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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1910-11-3, Page 7yr L 11 -'1T -1N ITALY Gambling Under the Auspices of the Government. `THE DRAWING iN PUBLIC; .An Eager, Excited, Turbulent Crowd '-Wetehee This Ceremony. With in, tense Interest—The Prizes and the Chances of the Players, /King Humbert 1, made the rules fon ithe publie'lytlery of Italy: First. The public lottery is temperas illy mnintniued by the favor of the Mate under the fopowing laws. I Second.--lt le administered by the mluister'of finance, under 'whom the chiefs are flioscn. for their respective) funetipus. • • Third.—Tho lotto Is formed by nine, • ty, unmbered from, 1 to 90, inclusive" flee of which drawn by chance deter+ mine the encceaaful, Fourth. -One can "play the lotto" in the following mauuer , On oue number (very rarely played). On all five numbers (very rarely; played). IOn two numbers—the "ambo." On throe numbers, whlcb is known As the "teruo." On four numbers, which heknewn as the "quaterno." • Fifth—When one' number is played the winner is paid ten times and a " ball Ws output; when two numtere are played the winner is .paid 350 tunes hie output; when three qqumberd. are Played tie winuer is paid 5,25d timer his output; wiieu four numbers' are played the winner is paid 00,000' times his output Therefore If one bas ' by any chance bought a No. 1 ticket and wins the four numbers (quaterno); he tutus 5,10,000. At 5 o'clock on every Saturday after.' • noon throughout all Italy the drawing of the lotto tines place. In Naples the ceremony is held at the end of a foul, filthy ulley knoe'n'as tbe Impre sa, back in a great courtyard, in full; view of the people on the balcony of an old palace. From early in the aft, ernoon until the fatal hour the streets of Santa Chiara and the alley fill up with the crowd whose hope on this` day, is to be deceived. The streets are. always so fall of life that for this. extra crowd, jostling. pushing and; eager, there would seem to be no place., It is comprised of the very poor. The' better classes watch for the telephone' or the showing of the numbers in tbe, various banks in the city to discover, their fate,' but in the Impresa, the. .crowdof people is as dense as a shad. ow. 'There are many bare who have, paid their last cent for a ticket. There; are many here who are in debt for the' shoes they wear and will -never be able. to pay for them. But at the stroke of the church clock the blinds of the bal-i cony open and the paraphernalia oft the lotto are : brought out—a long, green table, on which Is placed a crys- tal ball bound with silver, and an Iron: boxcontaining ninety other little box es, In which the ninety numbers 'are locked by the state. The officers of this performnuce are coolly indifferent, and the only figure deserving of note is thatof the little orphan child, dress- ed in snowy white, Mumma bylaw from. the orphan asylum to draw .up from, the crystal ball the five magic num- bers. At the sight of these familiar, looked; for objects the crowd begins to cry: and `chant, to beseech and evoke. It' begs the little orphan child to draw' well." Aud the child ib his white robe,; ▪ pts innocent eyes on the muss of pee-! • Ole, looks down un the beggars with their yellow leafs and on the appeal - leg mass. One by oue the balls are taken out from their sealed boxes, Ms - Played to the people and dropped into the big bowl. They have: blindfolded the Tittle bam- bino, and he stench en a chair, for he is o nly eight years of age and is small, In f ull sight of the people. The balls bav- Ing been shaken around for the last time, the child puts bis baud' in and draws. The first number that he pulls outis.ealled firth No, li." Now, every Bailee who hes bongbt No. 5 for place !has either wou or lout, No oue holds this number to this .crowd, however, L,' and Ihere'I5 n murmur -and a fresh edjnrution for the ehild to draw well. Tho people who hare dream for the term) and the quaterno still have their chance. 'rhe child draws again, this time No, 47, and the holders of the ` ,erne are now the interested ones, for. the next will be their last chance. The mrtthtlslasm breaks forth again with murmurs and cries and prayers, and the quiet child before the urn in his, white dress bears them and trembles, for le knows thnt he Is menaced. Be- fore the people there le n blackboard, and n nth0 1,001s Up tie =tabors As they ire drntrn--5, 47. 11. 