Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1892 — OLLA PODRIDA. [ARTICLE]

OLLA PODRIDA.

Is thu Land Where a Hundred Dollars is a Fortune. —William E. iL Pales writes to the “Sociological News” as follows in reference to labor in Japan: “The houses are small and also cheap. They rent from fifty cents a month upward and average a dollar a month each. The garden around them yields two and three crops a year and supplies enough flowers to pay a goodly fraction of tie rent. The vegetables grown are chiefly those which are marked by size and quality, cabbages, cauliflowers, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, turnips, oarrots, yams, beans and peas. An acre cultivated under the painstaking system of the Japanese horticulturist will support a family in comfort. When to the vegetables are added the chickens and eggs raised on the premises, and tho fish, shell-fish and seaweed taken from the sea, a regimen is hod which for healthfulness and nutriment caunot be surpassed. “The ocean helps humanity amazingly in this land. Its warm waters teem with animal and vegetable life, and it fecundates every beach and seacliff with immeasurable life. A meal can be made from cabbage, onion, sea-weed gluten, and bean sauce which weighs two pounds and costs but two cents, These figures presuppose that all the materials are purchased. As a matter of fact at least half arc grown in the family garden. Clothing is a minimum. As worn by the people inland, it is light, graceful, and very cheap. A man’s suit costs but fifty cents and a woman's one dollar. Under such conditions, the laborer saves money and » happy, healthy, and prosperous. He has of course no ambition ana no desire for social or political change. ”

Propagation op Leeches. — The business of raising leeches for medicinal purposes has long been carried on iu Europe, and, it said, with profit to those engaged in the business. Up to forty years ago, it is stated, the olu world obtained its supplies of the worms mostly from Sweden, Russia, Poland and Hungary, but the swamp rogions wheie they grew and were gathered underwent extensive draining operations from time to time, until at length vast areas once rendered remunerative by their swarms were dried up; this occasioned such a famine of thu article that active efforts were made to find a remedy, several governments offering premiums for successful results in leach culture. At the present time nearly all the leeches used abroad conns from artificial ponds and meadows in the south of Franco, where the bottom is firm and solid, this areas chosen being divided into rectangular plots by dishes. The breeding season arrives in Juuc and July, and at this time water is admitted into the ditches, the meadow flats remaining dry. The eggs are laid by the leeches in loose soil at the margins of the ditches. When the young ones are hatched the meadows are overflowed artificially some six or eight inches. The young leeches arc fed upon the blood of living horses and cattle drivon into tho shallow water twice a week for a time. ZUYDEB Zeß TO RE TERRA FIUM A. — The proposal for the drainage of the Znyder Zee, which was spoken of for tho first time in 1848 in Hollaud, and strain in 1860. 1875 and 1882, lias once more been revived with the support of several political associations and Chambers of Commerce, whose members hove forwarded petitions to the Government in support of the scheme, and asking for its thorough examination. The IndeEmdance Beige publishes some intcrestg details on the subject, und states that the total cost of currying out the work would bo 190,000,000 florins. This is exclusive of the expense which would be entailed on the War Department, as the undertaking, if carried out, would, if is said, bring about a complete change In the present system of defense in Holland. It would also have the effect of adding a new province to the Pays Bas. The Largest Elevator. —The largest Sain elevator in the world was built at inneapolis Junction in 1886. The main building is 886 feet long, 02 feet wide and 175 feet high. Its storing capacity is 2,000,000 bushels of grain. During its construction the carpenters and joiners used 12,500,000 feet of lumber of all kinds, besides 82 carloads of nails. These nails filled 10,000 common nail kegs, and the best calculators say that there were but little short of 50,000,000 of them driven into the immense structure. Tho engines used at this giant of all elevators are capable of handling 250 carloads of grain every 10 hours. A Canadian bos invented a simple and ingenious device to be attached to all bottles containing poisons. It consists of a mechanism fastened to the bottom of the bottle, and so arranged that every time the bottle is lifted or moved it rings a little bell. With a death’s head for the eye, and a kind of death rattle for the car, it seems as if accidents ought to be entirely avoided. TnERE ore some 150 distinct religious denominations in the United States—'The Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, Baptists and Episcopalians form the great body of church adherents. The other religious associations represent less than fifteen per cent of the church edifices. Great il the originality of Chicago. They are now talking of catching a whale somewhere in the Arctic regions, and towing it alive to the World’s Fair city, by way of tho St. Lawrence and the great lakes.