Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 August 1892 — NOTES AND COMMENTS. [ARTICLE]

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The United States afford the most profitable market for canary-birds propagated in Germany. In that country the business of raising these feathered songsters for export is a very important one. Queen Christina of Spain is bringing her influence to bear against the national pastime of bull fighting. Since the death of her husband she has been seen but once in the royal box of the arena. However, her attitude of aversion has as yet accomplished little besides emphasizing the fact of her being a woman of strong and true character, for every Sunday the arena at Madrid, accommodating 16,000 people, is filled to overflowing. The preliminary report of the Census Office gives names of fifty-three telephone companies at present operating in the United States, with a total investment of $72,341,736; gross earnings of $16,414,588; gross expenses, $11,143,871; net earnings, $5,260,712; number of exchanges, 1,241; number of telephones and transmitters, 467,356; miles of wire, 240,412; number of employees, 8,645; number of subscribers, 227,357. The jelly palace, which the women of California will prepare for the World’s Fair exhibit, will be 16x20 feet and 25 feet high, with two open doors, approached by three marole steps. 'Pho framework will be of wire. On this will be firmly placed several thousand jelly glasses, filled with jelly of many shades of color, arranged in artistic designs. The interior will tie brilliantly illuminated by electricity. The cost of the framework and glasses alone is estimated at $2,700. Neahly twice as many patents were taken last year as in the first fifty years after the patent system was established, and still the. field is not yet covered. It would be interesting to know what proportion of the 22,080 patents granted last year, or the nearly half a million that are recorded, have made fortunes for the inventors. It is safe to say that at least one-half have never returned the amount expended in experimenting and patent fees, and many of them have never been put upon the market at all. The French newspapers tell, all too briefly, of a very interesting match that came off in France. Two women in good society challenged each other to talk fast. Each was to utter os many words as possible in a fixed time. Whether the words were to convey some thought, were to be sensible, or whether it was to be simply chattering of parrots is, unfortunately, not stated. Each women talked three consecutive hours. One uttered 208,560 words. The other won the match with 206,000 words. Nor is the information given whether these women are married.

The Germans are trying to count the languages that are spoken in their new •colonial possessions. In East Africa they have found fifty languages, in south-west Africa, twelve; in Gameroons, twenty; in Toga, five or six. Those figures do not include a large number of dialects which are almost equivalent in some cases to another language. The Germans have no idea yet how many languages are spoken in their South Sea possessions, but they have thus far counted fifty. Their missionaries and agents are hard at work reducing the languages which are most used to writing and making dictionaries of them. In Michigan it is unlawful for railway companies to neglect to block the frogs on their roads, so that the feet of employees may not be caught therein. A switchman, while uncoupling cars, had his feet caught in an unblocked frog and was injured. He sued for damages, and proved that other frogs in the yard were unblocked and that the yardmaster had been notified of their condition. The court decided that it was no defence that the company had employed men to keep *ll frogs blocked, and that proper material had been furnished for that purpose, because the negligence of the employees was the negligence of the company.

A facetious English paper not long ago started a discussion as to the probability of Mr. Gladstone’s living to be 200 years of age. He has now been taking an active part in politics for sixty years. Before he entered political life he spent a season in acquiring a rather comprehensive education, and for a dozen or more years before that ho was engaged in simply growing. Since he became a recognized power in the affairs of England he has seen a generation rise and fall. Many times his numerous and wholehearted enemies have prophesied a near failure of his physical and mental powers. Many times at political crises certain and overwhelming defeat has been foretold for him. And each time he has come out at the end with faculties unimpaired and a courage which defeats seemed only to strengthen. A paper on “The Administration of the Imperial Census of 1801 in India,” by Mr. Jervoise Athelstane Baines, I. C. 8., cheife census commissioner for India, was read before the Indian section of the Society of Arts lately. In India, he said, the census was taken in at least seventeen languages, several of which required forms in more than one character. A rough calculation indicated that between eighty and ninty millions of forms were issued. Taking only those that were probably used, it was found that they weighed about 290 tons, and would cover, if spread out, an area of 1,300 acres, and if put end to end would stretch over 15,000 miles, or more than from India to England and back. There were 950,000 enumerators, and there was practically a double enumeration; the first being the original one, the second a test of it; so that the chances of accuracy were very good. ,