10 and S0. Anil this series of five is'discussed, yelled i11. elalienged, cursed, for not Otte 10 the ercwd bus drawn a fortu- nate tinmher. The child's eyes are un- bound, nail ` he is put down and set- free. The bane are returned luno their hoses sealed pp aud carried away un- der the eyes of the crowd, which after welting for n moment,' unable to be- lieve its 111 fortune, breaks up and runts. Apathy is.hrown upon the glut- jority as much as such a state of mind Is possible to ]'Neapolitan mails as they begin In grout% to disease the failure of, their schemes aud their com- bleations,--itlarle Van Vorst ih liar. porn Magazine. I Toy is mope divine than sorrow, for joy la bread end sorrow Is Medicine.-- Beecher, THE FAT GODDESS, , A Pieter'. That Jarred the Ne,VOS of e Frenob Art Petrel's, llf, Durand, a :F'renoh,pietitre buyer Of a eentery ago, bad little wiedom as a erltle, and hie ambitlea, c0an. pounded equally of childlike vanity and genuine benevolence, was to figure as a patron of youthful geniue, ' One ofthe earnest e01,1, tisslons be bestowed was upon a young artist who &elected for his subject 0 scone of classic mythology, in which the as, aembled gods were depicted upon Mount Olympus. When It was finish- ed M. Durand was invited to thestudlo to Inspect it. Ills face clouded as Le gazed. 'Young man,' be declared, "you have not treated me fairly. It is true I do pot pretend to know everything about art, but I am not a fool, and l knew that gods tied goddesses should be no less noble• an kings and queens, These peop01 yours. are pot even aristocrats! Madame, my wife,'. does not pretendto be a tine lady, yet when I put my two bands around her waist it is by an inch only that they fall to meet, and as for'Jullettte, my daugh- ter, she Is as slender as a needle. Look now at that big, clumsy woman in 'a loose gown who you say ,I& queen among the gods! She has no figure at all. She is all the way down the same. Pouf! Call her a lady and a goddess- she who is without stays and without waist! Mme. and Mlle. Durand wouls macre a mock of her, your Juno! Pouf! She is a peasant, a pillow, a plgl" Nevertheless he was convinced by infinitely tactful explanations that the wasp waist was unknown in Classic antiquity. even to goddesses. It was with proud complacence that he finally accepted the picture and the knowl- edge .that the sovereign lady of Mount Olympus had never attained the heroic compression achieved by Mme. and Mille. Duraud. • A GEOLOGIC PHENOMENON. Raised Beaches and Caves of the Island of Arran. The island of Arran Is one of those Places on the west of Scotland where the geologic phenomenon known as 'a "raised beach" is very apparent. All along the const there are evidences that the land has been -considerably. elevated at some period of the world's history. One of these proofs is tbe presence of eaves of various sizes formed by the action of the waves in tbo past, but watch are now well above the present high water mark. Tbe farmers use sotne of the larger caves as shelters for sheep in stormy weather, In a remote corner of the•island one of these caves has been.couverted into a human habitation, where a family of several persons dwell in absolute se- clusion. Their occupation is the gath- ering of whelks, an employment which is said to afford but a precarious live- lihood. As the gathering of the shell- fish can only be done at low water and as the fisher& have no boat or otber occupation, they bave ample leisure to enjoy the pure air and bask in the sun- shine. Except for the drip from tbe face of the blgit rocks above, which is skill-' fully diverted. the cave Is absolutely dry. The Interior is shaped like a tri- angle, the door forming the base, Save at the sides there is ample room to, stand upright and move about inside. Besides the beds and cooking ,utensils, the cove contains many articles of va- rious kinds, giving the interior quite a homelike appearance. The apology for e fireplace is some way back from the entrance, through which the smoke finds Its way outside.— Wide World Magazine. Obituary Gems. When John Sherman of New Haven, preacher, matheme deign, almanac maker and father of twenty-six' chil- dren, heard of the death of his good friend Jonathan biltebell, a Harvard pastor, heexplaimed (after dile` thought' and many poetic pangs): Here liesthe darling of his. time. Mitchellexpired to his prime, Who tour years short:ot forty-seven Was found tan rape and plucked tor heaven, When Thomas Dudley, father of the first Amerottn poetess, Anne Brad- street, came to hisdeathbed, says the South Atlantic Quarterly, he showed where his daugbter bad received her surprising gift by composing such fare- well lines as: Dtm eyes, deaf ears, cold stomach shell My :dissolution Is lu View. Eleven times seven near lived have I, And now God calls 1 willing Ole. Got It Exact, "Why ie it that the buteber always Rends hue more meat than 1 order, nev- er by any cllance less'?" complained a young housekeeper to her husband. "Let me give him an order," said lae, and, stepping to the telephone, he call- ed up tbe market: "Sent) ' me two pounds of porter - !Muse." he ordered, "and, say, if you can't cut two pounds make It a pound and a halt." He got the two pounds by the next deltver'y,—New York Sun. A Fearsome Order. She—Dear we, I hope tbe mat at the next table Is not a fighter, but his order sounds like it! 13e—What was ft? 