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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Advocate, 1894-8-9, Page 3'THINGS WORTII KNOWING, non IN A FEW WORM. at Large Amount of Useful and Value- bie Information Gathered From the Pour Quarters of the Globe. 'Tea plants n.eed a moist heat for grow th. Frauee's war material is valued at 45,000,000. The English tongue is spoken by 115,- -000,000 people. A. tax on dogs was levied in Rome dur- ing the reign a Nero. Only 9 per cent. of sal -glee). operations .in amputation are fatal. The most densely populated spot on earth is the island of Malta. In Portugal the tobacco tax brings ,s900,000, the land tax 2700,000. Germany pays $10,000,000 a year taxes 'on salt and $13,000,000 on sugar. The soap duty in Holland brings $750,- ,000 a year to the government. Canaries if continually eayenn.e :pepper, will gradually tuna red, Mulberay trees have been known to 'bear fruit four times in one season, Scientists predict that in a century there will be no disease not curable. The most costly book in the British -Museum is the famous Maurits Bible. Organized charity was unknown in the 'Romaa empire till after the Christian era. The average tourist trip around the world comprises about 22,000 miles of travel. Tropical spiders dig holes in the ground -which they line with silk and fit with trapdoors. B A. mosquito has twenty-two teeth in the end of his bill, eleven above and .eleven below. Great Britain raises 219,000,000 from the liquor taxes, and £8,000,000 from the tax on. tobacco. The largest apes have only sixteen ounces of brain, while the lowest type of •-man has 39 ounces. The most ancient architectaral ruins known are the temples of Ipsambul, on -the Nile, in Nubia. One speeies of spider makes its home in the water, taking possession of empty sand shells for shelter. The people of Great Britain pay 120 pence per head every year in liquor tax, 40 pelage in coffee tax and 60 in tobacco taxes. The experiment of manufacturing to- bacco has been started in Louisiana, and proving successful. The Chinese, Japanese, Malays, Siam- ese, New Zealanders and North American Indians are beardless. Folding fans were invented in Japan, •and were suggested by the way in which a bat closes its wings. It is estimated that in Japan out of a, population of 37,000,000 people, there are less than 10,000 paupers. The cellar of the Bank of Franca re. -ambles a large warehouse. Silver coin is stored there in 800 large barrels. In the eight years ending in 1892 the fire losses in the United States due to -8,516 strokes of lightning amounted to 412,658,835. Newspaper duty was invented by Queen Anne. It was originally a penny on eaeh sheet, afterwards raised to 4 pence, and abolished in 1855. The difficulty in making aluminum castings has been so far overcome that pure aluminum bath tubs are now made in a single piece. The lowest temperature ever registered on the surface of the earth was ar be - slow zero at Viaerekojausk, eastern Siberia, in February, 1892. Great Britain has decreased the ratio of inaport duties, but during the last ten years the rest of the world has increased it nearly one-fourth. In 1702 a salt tax was levied in Great Britain, and during the French wars was raised to £30 per ton, over sixteen times the value of the artiele. There are 2,851 persons in Great Bri- tain who pay tax on an income of more than £5,000 a year, and 967 who •pay taxes on more than 210,009. The teal of the kangaroo ii the fleshiest -Tart of the animal. It is considered dainty food when boiled in its own skin, which afterward may be drawn off like a ,glove. Darius Hystaspes, in 480 B.C., intro- duced a system of assessment and tax- .ation of land, and made himself so ob- noxious by it that he was called Darius the Trader. Many poems of Gray were lost after his death. They fell into the hands of eareless persons who knew nothing of their value. Ladies used a few drops of milk and a -soft rag to remove traces of dirt from their faces in the middle ages. To wash du -water was regarded as injurioue If it were possible to rise above the .atmosphere the sun would appear as a sharply defined ball of fire, while every- thing else would be wrapped in total darkness. A. man may float in salt water, without moving his hands or feet, if he have the presence of mind to throw his head back .,and allow the body to sink to the position rwhieh it will then naturally take. It costs about $4,750 per shot to fire one of Krupp's 130 -ton steel guns. The Igun cost195,000,and it ca,n only be 'fired, at the most, sixty times. The gun •has a range of fifteen miles, and the pro- jectiles weigh 2,600 pounds. In England the tax on farming lands exceeds 10 per cent. of the value of the • crops; rn France it is 4.8 per cent; in Germany, 3; in A.ustralia, 4.9 ; in Italy, 7; in Belgium, 2.8; in India, 5.8; Egypt, 14. A. clothing dealer down on North steed is nothing if not energetic. He adver- tises widely and covers his walls and fills his windows with attractive signs. But once he became too energetie; for in the most eoaspicuous place of his largest window he displayed this sign: "Don't go anywhere else to be cheated ; step tight in A. Toronto' woman, after burying her seventh husband, erected a monuanent to the whole lot. It consisted of a mar- ble hand, with the index finger pointing to the sky, and on the baseinstead of names, ages, etc., Were the words "seven , .up. . ,ttIMIKAIIISATILla IlaaiDeaaer. The Late Samuel 'Wilberforce's Int vlew With the Ghost. The following remarkable iaeident the life of the late Samuel Wilberfor bishop of Oxford and afterward of W ehester, is related as absolutely authe tie, and the good bishop himself is sa to have many times rehearsed the sto to his friends. Bishop Wilberforee w most prominent among his contemper ies a the English clergy, and was once leader of the High Church party. H however, frequently found time to dere to the social side of life, and was som times styled the "bishop of society" shose who knew him. On a certain o melon the worthy bishop had swept an invitation to stay at a country hou not far from Ltaidon. Entering t drawing-rooxa previous to dinner on t evening of his arrival, he negated a prie —evidently of the Homan communion sitting by the fire and taking no part the general conversation. The bish was somewhat surprised at not bei presented to the priest, and his astonis ment was great when, a few =omen later, dinner being announeed, t guests retired, leaving the priest at h place by the fire. The hostess havin assigned Bishop Wilberforce the seat a honor at her right hand, as soon as a opportunity of referring to the subje offered he remarked: I beg your pardon, adadaane, b may I inquire who was the p3iesb we le sitting apart in the drawing -room? you have seen him, then," replie the lady. '!It is not every one who h that privilege. I cannot tell you who h is or from whence he comes. • For man years this spectee has haunted the hon and grounds—it has, in fact, been tradition in the family. Ile seems to d no harm, and, although he appears onl oecasionally, we have become accustom° bo our friendly ghost." "How singular, remarked his lordship. .."But have yo never addressed your priestly- spectre? "Indeed, I have had no opportunity, no the desire, for that matter," responde the hostess, growing pale. "May I tak the liberty now ?" inquired the dignitary "With all my heara your lordship," r plied. the lady. The bishop arose,and returning -to the drawing-roona, foun the priest where he had left him a fe minutes before. Having no fear, th bishop said kindly: "Who are you, m friend, and why are you here ?" The spectre seemed to sigh deeply an say, as though to itself, "At last!' Then, in a hollow voice, addressing th bishop, it continued : "I am the spiri of a priest who left this world som eighty years ago, and lam here to im part to any one who will receive it secret which died with me. I could no rest in my grave while a great wron was beingclone whieh it was in m power to right. I have been returnin aU these years in the hope that some on would address me, for it was not given t me to be the first to speak. All me have shunned me until now, and it i your mission to do my bidding. I was priest of the Church of Rome, and wa called to this house eighty years ago t receive the confession of a dying man He was the sole possessor of a secret, th knowledge of which would alter material ly the entail of this vast estate, and in his death the man wished to repair th terrible wroaig he had brought upon hi kin. At his request I wrote down th confession, word for word, and when h finished had. barely time to administe the final sacrament of the church, befor he expired in my arms. It was very ina portant that I should return to Loudon hat night, and in passing through the ibrary to leave the house I concluded it would be safer not to carry the paper on whith was written the confession away with me, but to place it in some secure, nseen spot, where I could obtain it the ollowing day and deliver the document o the person. to whoni it was intended. Mounting the steps to the book shelves, I ook oub a copy of Young's 'Night houghts,' which was the first book upon he uppermost shelf nearest the last win - ow, and inserting the paper carefully etween its leaves I replaced. the book nd departed. A horse was awaiting me t the door, but ere we reached the en - ranee of the grounds he took fright; I as thrown and instantly killed. Thus