Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1894 — QUAINT BITS OF INFORMATION. [ARTICLE]

QUAINT BITS OF INFORMATION.

ThE National Toothpick Association claims an output of fifty-two carloads of toothpicks annually. ’ In Spain the tobacco consumption is but 110 pounds annually to each 100 inhabitants. In Austria it is 273. The timber piles under St. Mark’s at Venice are in good condition after carrying that structure 900 years. Best steel castings made for the United States navy have a tenacity of 65,000 to 75,000 pounds to the square inch. A report shows that there are 2,173 persons in the world known to have six fingers on one hand, and 431 with seven fingers. A BOATMAN on the St. Denis canal, in France, recently found in the water a package containing railroad shares worth $22,000. A German regulation prohibits a subscriber to a telephone exchange from allowing any one not of his household to use the instrument. 11 would take an express train, running continuously at the rate of 3,0 ,0 feet a minute, 28 J years to reach the sun from this planet. Nearly 70.000 persons have landed in Washington during five days, which gives a pietty accurate estimate of the floating population of that city. Czar Alexander 111. reigned for nearly fourteen years, which, since the beginning of the seventeenth century, is the average length of a Russian reign. ARCTIC explorers who have four.d themselves in the midst of an aurora describe, it as producing a cooling, prickly ‘sensation and a very exhilarating effect. An English firm has invented an electric carriage weighing about 1,0.0 pounds, and calculated to run at a speed of three and one-half to thirteen and one-half miles per hour, according to the condition of the road.