Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 October 1894 — SOMEWHAT STRANGE. [ARTICLE]

SOMEWHAT STRANGE.

INTERESTING NOTESAND MATTERS OF MOMENT. Queer Facts and Thrilling Adventures Which Show that Truth is Stranger Than Fiction. Tailless cats with purple eyes are jommon in Siam. New York has 400 regular egg chandlers, who earn their bread by telling good eggs from bad. ’Ti£ said that drug stores in Massachusetts have increased in number from 1,400 to 2,500 in two years. A Bible distributor died recently in New Hampshire at the age of 66, who during his life distributed 120,000 Bibles. A car load of matches was ignited by friction in transportation and burned the other day at Burgin, Kentucky. . According to statistics, women today are two inches taller, on an average, than they were twenty or thirty years ago. In certain districts of Sicily the industry of gathering the thread-like substance secreted by mussels is carried on. The fiber thus obtained is used in the manufacture of silk. A mosquito injects poison into the wound he makes, in order that the blood may become fluid enough to flow readily. This is what causes the pain. Black Bull and Bushyhead, two full-blooded Indians, recently appeared in St. Paul with 162 head of cattle to sell for themselves and neighbors. Black Bull alone owns 150. As fasters the sect of Jains, in India, is far ahead of all rivals. Fasts ■of from thirty to forty days are very common, and once a year they are said to abstain from food for seventyfive days. The brig St. Andrea at Constantinople, from Salonica, is exciting great curiosity. The captain, officers and crew are all monks of Mount Athos, and while visitors are kindly received, women are not admitted. Zeke Clotts, of Mobile, Ala., is the owner of an ox with a natural knot in the middle of his tail. Several veterinary surgeons have tried to untie it, but their efforts caused the animal to emit a strange hoarse cry. The tail is so shortened by the knot that it is practically valueless to switch off flies. One of the most wonderful of the many mountain railways is that which ascends Mount Pilatus, Switzerland. Its length from the shores of Alpnacht Bay to the Hotel Bellevue, on the summit is but two and three-fourth miles, but in that distance it makes an ascent of 5,360 feet.

A committee of the French War Department has after prolonged in vestigation, reported in favor of a new kind of buckler made of aluminum and copper; it can be made light enough not to be burdensome, and yet strong enough to stop even the modern rifle ball except at short range. “If you chance to be in the fields when the clouds threaten rain, and notice a plant, whose solitary, fiveparted scarlet flowers, rising from the axils of opposite green leaves are rapidly closing, be wise enough to seek shelter, for this is the ‘Pimpernel’ or ‘Poor Man’s Weatherglass,’ and the closing flowers indicate that rain is coming speedily.” The Six Finger Club is the latest thing in the way of clubs. Each member of this particular club must have at least six fingers on one hand. An elaborate report drawn up by the secretary shows that there are 2,173 persons in the world with six fingers to each hand and 431 with seven fingers. One individual, indeed, is the proud possessor of eight fingers to one hand. There is on a mantel in one of the the residences of a Georgia family a piece of stone which bears a striking resemblance to an ancient castle, the turrets, massive doors and strong foundations being distinctly marked. The peculiar feature about the little oddity is that, to hold it under a gaslight, gives the stone the appearance of the building with many lights reflected from the windows. Goldsmiths ‘‘save” their floors and gilders their rags with surprising resultant economies. One important firm of jewelers in this city requires its factory empldyes to leave their working clothes at the factory. The work benches and floors are carefully swept nightly, but once in every few years floors, benches and clothes are burned. After one of these burnings the crucibles contain as a residuum thousands of dollars’ worth of precious metal.

There may be seen near Kelso, Scotland, the extraordinary spectacle of a hen bestowing maternal care on a litter of three Dandle Dinmont pups, the property of John Wait, forester there. It seems that the pups, which are about three weeks old, had been deserted by their mother, and in their aimless wanderings had come into contact with a broody Orpington hen, the result being that the hen began to go about with them. When she sits down the pups climb over her back and crawl under the wings just like as many chickens, and are, ■ apparently,as much attached to their feathered foster-mother as the latter is to her canine family. A train was recently stopped in i France, on the line between Bellegarde and Geneva, under the following curious circumstances : A freight train had in one of its cars some cod liver oil, which began to leak away from the containing vessel. By chance, the escaping stream struck exactly in the middle of the rail. The train that bore the oil was not affected, but the track was thus well greased for the passenger train that followed, which came to a standstill when it reached the oil rails. Nearly three-quarters of an hour were consumed in running the two and onehalf miles to the next station, and this rate was only attained by diligent sanding of the track. The Covington (Ky.) Record tells an interesting story about a woman

who formerly lived in that. efty. Her husband was critically ill, and while he was in that condition she happened to hear of a lot in the local cemetery which was for sale very cheap and, thinking she would have use for it in a short while, decided that it would be the wise thing for her to do to make arrangements in advance. She accordingly purchased the lot, but no sooner had she done so than her husband began to improve and was soon entirely well. Shortly afterward, the woman became ill and died, and her body was interred in the lot her thoughtful economy had induced her to purchase.

A curious story, illustrating the preservative properties of chokedamp, comes from China. In the province of Anhui a party of miners recently struck an ancient shaft, where history records that a great catastrophe occurred 400 vears ago. The miners, on reopening the old shaft, came upon upwards of 170 bodies of the former workers, lying where they had been overcome with foul gas four centuries back. The corpes were as those of yesterday, quite fresh-looking, and not decayed in any way. The faces were like those of men who had only just died. On an attempt being made to move them outside for burial, they all crumbled away, leaving nothing but a pile of dust and the remnants of the stronger parts of their clothing, The miners, terrified, fled from the spot, and though there werejvaluable deposits of coal in the shaft nothing would induce the superstitious men to return to their work. Some of the farmers of the Eifel, the district that lies between the frontier of Belgium and the Rhine, adopt a novel plan for scaring the birds from the wheat. A number of poles are set up in the cornfields, and a wire is conducted from one to the other, just'like the telegraph posts that are placed alosg our railways. From the top of each pole there hangs a bell, which is connected with the wire. Now, in the valley a brook runs along, with a current strong enough to turn a small water-wheel, to which the wire is fastened. As the wheel goes around it jer,ks the wire, and so the bells in the different fields are set tinkling. The bells thus mysteriously rung frighten the birds from the grain, and even excite the wonder of men and women until they discover the secret. This simple contrivance is found to serve its purpose very well.