Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1892 — SOMEWHAT STRANGE. [ARTICLE]

SOMEWHAT STRANGE.

ACCIDENTS AND IXCIDEXTS OF EVERY DAY LIKE. Queer Facts and Thrilling Adventures Which Show That Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction, An amusing account is given by an Australian correspondent of some experiments in connection with long-distance telephony on the new copper wire between Sydney and Melbourne. The copper wire extended only as far as Albury, a distance of 383 miles, the remaining 190 miles being completed by an iron wire from Albury to Melbourne. The speaking to Albury was remarkably clear, voices being easily recognized; the speaking to Melbourne though perfectly distinct, was, of course, fainter. The Runnings transmitter aud double-pole Bell receivers were used.' Some ludicrous results were obtained by the induction of the main lines from some of the railway telephone lines—telephones connected from signal box and station to station, etc., for railway working entirely, but very often used, especially on Sunday, when there is practically no traffic, for purposes of private conversation. One conversation between a man and a girl was specially amusing. After a few preliminary passages of an interesting nature, the couple, uncouscious of listeners, began “blowing kisses” to each other through the telephone, and afterward describing the effect it produced. First was heard a girlish giggle, followed 1 by a faint smacking sound, aud then a shrill, treble voice, asking with keen solicitude: “Did you get that one? Shall I send you another?” answered by a gruff bass, saying: “Wait a bit till I’ve recovered from the first one,” and so on. The girl then sang “In Old Madrid," which came out remarkably clear, and was as much appreciated, apparently, by the person for whom it was intended as the listeners on the freelist. A statement by the British Vice Consul, Mr. Warburton, at La Rochelle, reminds us of the terrible ravages of the

termites, known as “white ants.” It appears that many of the public buildings and private houses of La Rochelle are being destroyed by these pests. Introduced from some tropical laud about a century ago, the ants had for a long time kept to a particular part of the town, but on the demolition of some of -the houses there the old wood was allowed to be carried away,' and the insects ■ are now found in every part of La Rochelle. In many buildings it is necessary to introduce iron supports to save them from tumbling into ruins. Linnteus spoke of these ants as “the great calamity of both the Indies.” Wood is their favorite diet, and the only timber safe from them is teak wood (tectona grandis) and iron wood (Sideroxylum). They tunnel through the vastest beams of buildings in every direction, leaving a thin layer untouched on the outside and even coating the outside with clay to conceal their ravages in the interior. Humboldt says that in South America it is rare to find papers of any antiquity. In one night everything left exposed, even boots and shoes, disappears. Ships are sometimes reduced to a condition 'sufficient to account for “foundering at sea” during a voyage. The Albion man-of-war had to be broken up, after reaching England. with difficulty by * being lashed together. If they settle elsewhere in Europe as they have done at La Rochelle, a new peril will be added to life and civilization. Captain Leo Vogel, now in the service of the Clyde steamship Company, says of his experience at sea during the Charleston earthquake: “I was going southward in charge of a double-screw steamer, 300 feet long, aud was twentytwo miles south aud fifty east of Charleston. It was the ugliest sky that, I think, I had ever seen, during the afternoon, aud I was really expecting a cyclone. The sky was of a salmon color, with clouds of sulphurous green. It was close and hot and there was a sense of something being wrong. We were on the eight fathom line that night, when suddenly the engines stopped. Wc were shaken from side to side, then the ship seemed to settle, and it was as though the bottom were rubbing against something. The first officer rushed on deck, shouting, ‘We're aground!’ I ran for the chronometer to record, as nearly as possible, the time of the occurrence, and from that I estimate that it took only about five seconds for the shock to reach Charleston. My people were in Charleston then, and my first impulse was to go back, but I remembered that I was responsible for a ship’s cargo and people. On arriving in port I found that the earthquake had really occurred, and it lifted a great load from my mind on the return trip when 1 saw one of my children on the dock aud heard him shout, ‘We’re all right.’ The shock came distinctly from the southeast, and I believe when the ship seemed to settle that either the sea was hollowed for a great area, allowing us to touch bottom, or else that the bottom was heaved up to within a couple of fathoms of the surface.”

