Year: 1859

EATING DIRT PRAcrIcALLY.-Humb a


man whose word justly carries with it European


ss tie 81 osf6 1nerca f safn


the periods of the foods, subsist entirety on


fat and ferruginous kind of clay, OF which each


man eats daily pound or more. Spix and


Martuis declare that the Indians of the ANA


zon eat kind of loan even when other food is
abundant. Molina says the Peruvians frequen-


tIy eat sweet-smelling clay and Ehrenberg


has analysed the edible clay sold in the mar
kets of Bolivia, which he fluids to be a mixture


of tale and mica. The inha hi ants of Guiana
mingle clay with their bread and the negroes
of Jamaica are said to eat earth when other
food is deficient According to Lambillardiere,
the inhabitants Of New Caledonia appease their


hunger with a white friable earth, said by
VauqueliE to be composed of magnecia, ailica


oxyde of iron, and chalk To conclude the list,


we must add Sam Siberia, aud Kamschatka,
as countries of clay eaters. This is rather
accumulation of assertions, which
we cannot dismiss altogether, even if we sup
pose large allowance of scepticism justifable.
Granting the fact that certain kinds of earth
are really nutritious, (and it is difficult to es-
cape such d concluson), completely at
a loss for an adequate explanation of it. Lit
tie light is thrown on it by the assumption,
probable enough, that the earth must contain
organic matter, because in a pound of snch
earth there could scarcely be contained sufficient
organic matter to supply the demands Of an a.
dult. Nor will it get rid of this difficulty to
say that the earth only appeases hunger without
nourishing the system. because, in the first
place, Humboldts testimony is, that the OF
tomacs subsist on the clay at periods when
other food is deficient and, in the second place,
although the local sensation of hunger may be
appeased by introducing substances into the
the more imperious systemic sensation
of hunger is not thus to be appeased. We
must, therefore, be content at present with
accepting the fact, which the science of future
days may possibly explain.


HARD Lo KrL.-Thomas S. Lowe, of Ken
tucky, who was recently killed by mob at
Hawesville, before commencing the fight, it
seems, put on a shirt or coat of mail. A spec
tator of the scene says that at least between
seventy-6ve and hundred guns and pistols
were fired at Lowe, and that there were thirty
two bullets and buckshot holes through all
portions of his coat. but that not solitary
ball or shot entered his body or even drew a
drop of blood. Heavily loaded guns were fired
at him at a distance of not more than six feet,
and he was repeatedly knocked down and
whirled around by the leaden missiles, yet no
wounds except commissions were inflicted. The
ball which struck his thigh made very serious
bruise but did not enter the skin. Said specta-
tor also saw a strong strike him four times
with bowie knife, but the point of the weapon
turned without penetrating.


SENSATION IN GorHAM-The moral and phys
lcal sensibilties of the community in the city of
New York, received severe shock on Tuesday
first from the breaking up of an extensive
Free Love Palace, in Canal ST., known as the
Widow Forresters (in the proprietorship OF
which, it is understood, prominent membe:
OF the Metropolitan police has large interest)
and second, from discovery of a scheme OF
a German butcher, doing business in Fifty-sixth
street, to kill old horses, and sell their flesh for
meat Jacob Hilderbraner is his name. On
being brought to the station house, the wife OF
the prisoner owned up that they had been in
the habit of making soup from the horse and
g found it very good"