Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1893 — NOTES AND COMMETS. [ARTICLE]

NOTES AND COMMETS.

Countries that have inadvisedly allowed their forest lands to be denuded eventually come to the conclusion that such recklessness involves most-serious penalties. This appears to be the case in certain parts of Russia, where severe droughts cause great distress and injury. These droughts are ascribed to the gradual depreciation of the country along the principal rivers and to the removal of obstacles in the river beds. Both these factors combine in causing the rain water and the melted snow to pass off more rapidly and the low-water level of the rivers therefore becomes abnormally and permanently low. To remedy this ponds are to be dug or built up in the sources from which the rivers are fed, and on the plains long banks are to be raised, against which snowdrifts will be formed. The snow thus accumulated will melt more slowly than the thinner masses elsewhere, and will, form a valuable supplement to the water supply at the period of the year when the droughts have hitherto obtained. This is simply a wholesale adaptation of a practice that has long been attributed to the provident Russian peasants, who are in the habit of using plank walls to intercept the snow. The banks thus formed are said frequently to serve as the family water supply up to the month of August. The average of European fortunes is below that of England and this country. Prince Schwartzenberg, the richest man in Austria, with 170 square miles of territory, was said to have left $55,000,000 when he died a few years ago. There are two or three noblemen in Germany who own over 100 square miles, but the largest German income is Herr Krupp’s, of $1,090,500, and the next, a little smaller, is the income of the Berlin Rothschild. The Orleans

family is said to have a fortune of $150,000,000. If the Orleans were poorer, the chance of seeing one of them on the throne would be better. The Duke of Galliera, a Franco Italian sail way magnate, left $55,000,000 in France and $15,000,000 in Italy in the past decade, and this is by far the largest personal fortune mentioned in Latin Europe. Ten years ago 31. Leroy Beaulieu, a high authority, estimated that in Paris, with its 2,500,000 people, only 8,000 persons spent over SIO,OOO a year. There are probably thrice this number in New York.

A life insurance compony whose advice, under the circumstances, may be taken as a sincere, tells its clients that the golden rule in cold weather is to keep the extremities warm. The first and most important rule for the carrying out of this idea is never to be tightly shod. Boots or shoes that fit closely jrevent the free circulation of the blood jy pressure; but when, on the contrary, they do not embrace the foot too firmly, the space left between the shoe and the stocking has a good supply of warm air. The second rule is never to sit in damp shoes. It is often supposed that unless shoes are positively wet it is unnecessary to change them while the feet are at rest. This is a great fallacy, for when the least dampness is absorbed into the sole, in its evaporation it absorbs the heat from the foot, and thus perspiration is dangerously checked. This can easily be proved by trying the experiment of neglecting the rule. The feet will be found cold and damp after a few minutes, although on taking off the shoe and examining it, it will appear to be quite dry. The seamen of the new navy are not the sailors the men of the navy in the past were. The modern warships are almost totally mastless and sailless creations. The masts are no.t used alone for the few sails, but coigns of vantage on which are bullet-proof shelters, in which are located the machine guns, those death-dealing deck-rakers which play havoc with the crew of an enemy. The Gatling gun is in use on our war vessels for fighting from aloft. These pieces, which cai> discharge, when required, 1,200 shots a minute, are intended to disable or kill the enemy’s cre-w. Rapid fire guns are not of this class. They are used to defend battle ships from the rapidly-moving torpedo boats. A rapidfire armor penetrating gun is a necessity, and the development of this arm of warfare has progressed so far that the largest of these pieces is six inches in caliber, is fired with 88 pounds of powder,, a projectile weighing 100 pounds and at the rate of six aimed shots a minute.

To all budding and aspiring authors may be commended the statistics concerning novels given in a late English publication. During the last six years 1,600 novels have been published which have succeeded so far that they were asked for at the libraries. About the same number were published which were not asked for and failed. These 1,600 books were written by 922 people, of whom 50 form a company far in advance of the rest, so far as popularity is concerned, and 70 form a company well behind the first; 120 make up a band who have so far succeeded as to create a small demand for their work, and the others have reaped neither pecuniary advantage nor fame. Which, being summed up in figures, indicates that of those who write one’s chance of being one of the 50 novelists in some 3,000 who succeed is 1-70, and his chance of remaining in obscurity and neglect is represented by the fraction 326-350, which is rather a discouraging certainty. . It is announced that the French railway and street cars are to be heated without fire. There are various ways known to chemistry, by which heat may be generated without what is commonly known as fire. Th® practical application of this knowledge, however, has never been utilized, unless these French scientists have now reached it. It is vaguely explained that the discovery simply involves the plunging of a block of acetate of soda into hot water, and the subsequent solidification of the block furnishes heat equal to an ordinary coal fire, that will last five or six hours. Acetic acid is a compound of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. With these heat elements and the soda base, as chemists call it, there seems to be no scientific reason why the plan might not be feasible. How large a place in the affairs of Brooklyn is filled by the bridge is annually set forth in the reports of the officials charged with its control. Over 40.000,000 fares were paid in the year just ended, and the cars have carried in all over 260,000,000 people in the nine years of their operation. While the two cities have paid $450,000 in the year towards the construction accounts for expenses growing out of the work of increasing facilities for travel on the structure, they have been paid back $460,000 out of the surplus receipts from travel. The work of construction will soon be conpleted, and then the steadily increasing earnings will flow back into the treasuries of the two cities. The operation of the cable has been extremely successful, as the delays averaged less than a minute a day for the year. In the legal profession thp American womaa is nuking her way against much sppsihws. As yet only a limited num-

her of States admit her to the bar, still seven women have been admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States. Both the Chicago Legal News and the Chicago Law Times are edited by women lawyers, and several associations have been formed, including the Equity Club and the Woman’s International Bar association. In Wyoming and Washington the mixed jury system has bees tried with success, and in Montana the greatest cf all triumphs has been scored by the election of Ella Knowles to the office of Attorney-Gen-eral, an honor never before accorded to a woman. 3liss Knowles is a graduate of Bates College, and studied her profession in the East. When she went to Montana she found that the statute prohibited woman’s admission to the Bar, but she secured the repeal of the law, and has ever since been practising. Since the establishment of the! Federal Government New York has had fortytwo Cabinet appointments, Massachusetts thirty-seven, Pennsylvania thirtysix, and Virginia and West Virginia together forty-three. California, now one of the largest and most important States, has never had a place in the Cabinet. The only Cabinet office ever held by a man from either of the Pacific States was that of Attorney-General, held by George Williams, under Grant. Periiai>s the most remarkable fact revealed by the religious census returns of South Australia is the big jump made by the Bible Christians—an advance of 64 per cent, —during the decade. The prominence thus aquired by au elsewhere insignificant 3lethodist sect is attributed to the fact that the Chief Justice of the colony (the Hon. S. J. Way) is the most active, influential, and energetic member of the boely.