'She—He told the waiter to bring him a elbb sandwich and something to drink with a stick iu it,—Baltimore tsr,aericnu, True, An Irlehman on applying for relief Mid being told to Work for a living re- viled, "If 1 had all the work in the world 1 000100'1 do It." Chance'geuerally tavora tbo.Aradent, m-Jipubeet„.. • NOISE OF 'THUNDER,, t. Due to Heatles of Goalie Along the .Line of Electric bia0har5e, o Prefessot' Trowbridge we owe an experiment to ' explain the poise of thunder, it has usually been thought that 14e nolle is caused by the Moe. Ing up of the vitamin created by the Pessago.of lightning, the air rushing In from all eldes'with a clap, but the intensity of- the noise is rather dis- proportionate, and k is now supposed time the thunder is due to, the intense heaUng of the gases, espeeislly the gas of .water vapor along the due of the electric' discharge, and the cense. quent conversion of suspended mots. tiro into etcsm at enormous pressure. In this way the crackle With welch a peal of thunder sometimes begins might be regarded as the sound of steam explosions on a small scale, caused by inductive discharges before the mein Sceb. The rumble would be the overlapping eteam exptoslons, and the final clap,'wbicb soundest loudest, would be the steam explosion nearest to the auditor. in the case of rum. Laing thunder the lightning is passing from cloud to cloud. When the flash passes from the earth to the clouds tbe clap is loudest at the'beginning, Professor Trowbridge gave sub- stance to these suppositions by caus- ing electric flashes to pass from point to point through terminals clothed in soaked cotton wool, and be succeeded in magnifying the crater of the elec- tric spark•.to a terrifying extent.—Lon. don Graphic.. THE RIG [UPPER. 1t Is the Hour Hando the Woodman's Celestial Clock. The pole star is really the most im- portant of the stars in our sky, it marks the north atalltimes. It alone is fixed in the bea't'ens. All the other stars seem to swing around it once in twenty-four hours. ' But the pale star of Polaris is not a very bright one, and it would be hard to identify but for the help of the so called pointers in the "BIg Dipper,! or "Great' Bear," The outer rim of the dipper points nearly to Polaris at•a distance equal to three times the space 'that separates the two stars of the dipper's miter side. Various Indians called the pole star tbe "Home Star" and the "Star Tbat Never Moves," and the dipper they call the "Broken Back.". 'The "Great Pear" is also to be remem- bered as the pointers for another rea- son. it is tbe hour band of tbe wood- man's clock. Itgoes once around the north star in about twenty-four hours, the reverse way of the hands of a watch—that is, it goes the same way as the sun—aud for the same reason that It is tbe earth that is going and leaving them behind.—Oouutry kite In America. • A Blow Arrested. An organist who on the: eve of a fes- tival was taken suddenly illsecured n deputy to take his place. The depu- ty, on the authority of St. James' •Budget, wtfs a gentleman who played 'a very full organ, playing full chords where his principal played only single notes, and consequently using a much larger quantity of wind. When about three parts through with the "Bailclujah Chorus" tbe wind sud- denly' gave uddenly'gave out Going round to the back of the organ to ascertain the rea- son, the deputy found the blower in the act of putting on his coat prepara- tory to going borne. "What do you mean by such behav- ior?" the deputy angrily expostulated. "Look here, sir,"•the blower returned witb warmth, "if you think 1 don't . know 'ow many puffs it takes to blow the "Alleluia's Chorus' you make a big mistake!" Helped the Thief. "A simple, honest Scotch farmer bad taken a sack of meal to dispose of in Aberdeen castle market," says Mrs. Mayo in her "Recollections of Fifty; Years." "It was in the days when people were hanged' for any • petti. theft, and an execution was in prog- ress. thedulpritbeing a sbeep stealer. The worthy countryman stood aghast when a stranger bustled up with the question: "'What's n -do?' "'A hanging,' said the other, awed, 'for stealing a sheep.' "'Eh, - wbat won't folks risk fon gear!' cried the ,stranger. 