ied the secret of my confessor with me. o one has disturbed that book in all hese years, and no one has had the enrage to address this messenger from he unknown. The paper will be found s I have stated, and now remains for ou to correct the injustice which has so Ongbeen upon this noble family. My ission is over and 1 eau rest in poem." At the close of this speech the spectre aded gradually, and the bishop was left azing into space. Recovering from his stonishment, Bishop Wilberforce went t once to the library and found the ook exactly as indicated by the spectre. n its secluded corner, upon the top shelf, ick with the dust of ages, evidently he book had remained unmolested many ears. There was the document just as eseribed, but now faded and yellow. he secret of the confession never be - me known to the world. The good shopregarded it a; a confidence from e spiritual world, and always ended the ory with the assurance that the priestly ectre was never again seen. It is a et, however, that about the time of this traordinary oeearrenee3 the magnificent tate passed into poeseasion of a remote ember of the family, who, until then, d lived in obscurity. Peel Your Fruit.1 The skins of fruit should never be eaten, not because they are not palatable or digestible or are unhealthy in them- selves, but on account of the danger aris- ingifrom microbes which have penetrat- ed into the covering of the fruit. Every- body has noticed that at times a slight scratch will create a ,considerable sore on the human body. It is generally ascrib- ed to an unhealthy eondition of the blood, but a dose microscopical exam- ination will show that it is due la) the presence of microbes thus introduced into the system. So with an apple, a peach, a pear or a grape. The frait may be perfeetly sound and healthy, but on the skin or covering may be microbes, which, introduced into the human system, will breed disease. These germs are not un- common, neither are they alavays pres- ent. It is possible to eat this covering without injury, but the danger is such that it is best not to incur the risk. The Canadian Jaime= alutual Benefit A.ssoeiation, after twenty years' exist., once, found that owing to increased heavy assessments, consequent upon the ex- treme old age of its members, it could not continue doing business on the old system of assessment, and the inspector of insurance has ordered that the as- sodation go into liquidation at once. Never write your own reinarks in a borrowed book, HOREAIC RESIDENT. Interesting Ghat With a aillaeiona From Korea as to ate Teounies town Japan Lana China. There is staying an Toronto at prose Mr, M. C. Renwick, a gentleman who four years past, from 1889 until recent has beeu a missionary in the service the Korean Itinerant Mission, an int denominational evangelizing nem • Mr. Fenwielt was employed during stay in Korea in travelling through t eountry, and his headquartors was Won San, the Corean eity on the hu harbor, one part of which goes by t name of Port Lazareff, Russia's objeeti point in that region. He is therefo from the scene of the troubles in th region between japan and China, and well qualified to express an opinion up the situation there. In conversation wi a Globe reporter Kr. Renwick observ that the Globe artieles upon the subject the present crisis have beeu remarkab accurate, Three things must be borne mind with regard to the present sittatio Mr. Fenwick said; the first is that t gossip of the East is that for some yea past Japan has been "aching for a row with some European power or other order to show her importanee and powe She is "cheeky ",enough to think th she is equal to the occasion, and as 13ri ain rules the waves, Japan would like try her strength against her. Secondl Japan has for a long time been jealous China; and thirdly, she would be ver glad to obtain possession of Korea, -whie ,would be of great commercial benefit her, and is in fact of greater worth to h than to any other power, except, perhap Russia. Another point is, Mr. Fenwic said, that there can be no possible daub that the kingdom of Korea is at present a actual vassal of China. Tbe tribute wa paid last year and the year before Chinese ambassador, not of the high° rank, was re eeived by the Zing of Kore in true oriental style, the vassal mon arch striking his head three times on th ground so hard that the ambassado could hear it. The- rosition now is, o course, that Japan is making the raurde of Kim-ok-Kuim, the Korean patriot, o whom Mr. Renwick speaks in the mos favorable terms, her protext for interfe ing and settling the Government. Kore needs reforms as badly as any country ea need them, the administration being ab solutely rotten; but japan has no righ to interfere to effect these