A road experiment has been going forward in Union county, New Jersey. The new roads—called Telford roads—extend from Elizabeth west to Plainfield, and from Rahway north to Springfield and Summit, connecting with all the other townships, and intersecting at Westfield, the center of Union county. It is said of these roads that a traveler can drive a carriage, ride a bicycle, or go on foot from the county seat to any point in the county without soiling the tire of a wheel or the sole of a shoe. The practical result is that burdens three times as heavy heretofore as can be hauled on these roads with the same horsepower, and with far less wear and tear to vehicles. The Christian Union says that since the construction of these improved roads the country through which they pass has changed as if by magic, and central New Jersey is developing by reason of them at a rate before unknown in half a century. Agricultural lands have advanced in value twice the cost of the roads already, while lands suitable for villas a: d other building purposes have increased more largely in proportion. At some points the advance has been as great as 50 per cent, on former values, and at others the increase has been even a hundred per cent.

National restaurants are to be a feature of the World’s Fair. Nearly every foreign government that has decided to make a display at the Exposition has also arranged, through its representatives, for a restaurant in which refreshments will be served as they are at home. In most cases native attendants will be in charge of the restaurants. The German, French, English and other European commissioners have practically closed arrangements for these cases. Visitors from the New England states will be agreeably surprised when they reach Jackson park to learn that a genuine New England clam-bake is to be operated at the Fair. The company that has secured the privilege of operating this establishment will spend $30,000 in constructing an artistic building. The structure, as planned, is two storied, with a casino roof. It occupies a commanding site over on the lake shore, near England’s building. The food will be cooked in the same way it is in New England coast resorts, which are patronized by thousands of people. During the Fair two special refrigerator care will arrive every day with a supply of clams, lobsters and seafish. The building will be finished in time to give a reception to New Englanders when the buildings are dedicated in October. Facilities will be provided to serve 10,000 people a day during the Fain The camels that were brought to this country before the war to be used by our army as draft animals in the desert* of the Southwest arc still to be seen—or rather their descendants—roaming the sands of Arizona between Yuma and Ehrenburg on the north and south and Wickenburg and the Colorado River on the east and west. The herd has increased to more than sixty, although many of the animals have been taken away by circus-men and others have been killed by prospectors. As “ships of the desert” they were a failure, the pebbles and rocks of the foothills proving too hard on their feet, which became so sore that they were filially turned looso to shift for themselves. In those days there were no white men to speak of in the region of the Arizona desert, and the wanderers had nothing to fear from Indians, who superstitiously gave them a wide berth. Not so the prospectors when they came. Their high-spirited little mustangs were so often stampeded at the sight of the long-necked and unwieldy beasts that the riders found it convenient to take a shot at them whenever opportunity offered. A prospector, writing of his first experience with the expatriated carrels, says: “we wore coming through a vast expanse of greaseweed, almost as high as my head, when suddenly the burro stopperl, raised his head and gave a snort that could have been heard half a mile. I thought it must be Indians, and, throwing a cartridge into my Winchester, took cover in the brush. Peeping over the top of the weeds, I soon saw the camels coming with their peculiar, swinging trot, showing only their heads and humps above the brush. That burro evinced more life than I had ev»r seen him show before, and I do not think any horse in the country could have outrun him. My pack broke in the first hundred yards, and meat, beans, coffee, anil tools were scattered for five miles. The camels went on their way, and it was several years until I saw any of them again, when one of them was captured and brought into Phmnix, where it finally died.” He thinks the Government ought to take step* to protect the camels against malicious injury by trappers and prospector*.