'Will ye just give me a heed up with this sack?' "The farmer promptly complied. It was only afterward that he discov- ered be had helped a thief to make oft with the sack of meal he bad brought• to sell!" Foroe of an 011 Well. Oil has been ejected from the Baku wells with Bach force and accotnpnnied with so much sand thnt steel blocks twelve inches thick placed over the mouth of the well to deflect the flow were perforated In a few boors' and land to bo replaced. The eating with which the wells were lined was often torn to shreds and eventually collaps- ed, and hundreds of thousands of tons of ennd which accumulated 1n the vi- cinity necessitated the services of large bottles of workmen. -London Mall. A Safe Bel A man can never guess bow big the hats or sleeves or skirts of women will be next season, but he stands ready to bet that n0 fashion tenter enn make big shoes 101 women pepu- lar,--AtdhisoIl '(errlobe. A. Misnomer. It Is becomi0g daily more dangerous to refer to "the weaker sex" on 'ac- count of the inereastng doubt the reader's Mind which' scut Is meant.— London ' Sntnrday Itevtow. PICKING HUSBANDS. 'i, A Woman's 4.yniasl View of the Ger. man Marriage Market, The .met in Germany do not marry, I'bey are married, They are more or ase passive articles of sale, which llund In rows In the matrimonial shop ivindow with their price labeled la urge letters 10 their lan1topbole, wait. arg patiently for a purchaser. They Ire perfectly willing, even eager, vic- tims, They want to bo bought, bur :heir position `t'ioes not allow them to pulp the initiative," and they are Ihtinkful when at last some one comes tion -g and declares herself capable and willing to pay the price. Tbe girl and Ler mother, with their purse In hand, pass the articles in re - flew and choose out the one which best suits their means and fancy. "I shall marry 'an Meer," one girl told, me some time ago with the easy' :onddenee of a person about to order a new dress, and, 10 andbehold, be- fore the year was out she was walking proudly on the arni pj.a dragoon lieu- tenant! I even knew of three women' who swore to eIiL4I other: that they would marry only donnish, and here also they had their will One married a ,Feat painter, one a poet and another, a famous diplomatist. That they were all three peculiarly unhappy is not a witness against the system, but a proof that geniuses may occasionally be very uncomfortable partners. In this case the purchasers were rich and lopular'and could therefore make their choice. Others of lesser means would have bad to content themselves with an officer, cavalry or infantry, accord-, Mg to the "dot," or a lawyer, or a doe: tor, or a merchant, and so on down lbe:gcale.-Miss Wylie's "ply German Year." jf. ODDLY EXPRESSED. Queer Ways In Which Ideas Ara Sometimes Put Into Words. Curious ways of expressing ideas in English may be expected from foreign- ers, as, for instance, when the French- man, who made n call in the country and was about to be introduced to the family, said: "Ab, ze ladles! Zen I vould before, 1f you please, visb to purify mine 'ands and to sweep mine hair." A Scotch publican was complaining of his servant maid. He said that she could ueeee be found when want- ed. "She'll gung ooh p' the house," be said, "twenty times for once she'll come in." .5 countryman went to a menagerie to examine tbe wild beasts. Several gentlemen expressed the opinion that the orang outing was a lower order of the human species. Hodge did oot like this idea and, striding' up to the gentleman, expressed his contempt for It in these words:. "Pooh! tie's no more of the human species, than I be." "llfamma, is that a spoiled child?" asked a little boy on seeing a negro baby for the first time. A shop exhibits a card warning ev- erybodyagainst unscrupulous persons "who infringe our title to deceive the public." The sbopman'does not quite' say what he means any more tban the proprietor of an eating house near the dock, on the door of which maybe read the following announcement con- veying fearful' intelligence to the gal- lant tars who frequent this port: "Sailors' vitals cooked here."—Phila- delphia North American. Definition of True Humor. The sense o1 humor is the "saving. sense" principally because it saves us from ourselves..The person who can- not laugh at himself now and then Is to be ;pitied. Moreover, the person who cannot take good naturedly, the occasional bantering of others Is in the same classof dlsagreeables. A well directed shaft of raillery will often find the vulnerable point he our armor of self complacency and show us where our self satisfaction Is all wrong, True humor, however, must spring as much from the heart as from the head. Its essence .must be truth and friendliness, not contempt. There uever was a good joke yet that told a ile or besmirched a reputation, Humor which carries with it a sting to wound the sensitiveness or della:my of erre who does not deserve to suffer is eat true humor.