changes, an China is steadily resisting Japan's elainas Japan is pugnacious and insistent, Olin standing up for her rights over her vas sal state. Meanwhile Russia has notified th powers concerned that she cannot permi an invasion of Korean. territory. He position in the matter Mr. Renwick- out lined very clearly. Her interest in th matter is that she wants a Korean port a a terminus for her Trans-Siberian Rail way line. Viadivostock, the present ter minus, is, of course, ice -bound for 1 our months of the year. Pusan, one of th ports mentioned as desired by Russia, i 660 miles south of Viadivostock, and is magnificent harbor, but exactly midwa upon the Korean coast, 830 miles south o Viadivostock, is Won -San, where ther are two superb harbors, either of whie could hold the combined navies of th world. The northern of these is Por Lazareff, the southern Broughten Bay and both in depth of water, shelter and holding ground, are all that can. be de sired. It is Port Lazareff that Russia de- sires, as, in addition to its eommoaious ness, it is so hemmed in by high, rocky islands as to be capable of being rendered almost absolutely impregnable. With her eye on this, Russia has of course a deep interest in the affairs of Korea. Port Hamilton, the island some time ago seized and then given up by Britain, lies away to the south, and is described by Mr. Fenwick as absolutely useless. That action, he said, was the cleverest of all Lord Salisbury's moves; he seized it simply in order to make the very advan- tageous bargain which its possession en- abled him to make. As for the future, Mr. Renwiels said he was inclined to think that a corapact between.Russia and Japan is by no means improbable. Rus- sia allowed Japan to make good her foot- hold upon Korea on condition of being given what she wants, Port Lazareff and a strip of coast line attached. That is so far north that it would be no hardship to Japan to give it up, and so a bargain may be struck. That, at all e -vents, is a prob- ability, Mr. Fenwick said in conclusion. Laundering the Stomach.a "Laundering the stomach "is 'ie of the newest things in medicalpractice. If the wiseacres are to be believed, it means a revolution in the treatment of dyspep- sia. "Laundering the stomach" is a medical slang phrase, not to be too liter- ally taken by despeptics. It does not in- volve the washing. or ironing of the or- gans of digestion 111 the sense that the terms are used in most houses on Monday. The idea of washing the stomach, or to be more exact, the idea of rinsing it out with warm water, originated in Paris, like many other of the good things in life. In Paris it was used with most gratifying results in the treatment of celebrities who were chronic sufferers from dyspepsia. Recently, Dr. Edson and other New York practitioners got hold of it, and, after ten weeks' experi- mentation, they declare without hesita- tion that within a year's time the physi- cian who hoes not take in laundry -work will be far behind the times. The opera- tion consists of nothing more or less than thrusting a small rubber tube down your oesophagus into your stomach and pouring in through the tube a quart of warm water, which is afterwards siphoned out in much the same way as the farmer empties the contentaaof one eider barrel into another. ,,The average human stonlach holds a quart, although bibulous persons often do not recognize this limit. Therefore a quart of warm water constitutes a and four doses are given to thepatient at i each treatment. , Th. e water s allowed to remain, in the stomach for a brief space, during which a gentle rinsing movement eee on, nature lending the doctor a helping hand, as she invariably does when she agrees with him. The ap- paratus required for the treatment con- sults of a soft rubber tube six feet in length, a rubber funnel, a receiving basin, a pitcher, a gallon of water, and a sensible doctor. It is no small trick to put a rubber tube down a human oeso- phagus, nor, for that matter, is it a triek to be attempted by a novice, who, ili all likelihood, whoulti get the tube into the windpipeinstead of the cesophagus. The patient throws back his head so that his oesophagus is in as nearly an upright line as possible. The doctor thrusts the tube in slowly, and it slides down the mucus - lined canal as easily as if it were a spoon- ful of Christmas pudding and the subject a five-year-old boy, After the treatment is finished, the patient is a trifle weak, anal, in the words of one who ha e tried " Your stomach feels the way your foot does wh.en it is asleep." It won't belong before a man, meeting a friend on the street, will hear hizn say: " In a harry. I feel all out of sorts and Val going to have my stemaeh laundered." A Lincoln