Of this distinc-
ton, which they call the Order of the
Shell and wear on every occasion.
Gladstone's power of memory was al
ways one of his greatest assets. In his
last years he often lamented that it was
not what it had been; but even SO, it
came triumphantly out of some remarka-
BILE tests. In his eighty-third year he set
himself to recall Manzonis ode on the
death of Napoleon, which. as a young
man. he had translated into English He
had entirely forgotten his own version,
but by dint of hard digging" or fish
ing up as he called it. he wrote down
104 of the 1OS Italian lines. Two years Ia
ter he essayed to write from memory
complete list of all the men who had been
his cabinet colleagues, and enumerated
iyt1- o;rbt af bo