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Show Bits of Information. . The king of Italy is the only vegetarian vege-tarian monarch. Over a large extent of Russian territory terri-tory German Is the commercial language. lan-guage. In France and Austria provision for rescue work in mines is made compulsory. compul-sory. The price of a gondola ride in Venice has been increased from a franc to a franc and a half. - For The year ended March 31. 1908, th? municipal gas department of Birniin;r ham, England, was able to Contribute ?347,754 to the reduction of city taxation. taxa-tion. The London Lancet says 600 children of leprous parents are being educated by the Mission of Lepers, and the children chil-dren show no signs of leprosy. By the will of Mrs. Mary E. Jones cf Knoxville, 111., $250,000 has been left to that city for the erection and maintenance mainte-nance of a home for o.jjed w.nnen. Death from fright in the first stages of ether and chloroform before consciousness con-sciousness is lost is best avoided by letting the patient hold and inhale the stuff himself. The seaweed known as Irish moss is user to some extent as a food Ly the peasantry along the coast, also as a jelly for invalids, and as a stiffening for calico in the printing process. German manufacturing, exporting and financial circles. are keoniy alive to the growing custom of establishing in foreign cities department stores to serve as channels for supplying German Ger-man merchandise. Dr. Roberts' suggestion in 1SS1 of sewing wounds of the heart was received re-ceived as a joke. Dr. Rehn of Germany In 1897 got the first recovery from heart wound. Altogether there have been sixteen six-teen such operations, with seven amazing amaz-ing recoveries. Bermuda producers are beginning to find it more profitable to meet the wants of the increasing influx of visitors vis-itors than to compete with the gulf and south Atlantic truck farmers in the New York markets. In answer to the question, "What passages in Holy Scripture bear upon cruelty to animals?" one boy said: "Cruel people often cut dog3 tail and ears, but the Bible says, 'Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder.' "Christian register. Dr. Wurtzen has had great results in many cases of smallpox, quick cures and no pitting. He keeps the patient in total darkness, and finds Finsen's red light treatment uncertain. No white light is allowed, even for a second, but red lamps are momentarily used to examine ex-amine patients. There are 1,990 Young Men's Christian associations in Germany only 1,939 in America: yet where the German associations asso-ciations have but 117,000 memDers, the American associations have 446,000. And German association properly holdings have a value of $2,400,000, contrasted with a value of $40,000,000 In America. Although the young Oriental understood under-stood ordinary methods an occurences very well in his new California abiding place, he occasionally found a puzzle. "Japanese boy pretty smart when he can speak American In a year," he said, "but Missouri boy he speak ;?ood after he has been here only six months." In commenting on and gloating over the ocean breezes which tear In from the eastward over Massachusetts bay a Boston paper rubs it in by taying: "What an experience it is to read the Cincinnati Inquirer's vivid account of the general suffocation in the Ohio and Miami valleys, and then call for an extra ex-tra blanket and go to sleep." The wooden front corsets of Georjre II's time were commonly worn by dandies, dan-dies, as shown in Hogarth's portraits. The doughty warriors of Gustavas Adolphus wore corsets to a man. Catherine Cath-erine de Medici loved small waists and poison. She introduced the ruff and n t riirtoon-inh n.-nfst This mnnstpr in vented a steel corset. No wonder the potraits of that day look so solemn. New York -Press. Devil fish weighing up to 200 pounds are sometimes caught in Japan. These fish are amphibious; they are often seen wobbling on their tentacles like giant spiders in search of patches cf sweet potatoes. The natives kill them with clubs. In the water they are caught in jars lowered to the bottom, which the octopus enters thinking them a good retreat from which to catch its food. Whalebone was first used by Queen Bess. James, after her, compelled all men and women courtiers, to have wasp waists. Terence, 160 B. C. speaks of "town ladies who saddle their hacks and straight lace their waists- to make them well shaped." May 24, 1265. "Item: For nine ells, Paris measure, for summer sum-mer robes, corsets and cloaks for the same," from diary of Eleanor, countess of Leicester.- First mention of corsets. There is a wave of fear in some parts of Scotland that the spread of the temperance tem-perance movement will cause a marked decrease in the consumption of Scotch whisky, with corresponding loss to all who are interested in its production. "Dynamitars," as naphtha drinkers are called, have reapeared in Edinburgh This "naphtha" is a milky colored compound com-pound of great "staying power," and is composed of alcohol mixed with enc-tenth enc-tenth of its bulk of methyl alcohol ond three-eights of 1 per cent of petroleum, with as little water added as taste calls for. It kills quickly. This is a story told by a commercial traveler after a trip through southern Canada: "Being impatient to get out of a sleepy little town, I hurried to the station. sta-tion. After a while an object slowly emerged from the distance and slunk rp alongside. I boarded the solitary coach, and, after a tedious wait, the engine began be-gan to asp . feebly, . the old coach creaked a little, but the train did not -move. I was about to get out to see what was the matter when the forward door of the coach was suddenly flung open and a head popped in. 'Hey, you,' said the engineer, leering at me, 'climb off till I get a start, will ye?' " "Grass widow" is not necessarily a slang term. It appears in the marriage register of Halstead, Essex, England, as early at 1634. It is said to be a corruption corrup-tion of "grace widow," and dates from the days when divorces were granted only by the authority of the church. The woman who was so empowered to separate from her husband was commonly com-monly called a grace widow, and from this the expression gradually gained its present meaning and spelling. Little Robert and "Jim." the grocer's delivery man. were great friends; and on the momentous day of Robert's promotion pro-motion from dresses to knickerbockers he waited eagerly in front of tha house for "Jim's" coming. But the delivery man, when he came, busied himself about his wagon without seeming to see anything unusual in his small chum's appearance. Robert stood around hopefully in various conscious positions until he could stand it no longer. " 'Jim,' " he burst out at last, "is your horses 'fraid of pants?" Everybody's Magazine. A Philadelphian who was formerly a resident of a town in the north of Pennsylvania, Penn-sylvania, recently revisited his old home. "What has become of the Hoover family?" he asked an old friend. "Oh." answered the latter, "Tom Hoover did very well. Got to be an actor out west. Bill, the other brother, is something of an artist in New York, and Mary, the sister, is doing literary work. But John never amounted to much. It took all he could lay his hands on to support the ethers." Four railroads, according to "The Black Diamond," the official organ of the coal trade, have ju?t closed contracts for approximately 500,000 tons of coal for use during the entire year. In and of itself this is probably not important, because the coal would have been used whether purchased on contract or in the open market. The significance attaching attach-ing to the transaction is that the railroads rail-roads had been holding off their purchases pur-chases and apparently only rushed to cover on the eve of what promises to be a rising market. |