Ancedote. One° during tit° argument in a law- suit, in. whieb. Linaola. represented one party, the lawyer on the other side ayes a good deal of a glib -talker, but not reck- oned as deeply profound or mush of a thinker. He wouIal say anything to a jury which happelhed to enter his head.. Lincoln, in his address to the jury, refer- ring to this, said : " My friend on the other side is all right, or would be all right, were it not for th.e peculiarity I'ni about to chronicle, His habit—of Which you have witnessed a very painful specimen. in his argument to you in this case—of reckless assertions and statements without grounds, need not be imputed to hian 'as a moral fault, or as telling of a moral blemish. He can't help it. For reasons which, gentle- men of the jury, you and I have not the time to study here, as deplorable as they are surprising, the oratory of the gentle- man completely suspend% all action, of his naincl. The moment he begins to talk his mental operations cease. I never knew but on.e thing which compared with my friend in this particular. That was a small steamboat. Back in the days when I performed my part as a keel boat- man I made the acquaintance of a trifling little steamboat which used to bustle and atu'a and wheeze about the Sangamon River. • It had a five-foot boiler and sev- en -foot whistle, and every time it whis- tled it stopped." Ahead on the Game. On Calhoun street the otlaer evening a patrolman met a colored woman carrying a baseball bat on her shoulder and cur- iosity pro3npted him to stop and inquire: "Is there a game of baseball this even- ing?" " Heyn't heard of any, she replied. "Seeing the club I didn't know but you were ening to a game." "No, sah. I isn't going to no game but I'm on my way home from a gamea; " Oh ! Then there has been a game ?" " Dar' has. My ole man got hold of $2 to -day, an' dis eavenina he slid out fur a saloon whar' dey shoots °raps. Dat was h3s game, And you—you had a game ?" "Yes, sah. Went clown to de saloon ,an' fetched him two cracks ou de head an' took de money outer his pocket. Heah it am." "1 see, Pretty good game that was.' " And dat wasn't all, sah. 'While was about it I dun reckoned I might as well go in heavy, an' so I cracked two odder men, smashed a lamp an' broke out a winder." " And your side seems to be ahead ?" "'Way ahead, sah, an is gwine to score ten to nuthin' on dis play. Doan' 'zaetly like to be earryin' a club around an' smashin' folks and furniehure, an' winders but dey mustnat wake up no cyclonaf dey doan' want to gib hurted." " And do you think your husband is fatally injured ?" " Lasvd, no 1 I just gin him two $1 cracks on de head, an he'll be home be- fo' midnight feelina so good-natured an.' humble dat he'll saw 'nuff wood to last a hull week. 'Deevenina to you, sah, an' if anybody axes yo' if yo' met a colored lady on dis street earryin' a hurricane under one arra an' a thunderbolt under de odder you'll know dat dey mean yours truly." Judgments. Life is too short to get square. The king can do wrong without every- body knowingit. Pessimi ism s an evidence of a sour stomach or of inherited taint, All things come to the way of him who does not expect too much. He who has schooled himself to silence has set his world wondering. It can never be that everybody else is wrong and you alone are right. It is pitiable to see a poor man. " gauged " wrong for a s3nall income. A pipe smells of domestieity ; a cigar clubs; a cigarette of viers. A house that is divided against itself cannot stand interference. A man who reallyloves horses and dogs loves women and children next. Daily Duties. Life, for the :most p'art, is made up of what we call ordinary duties. Our bless- ed Lord might have performed great miracles every hour; he might have il- lumined night with the light of noonday; or have drawn the curtain of darkness over the face of the sun at noonday. He might hourly have shaken the world with great earthquakes, but He did not use His divine power in any one of these ways. Much of His work was of the humblest kind. He often addresses audi- ences of one person, and to such listeners He -uttered some of His deepest and heavenliest truths. He did the work of O punday sehool teacher toward the two disciples on their way to Emmaus; and He went after the man east out of the synagogue with the sympathy of such a teacher after an absent pupil. On the morning of His glorious resurrection He took pains carefully to lay the napkin that had been about His brow in a place by itself. He would not leave the grave in a state of confusion. His example is most valuable to us at all these points. In daily duty there may. be the den of lions and the furnace heated seven times hotter than it is wont to be heated. There