—San Francisco Chronicle, Professional- Instinct. "Romeo and Juliet," with the origi- nal company, bad reached its crucial moment. - Juliet was staggering about the stage, regarding her afflicted lover. "Oh, .cruel poison!" she wailed. She raised her lorer for n moment lb her arms, A wildly excited' medical student In the gallery sprang to his feet- "Keep Ilim up, Juliet—keep: him up!" be bellowed. "1,1l run out and fetch the etomaeh pump!" A Run of Leek. Violet—I never bad sncba stttiak Of luck. Lie fell In dove in; Paris, proposed in Rome and bought the ring in Na. ples. Pierrot—Didyour luck end there? Violet—oh, :00! While we were at Monte Carlo he won enough from papa for us; to get married on.—London 11- histented 131M. The Silver Lining, In life trotibles will conte which look ns If they would never pass away. The night aud the storm loop as if they would last forever, but the coming of the calm and the tnoruing cannot be stayed. The reward of one duty ig the Powe' ,to fulfill another. "A WHAI,E IN A HURRY. The Truthful Mariner Telfa How Paet the Big fellow Went, "S9metimes you caul put en nen into a whale and he won't splash on the surface, but will start off like a rocket or perhaps will go right down apd you have to cit loose' and lode y'aur lino end irons said the truthful old mar. fuer. "We were lying becalmed one day off the Cape et Good Elope. 13y and by We saw two or three whales coming up to blow about two miles away, "Tho captain called the watch up, end a couple of boate started for the whales, which were lying 51111, as if sunning themselves, We raced with the other bout and got ahead, for my mon were lithe and tough, and by and by we got alongside of one of the big fellows, The steering oar was pulled in, the oars were packed—that is. piled to so that they couldn't strike the water—then an iron was thrown into the floating island, "The whale lay still for a moment, Mr if struck with amazement that any elle should dare to touch blur. Sudden- ly he made up his mind what to do. 110'started off like a locomotive, the rope whizzing around in a way to as- tonish u landlubber. When the rope was out we were rushing by the cap- tain's boot like mad. "All we could do In tent double end- ed boat was to sit still and see 'her go tbrougb the water. I candidly believe that we went at the rate of a mile a minute, and the water:' was a very wonderful sight. it reminds me, now that I think of it, of Poe's description o1 the interior of the maelstrom, where the water went round so last and was so black that it must have seemed like a wall of polished ebony. "The pressure downward piled the water up on both sides of us so tbat it seemed to be at least three feet higher than the edge of the boat, but it couldn't run in, for we were going se fast it hadn't time. "Every one's eyes were blurred with the wind, which seemed to be blowing a hurricane against us. It looked as if the whale would never get tired out, and we .were going to sea at au amass- ing rate. Tbe ship went away as if by magic, and we 1had lost sight of the other boat. Finally the line all at once nlaekened.' "The whale hadn't stopped and, for all I know, Is going ahead at the rate of a mile a minute still, but the iron had come out. "We rowed back to the ship, and as we came along the captain called over the rail: 'Where's the whale?' "'Oh,' said I, 'the iron melted out, he went so fast.' "'Just what I thought, said the cap- tain, and that night we all had plum duff and grog."—Chicago Inter Ocean. How Queen Elizabeth Ordered a Coat. In a sale at Southby's, in London, tbe following document written on vet - tum and bearing Queen Elizabeth's sign manual was sold: "Elizabeth, by the grace of God Queue (sic) of England, ffrnuuce (stet and Ireland, defender' of the faith, eta., wee will and commende you fortbe- witbe uppon the sighte hereof to de- liver, or cawse to be delivered to our iwell beloved servante, Ralf Brooke, 'Esquire, alias .Torte, one of our her. auldes of Armes, one cote depicted with our Armes on Satten with ,fine golde in ovle of like stare lengthe and breadeth as heretofore hath bene ac- customed, " Wesminster, the• XXIVth dale of ,ianuarye. in the thirey fourth yore of our'raigeb. "To our trestle and well beloved sere - ante, John Ffortescue, Esquire, blas- ter of our great wardrobe." For Visitors Only. A young southern woman who moved' to Buffalo sent to her mother for a cook who bad been brought up iu tbe family, Aunt Venetia's first public' trying out was at a ]unebeon. The fish course was to be crabs; hence the necessity of a lecture on ptomaines and food poisoning. "Now, be sure, Venetia," said the young woman, "to see that the crabs are alive. and healthy before youput them on the fire.." The day the luncheon came, bringing witb it the crabs, which looked all that could be desired as they were brought to table. Pinned to one of them was a note from the cook reading: "Miss Florenee-They was all kick- ing alive except this one. Don't eat it. yourself."