Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1880 — BITS OF INFORMATION. [ARTICLE]

BITS OF INFORMATION.

The island of Ireland is in shape a rhomboid, the greater diagonal of which is 300 miles, and the smaller 210 across ; greatest meridianal length 230 miles; greatest and smallest breadth 180andll0 miles ; area, 32,531 square miles. Up to the year 1857 the husband of Queen Victoria possessed no distinctive English title and no place in court ceremony except such as was conceded to him by courtesy. In that year the title of Prince Consort was conferred upon him by letters-patent. Foolscap paper derives its name from the fact that paper of that size once bore the mark of a fool’s head with cap and bells, just as “ post”-size paper once had the mark of a post-boy’s horn. In the middle of the seventeenth century, however, the English makers substituted a figure of Britannia for the fool’s head. The Monroe doctrine, as promulgated in President Monroe’s message of Dec. 2, 1823, was that it was the policy of the United States neither to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe nor suffer the Old World to interfere with the affairs of the New. In other words, that Americans should govern America. On the same occasion he declared that any attempt on the part of European powers to “extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere ” would be regarded by the United States as ‘ ‘dangerous to our peace and safety,” and would be opposed. The old saying, “ Nine taylors make a man,” originated from the following circumstance : A number of years since, in London, a little boy was accustomed to sell apples, cakes, etc., among the various shops. At one place he visited were nine journeyman tailors, who, on account of the unusual brightness of the boy, determined to educate him. Each one contributed a portion toward the necessary expenses, and the boy eventually became a noted individual. In this sense nine tailors were said to have made a man.

The first models were figures of living persons, and Dibutades, the Corinthian, is the reputed inventor of those in elay. His daughter, known by the appellation of the Corinthian Maid, being about to be separated from her lover, who was going on a distant journey, traced his profile by the shadow on the wall. Her father filled up the outline with clay, which he afterward baked, and produced a figure of the object of her affection, giving rise to an art till then unknown. This was about 985 B. C.