is oftener greater heroism in performing the duties of our humdrum life than in the so-called great occasions of heroie en- deavor. An l3lActraordinary Story. Some extraordinary bat well-authenti- eated stories of the Bank of France are related. One day a sheep ate a 100 -franc note belonging to a butener. The butcher ran into the house of a friend, seized a gun and shot the sheep. He had no soon- er done this than the owner of the gun rushed up. "That was an ex,pensive shot of yours for me," he said. . ado you mean ?" asked the butcher. said the oth.er, "I had seventy francs 111 bills hidden in the barrel of that gun !" The sheep's carcass was pretty thorough- ly searched, and enoagh of the pieces of the notes recovered so that the bank re- deemed them all. Brobson--"Your new suit ie very strik- ing," Craik—"Yes; but it can't hold a candle in that respect to the tailor who made To swing the foot, or tap monotonously with the Idea or to drum with the fingers on a table or window are all breaches of decorum. It is not an essential principle of dones. ertiey to be rude and dirty. What a Billion Means. It would be carieus to know how many ot our readers have bronght fully /some to their inner conseioueness the real significance of that little word ''billion," which we have so often seexx wed in our eoluro.ns. There are incleedfew intellects that ean fairly grasp it and digest it as a whole, and there are doubtless many thousands who cannot appreciate its true worth, even when redueed to fragments for more easy assimilation. Its arith- metical symbol ars simple and without much. pretention. There are no large figures—just a modest 1 followed by a dozen ciphers, and that is all it contains. Let us briefly take a gimlet) at it as a measure of liras, distance and weight. As a measure of time I would take one second as the unit and carry myself in thonght through the lapse of ages back to the first day of the year 1 of our era, remembering that in all those years we have 865 days, and in every gay just 86,400 seconds of tim.e. Hence, ixi return- ing in thought heels again to this year of grace, one might have supposed that 1,- 000,000,000,000 of seconds had long since elapsed, but this is not so. We have not even passed one -sixteenth of that num- Ixer in all these long eventful years, for it takes just 31,687 years, seventeen days, twenty-four hours, forty-five rain.utes and five seconds to constitute 1,000,000,- 000,000 seconds of tim.e. It is no easy matter to bring under the cognizance of the human, eye a billion objects of any kind. Let us try in im- agination te arrange this number for in- speetion, and for this purpose I would select a sovereign as a familiar object. Lotus put one on the ground and pile upon it as many as will reach twenty feet in height. Then let us place numbers of similar columns in alose contact, forming a straight line and making a sort of wall twenty feet high, showing only the thin edges of the coin. Imagine two such walls running parallel to eaeh, other and forming, as it were, a long street. We must then keep on extending these walls for miles, nay, hundreds of miles, and still we shall be far short of the required number. And it is not until we have ex- tended our imaginary street to a distance of 2,886i miles that we shall have pre- sented for inspection. our 1,000,0000,000,- 000 of coins. Or, in lieu of this arrange- ment, place them flat upon the ground, ferming one continuous line like a long golden chain with every link in close contact. But to do this we must pass over land and sea, mountain and valley, desert and plain, crossing the equator and returning around the southern hem- isphere, through the trackless ocean, re- trace our *ay again across the equator, then still on. and on until we again arrive at our starting point, and we have thus passed a golden chain around tb.e huge bulk of the earth we shall be .but at the beginning of our task. We ranst drag this imaginary chain no less than 768 times around the globe, If we can further imagine all those rows of links laid closely side by side and every one in contact with its neighbor, we shall have formed a golden band around the glebe just fifty-two feet six inches wide and this will represent our 1,000,000,000,000 of coins. Such a ehain if laid in a straight line, would reach a fraction. over 18,828,445 miles, the weight of whieh, if estimated at one-fourth ounce each sovereign, would be 6,975,447 tons and would require for their trans- port no less than 2,825 ships, each with a nil cargo of 3,000 tons. Even then. there -would be a residue of 447 tons, represent - ng 64,081,920 sovereigns. Fora measure f height, let us take a 3nuch smaller u init as our measuring -rod. The slaeets f paper on which