A good story is related by the Lewiston (Me.) Journal on an Auburn attorney who went to a livery stable and hired a team for two or three hours, and at the end of that time, in a state of ab-sent-mindedness, left it at another livery stable, where it remained eight days. At stable No. 1 there was no worry about the team. They knew the attorney was perfectly good for the pay. They knew if he kept the team a month that the bill would be paid promptly on presentation. They presumed that he knew what he was about and concluded it was his business and not theirs. At stable No. 2 there was an equal freedom from anxiety. The attorney came there, left the team and wcmt away, saying nothing. They put the horse into a stall and “chalked it down” on the office slate, knowing him to be a business man who paid cash. The attorney and the proprietors of both stables met each other frequently, but nothing was said about the team. All of them were ignorant of the condition of things and all were perfectly at ease. As for the attorney, he never thought of the team again. Discovery came at last, and the attorney was presented a bill from stable-keeper No. 1 for hire of a team for eight days, and later stablekeeper No. 2 came round with another bill for boarding the team the same length of time. To say that the attorney was astonished puts it mildly. The basis of settlement is not officially learned, but it was less than the faces of the bills, which had been made out at the going prices. An elm tree, noted for many years on account of its unusual size, stands on the Fowler farm, at the foot of the Greylock group of mountains in Williamstown, Mass. The trunk is twenty-four feet in circumference at the base, and the first limb was 105 feet from the ground. It was believed that lightning struck the huge tree August 4, aH since that time it has been burning. The tree resembles a tall smokestack. ; The fire broke out greater than ever recently, and a Column

of flame was sent up twenty-five feet from the top of the trunk. Gradually the tree has been reduced, until at present it is only about thirty feet high. On invesitgating Mr. Fowler found a strange substance in the trnnk, and it ht now thought the tree was struck by a meteor. A portion of the foreign material has been sent to Williams College for examination. It is light brown aud about the weight of stone. It is owing to the presence of this substance, Mr. Fowler thinks, that the burning has continued so long. In regard to the habit of partridges of flying into civilization aud a popular superstition regarding them, an Augusta, (Me.) man says; “One flew on our premises and was captured. Then came up the question whether wc should kill the bird or allow it to live. At that time there was a popular superstition that if a partridge came to the house where a sick person lay and the bird was killed and the sick person ate the broth, it would effect a cure. There was a girl sick at our house and the doctors had given up her case as hopeless. Some of the family said, kill the partridge and give the sick girl the broth. But the sick girl and others were for permitting the partridge to live. We were equally divided and agreed to let one of the neighbors whom we saw coming to the house decide whether the partridge should be killed or not. He said kill it, and we did, and the sick girl ate the broth and got well.” It is a fact well established by students of. heredity that --are apt to inherit not only the physical, mental, and moral traits of their parents, but tobe influenced by their age as well. Children born of very young fathers : and mothers never attain so vigorous a growth of mind or body as .those -of older men and women, while children of old people are born old. One of the most surprising cases in medical history is that of Marguerite Cribsowna, who died in 1763 aged 108 years. When 941 she was married to a man aged 105. Three children came of this union, but they had gray hair, no teeth, werestooped, yellow, and wrinkled, decrepit in movement, and could eat only bread and vegetables.

Dogs are not partial to muzzles, but an artist recently invented a muzzle for bis dog which in no way disconcerted the the animal. He painted a representation, of a muzzle on the dog's head so cleverly , that all the policemen were deceived by it. The fraud was discovered by an bit! lady whose pug dog bitted a muzzle so much that she allewed jhe- animal to roam about without one. When the police captured her dog, the lady complained that the painter’s dog went about without the customary headgear. The policeman assured her that the artist’s dog was always muzzled, and was petrified with astonishment on learning that the muzzle was simply painted on the dog's head.

Mayor Grant, of New York, has received a curious communication from Offenburg, in the Grand Duchy of Baden. It seems that Mary Engelfried of New York, returning to her native town, where her father, Frederick Engelfried. “the wine .grower,”.- resides, -met and was wooed by Herman Haas, son of Joseph Haas, “the shoemaker.” Herman's proposal of marriage was accepted, and, under the law of the Grand Duchy, proclamation of the intention to marry has to be made at the place of residence of both contracting parties. So young Mr. Haas, who describes himself as a “Freeholder of Offenburg,” requests Mayor Grant to publish the official proclamation in his “official newspaper.”

There is now in the British museum a nickel-in-the-slot machine which dates from a period long before the birth of Christ. It is a combination of jug and slot machine used for the dispensation of holy water. A coin of the value of 5drachmas dropped into the slot opened a valve which allowed a few drops- of the liquid to escape. The most curious aud unique clock in the United States, or in the world for that matter, was constructed by Amos Lane of Amedee during the past summer. Lane’s curious clock, which, by the way, is all face, hands and lever, is attached to a geyser which shoots upward an immense column of hot water every thirtyeight seconds exactly. An inmate of an Armenian convent in Jerusalem died a short time ago at the age of 115 years. The official announcement of her death includes the remarkable statement that she entered the convent at the age of seventeen, and from that time until her decease, a period of ninety-eight years, was never outside the convent walls.