—Buffalo Express. "The La0000n," The famous work "The Labcoob" was modeled by the great artists of Rhodes about A. D, 70. it represents the death of the Trojan hero Laocood, priest of Neptune, and his two sone, as described by Virgil. It was discov- ered near Rome In 1500 and purchased by Pope Julies II. It is now in the Vat - keit "The Laocoon,' like "Hamlet" has provoked a world of comment, but all agree that it is one of the master- pieces of artistic expression. -New York American. Shy, but Observant The average man's wife Is a shy lit. tle woman who can see more out of. her sitting room window than bo can see from the top of a Skylfcrtllpelt-• elalveeton News, Nobody Knowe It All. No man is so wise that the llttlS' barefoot boy in the street Cannot teach him a trick or two. .-- Detroit Free Press. tnnaeenCbanV^ c 'return to alt with XV tlentlirtcea Censer..... 'MU vta 'beady Ler use in any quantity. Useful for five hundred purposes. *can squats 20 I. SAL SODA. Use only the Best, For Making Soap,. For Softening Water For Removing Paint For Disiofectin,i Sinks, Closets, Drains,etc. Sett . erac ,s,..• The Cookbook,' When blending flour and water try using a fork instead 0f a spoon, 'Individual chicken salads are atria; tive wimp the salad la molded in 01190 of aspic felly oe lettuce hearts, with a rosette of mayonnaise dressing on top, While odds and ends of roast meat may be used for soup, euro should be taken never to use any charred pieces, as the smallest particle will give the soup au unpleasant never, Left over boiled hominy fried and served with tomato sauce is delicious. Butter a hot frying pan and spread the hominy over it. After It browns fold it over and then send it to the table with the, sauce or with cold sliced to- matoes. Sporting Notes, w , Lord Rosebery has again first call on Jockey Danny Maher. Leland Stanford university may again make rowing an intercollegiate sport. Harry Niles, the Boston American in- fielder, may go after flying machine' records at the end of the baseball sea - This' year's Columbia seeker team.is almost intact and gives every promise of winning the intercollegiate cham- pionship. Horace Hutchinson, winner of the British amateur golf championships, is visiting this country and trying but some of the prominent links: impertinent Personals. "Next season I shall outdo Salome," says Dancer Maude Allen. Does Miss Allan propose to have herself skinned? —Chicago Record -Herald. John D. Rockefeller gets up at 5 o'clock every morning. We do not know why. for he bus cinched every worm worth while. -Cincinnati Com- merelal' Tribune. Tbere is 'a rumor that Japan has decided to make theformer emperor of Korea a whang. Just to sbow a friendly spirit. the United States might, after Japan bas made him a wbang, confer upon the former em- peror the title of doodle. -Chicago Rec- ord -Herald. Aviation. There are about 800 aeroplanes in France, 700 of which have been made in the last ten months. 1n the province of Bradenberg, Ger- many, there Is a scale of Ones for nvJ- atom .flying, over towns and villages; the maximum fine being $15. Fines are not imposed, however, on steerable balloons. An interesting feature in the patent development of the year In Great Brit- ain was the number of applications tiled in the field of aeronautics, being more than three times the n''nber filed 'during the preceding year. English Etchings. Nearly one-Oftb 0f the deaths in England occur in publicinstitutious. Nearly two-thirds of the crime in London is perpetrated between 2 p. m. on Saturdays and 9 a. m,' on Mondays.. Prison rations of England give 51.4 ounces of food daily to the prisoner doing bard labor, but only 46.8 ounces In'•the case of a prisoner doing light labor. • Tales of Cities. . Tokyo, the capital of ;lam, covers thirty square miles, has 350,000 houses and 2,000,000 population. Bucharest is a city of 300,000 people, eoveriug a great territory. Butonits traction lines there run duly 138 horse cars and ten electric cars. Tuberculosis is the greatest scourge of overcrowded Vienna. Seventy per- sons lo 10,000 die from tbis disease in the working class quarter of tbe city as compared with sisteen in the Other districts; Diseetisfied. The haughty looking woman npon whose features the dermatologist had been tvOrkiug,for more than two boars' sneered when she glanced In the Mir- ror. irror.. "I certafaiy thought you knew. your bustness," she snapped, "pat soil hate not even given mc' fair treat- ment" ` The man shrugged his sitbulder5. "If you had Wanted fair treatment you ehotild bave been more explicit," he retorted. "I thought from what yeti told roe that you wanted brunette."