The Times is printed, f laid out flat and firmly pressed as in a well -bound book, would represent a mea- nie of about one three -hundred -and - thirty -third of an inch in thickness. Let us see how high a dense pile formed by a Mien of these thin. paper leaves would. each . We mustin imagination. pie them ertieally upwards, by degrees reaching o the height of our tallest spires, and easing these the pile must still grow igher, topping the Alps and Andes and he highest peaks of the Hanialayas, and hooting up from thence through the eeey clouds, pass beyond the confines of tar attenuated atmosphere and leap into he blue ether with which this universe is lied, standing proulclly up beyond the each of all terrestrial things—still pile n your thousands and millions of thin eaves, for we are only beginning to rear he mighty mass. Add millions on illions of sheets and thousands of miles n these, and still the number will lack ts due amount. Lotus pause to look at the neat plowed dges of the book before us. See how losely lie those thin flakes of paper; how any there are in the mere width of a an, and then turn our eyes in imagine - on upwards to our mighty column of ac- uraulated sheets. It now contains its ppointed number, and our 1,000,000,000,- 00 of sheets of The Times super -imposed pon each other and pressed into corn - act mass has reached an altitude of 47,- 48 miles Those who have taken the ouble to follow me thus far will, I ink, agree with me that 1,000,000,000,- 0 is a fearful thing, and that few can preeiate its real value. As for quad - Mons and trillions, they are simply ords, mere words, wholly incapable of equately impressing themselves on ha - an intellect. o fl fl 1 na 1. 01 sl ti 3 tr th 00 ap ri ad 01 The Polite Conductor. She was a stranger, but that was not against her, if she had not assumed such haughty airs and proceeded to dictate terms to everybody in sight. She got on a Jefferson avenue tar shortly after it had passed Woodward and at once called imperiously for the conductor to approach her august presence. "1 want to go to Woodward avenue,'' she said commandingly. " Then, d"he responded court- eously, "you should. .have got on the car on the other side of the street which we have just passed." " Sir ?" she exclaimed. He repeated his remark. "Well," she retorted, "I'd like to know what difference it makes what side of the street I get- on the car at. I never heard of a street ear line making any such discrimination as that. Do you mean to tell me I've got to go back there to the other side of that street and take the ear there ?" " Not necessarily, madam," he said, bowing, ''yon can go ott with us and conae back.'' The ear by this tirae had got a bloels or 50 farther along on itsjourney, You see, madam," he added, "if you had got on the car anywhere most on the other side of the street you would have been there in no time for that street is Woodward avenue. Will you go cm with tis or shall X stop the ear and parmit yon to retarn ?"It is a breach of good manners, and a. It is such conductors as this that pre- 'violation of eoranion sense, to laugh at sena the deateeritey of the republie, your owzi wi Taste Amex:loans in the Country. Great cities among us are typical el tI3,e republie as a -whole, but the citazens of our great eities have their nationality brushed off at their elbows Ia that country there are still purely Ameriean communities, whose fathers and. gramd., fathers were American before -them. Moreover, weites Octave Thanet in the May Seribner, in the country the foreign- er becomes more quiekly ,A.raericanized. In New York he hardly pays us the eon:a plimeut of learning our language, And is it not strange that the few for- eigners who have either the wit or the good fortune to penetrate into what they call the "provinees," are our kindest judges; for they have seen the American at his best. They have toughed both the pieturescaue and the gentle side of our na- tional character, It is not in the great eities but in the little cities and the yds lages that one sees the class that Emerson loved, the plebe, livers and high thinkers, or another class'not so plain in its liv- ing, not so highin thinking in one way; but praetieal followers of righteousness and exceeding pleasant people to meet, Many of them have what counted for wealth in a simpler generatien ; all of them have education and a generous habit of mina. They love their country) but they are a little shy of politics; nevertheless they furnish. the pith of the republic. They are the silent W'arwicass that make and unmake party kings ask- ing and expecting no reward, and only half conscious of their own power, Most of the women, treasure up, somewhere, an old sword or a pair of tarnished shoulder straps, belonging, it may be to a gray, it may be to a blue uniform, but worn by equally honest and gallant fellows. The men are in touch with the present, but a they keep the sturdy virtues taught them by their fathers, and, God be thanked, they will teansmit them to their sons. !Facts About ttallroad F. W. Coleman,of New York, a rail i - road contractor, imparted the following information about the building of rail- roads:, "The rails now being laid on the roads weigh about one hun,clred pounds to the yard, or 120 tons to the mile, mak- ing the cost about $7,500. This weight has been reached gradually frora twenty- five pounds, crawling up five pounds to a yard at a, time. The splice joints have been extended from common eight -inch, east iron chairs to a forty-eight inch splice bar. The stone bailast of tracks, such as used by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, costs about $7,000 per mile, laid about fourteen inches deep. The Pennsyl-vania, Railroad puts the ballast in two feet, which makes the cost about $8,000 to the mile. "Three thousand ties are used. 'bo a mile of road, costing ninety cents apiece. Five years ago the price for the ordinary oak ties now in use was thirty cents, but ow- ing to the scarcity of timber the price has gone up, as it has in all other countries. The average life of oak ties is five years, so to prolong it an iron plate is being used under the tie. This makes the entire eost of a mile of railroad about $18,000, ex- clusive of labor. In addition to this there is the maintenance of a roadbed, which has become such an important item that many of the roads are now us- ing ±11 an experimental way steel ties. They are used universally through Eur- ope, and are undoubtedly destined to take the place of wood in this country, especially as the permanency of a road- bed on account of the increasing weight of the locomotives and ears is becoming each year a more serious problem. "The original claim that steel ties would not have enough elasticity has been disproved by practice, there being enough natural elasticity in the earth, providing the ballast is not put in too deep. A very heavy road -bed loses this elasticity, and is as solid as steel." riZ PeaohlFever4; " Peach fever "is an occupational dis- ease not infrequently seen among the employes in the fruit packing and can- ning establishments of Maryland and Delaware and may be divided into two varieties: First, the psychotic variety, marked by mental exaltation., ideas of grandeur, seen in persons having a lively imaginative faculty; second, the true peach fever, caused by contact with the fruit in the course of its being picked and peeked for market. This variety is de- fined as a "3norbid condition of the re- spiratory and cutaneous surfaces with some consequent systemic disturbances, due to irritation from the pubescence of the common. peach—the Araygdalus per- sica." The Sehneiderian membrane first becomes irritated and tumefied, and yields a large flow of serum and mucus. The frontal sinuses, the conjunctivas, and th.e larger bronchi may take on, by extension, the same kind of disturbance; cough and asthma may be excited in sus- ceptible subjects. On the skin, the chief display of this amygdaline inflammation will be found about the wrists forearms, neck and forehead. It comearinly begins and ends in a macular or papular erup- tion, but it may go onto a true dermatitis and to pustulation. The febrile rise may be as high as two degrees, which may be taken to indicate the amount of systemic discomfort. Thin-skinned and neurotic young women suffer more and longer than the pachydermatous men and the older women. The more experienced workers seem to become proof against the irritant after some years. Th.e Power Behind the Throne. The young enthusiast in politics went to offer his services for the campaign to an old wheel horse, who had. seen service and done it, too, before the youth was born. "What can you do?" asked the vet- eran. "1 can raise my voice in defence of our principles all over the state," was the proud reply. " Um — er —yes — er — anything else?" "1 can raise party clubs everywhere." " Um—um—yes—anything else ?" "1 can raise the spirit of patriotisra. in every village." " Um—yes—anything else ?" 44 I can raise the standard of re -volt against corruption." " Um—yes—anything else ?" The young man's enthusiasm was jars red. " Great Caesar," he exclaimed, "isn't that etiough ?" 4 Hardly." "What, more could you want ?" " Oan you raise $10,0001" asked the veteran, in a profoundly yearning tone, and the enthusiast vanished with his en- thusiasm. Ibis extremely rade, and a most danger - ow experiment, to recoramend remedies to ts person who is tinder the care of a physielan.