... Chicago Newt, KILLING THE UMPIRE. It Ilan Essential Part of the Great Game of Baseball. According to bleacber lave, there are three particularly justifiable motives for doing away with umpires, An umpire may be killed—first, if be sees IR to adhere to the rules and make a decision against the home team at a ' elose point In the game; second, an umpire may be killed if be sends a member of the home team to the bench when the player in question bus done absolutely nothing but call the umpire names and attempt to bite his ear off (an umpire has no business . to be touchy); third (and this is a perfect defense against the charge of murder), an umpire may be killed if he calls any batteron tiie home team out on strikes when the player las not even struck at the balls pltcbed. That the balls go straight over the plate has nothing to do with the case. There is ample . proof at band to show that killing the umpire is a dis- tinctively American sport, Other coun- tries have tried baseball, but they have not tried killing the umpire. That is probably the reason why they have not waxed enthusiastic over baseball, for baseball without umpire killing is: like.football without; girls In the grand stand. It simpiyCan't be done. That foreign countries know nothing about our king, of outdoor sports was indi- cated forcibly when in the fall of 1909 the Detroit team made a trip to Cuba under the management of Outfielder Mtlntyre, In the entire series of twelre games with the Havana and Almenditres nines not one single ob.� jection was made by either the Cuban 111111 players or the silent Cubau spectators' to a decision of the umpires. The Americans did not know what to think of it -until they counted up the gate receipts at the end of the series. Thea they realized that. In their own country it is the delight in killing the umpire rather than the pleasure in watching the game that draws the tremendous crowds through the turnstiles.—George Jean Nathan in Harpers Weekly, MEASURES OF LENGTH. Light Waves and the WonderfullyAo- curete Interferometer. At the bureau of weights and meas- ures at Sevres. France, the standard meter of metal, which .s the standard length ,of the world, is kept carefully in • en underground vault and is in- spected only at long intervals. In Great Britalin similar care Is .exercised in guarding the standard yard meas. erement. 'As It was possible for these metal standards to be destroyed or .damaged in: the course of time. it was decided a number of years ago to de- termine the exact length of the stand- ards in wave lengths of light, winch would be a basis of value unalterable and indestructible. For this purpose the instrument known as the inter- ferometer was invented. This lustre - meet represented the highest order of workmanship and the grentest skill of the best opticians of the world. A series of refracting plates were made, the surfaces of which were dat with• In one -twentieth of a wave: length of light, with sides parallel within one second, representing the utmost refine- ment of optical surfaces ever at- tempted. With the interferometer perfected, the attempt was made to make the, wave length of some definite light an actual aud practical standard of length. For'over a year scientists worked to secure this result, and experiments tlnally showed that there lucre Ifelae wave lengths of red cadmium light to the French standard meter et 15 degrees centigrade. So great Is the 000uracy of these exi3eriments that they can be repeated within one part In two millions. So Inconceivably small Is such a possibility of error that should the material standard 01 length be damaged or destroyed the standard wavelength of light would remain un- altered es a basis from which an ex- act duplicate of the vendee! standard could be made.-Cbicago Itecord•Bttt. ald. Buttons, The Bliznbethau era gave' vogue to the button and buttonhole, two levee - tions which may fairly be regarded as important, since they did much to revolutionize dregs. T.be original but- ton was wholly n product of needle- work, which was soon improved by the use of a 'wooden mold. The brass but- ton Is said to have been introduced by a Birmitigham merchant In 1080. It took 200 years to improve on the meth. od of sewing the cloth upon the cover- ed button. 'Then an ingenious. Dane bit upon the idea of Making the bet- ton etton iti two parts and elitnititng their together will the cloth between.