Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1895 — NOTES AND COMMENTS. [ARTICLE]

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The New York Evening Post asserts that prize fighting enjoys more real liberty in New York and Boston than anywhere else in the country. While there are no complete statistics available, careful estimates from all possible sources of information make it probable that, at the time of the discovery, there were no more than 500,000 Indians in all North America. The deaths always outnumbered the births in France. Since the beginning of this century the percentage of childless couples has increased from 5 to 10. The doctors seem agreed that this is generally due to gout, maybe the gout of ancestors living too well one hundred and more years ago. Madagascar has improved on the Chinese treatment of defeated Generals. Ramasonbaya, Governor of Boneni, ran away from Marovosy without resisting the French, and was burnt alive for his cowardice in the outskirts of Antananarivo. Some other Malagasy Generals are to be treated in the same way when they are caught. The meeting of the letter carriers in annual convention in Philadelphia, reminds the Record of that city that three years ago they handled in twelve months 5,500,000 registered letters, 1,335,000,000 unregistered letters, 275,000,000 postal cards and 600,000,000 newspapers, besides* collecting 2,115,000,000 pieces of mail matter. These figures are almost incredible. But then so is the country. Rev . Anna Shaw says there is going to be a new man worthy of the now woman, no longer the prey to drinking, smoking, or the latest fashion in neckties, receiving a larger salary for playing ball than he could as a minister, but a man, always a strong moral force in this community, playing ball for recreation, and in every way fitted to walk through this world of temptatic.ns with a serene and unfaltering step. The operation of the system of paroling prisoners from the penitentiary is well illustrated by a case that came up in Springfield, 111., the other day. Frank Evans was sent up from Petersburg for burglary. He was so well behaved at the Joliet penitentiary and made such a good impression on the authorities that he was paroled. It was but a few days until he was caught in a highway robbery at Springfield. Prof. Moore, the new head of the weather bureau, thinks that captive balloons can be of great use in collecting meteorological data. A North Pole expedition, by - means of balloons, has been projected, and inventors are constantly struggling with flying machines. The possibilities of ballooning are just as attractive to scientists now as the)' were a hundred years ago, when Benjamin Franklin was foremost in predicting results, but little of much value has been accomplished. At the recent Anthropological Congress, held in Cassel, Professor Waldeyer, of Berlin, in an address before that body, said that European boys at birth are from one-half to one centimeter longer than girls, but when fully grown the men are ten centimeters longer than the women. The average weight at birth of boys is 3,333 grammes, and of girls, 3,2(10 grammes. The muscles of the tongue, he said, are much more highly developed in the women than in the men —which is an unkind statement on the part of the scientist.

An authority on European affairs recently, in speaking of the .JapanChina war, declared that it was easy for the Japanese to win from the Chinamen. It was simply, he added, the victory of a gamecock over a big clumsy mud-turtle, which is so awkward and slow that he can hardly get out of his own way. “But wait,” declared the war prophet, “and see this gamecock when he jumps up against the great Russian bear, and you will see more feathers fly than you can shake a stick at.” He says that war is inevitable, and predicts that all the feathers will be plucked off the Japanese fowl. A French medical authority has decided that death by falling fronj great heights is absolutely painless. He says the mind acts with great rapidity for a time, and then unconsciousness follows; and now a scoffer has come to the front with a pertinent inquiry as to how the Frenchman knows anything about it. The argument is made that no man has fallen from the height of, say, a mile or so, and landed on the earth in a condition to tell anything as to his feelings. Most of the people who have fallen great distances have not been greatly inclined to talk of their adventures, and, in fact, most of them, on arrival from their trip, have, if any acquaintances have been handy, made quick trips to an undertaker’s shop. It may be of interest for ladies to know that one need not be very much of an heiress these days to catch a nobleman, even of some of the most ancient houses in France. Before the revolution there were some 50,000 noble families that flourished in that country, but it is said that to-day less than half of them have the means to live up to their titles, while many of them are in absolute poverty. Among the servants, artists, mechanics —everywhere there are hundreds of noblemen without means, many of whom might, no doubt, be had for the asking, by appreciable parties. The-comte de St. Megrin drives a cab in Paris; the comte Jeanxle Retz is a grave digger in the Normandie; a descendant of tke Valois is a letter carrier in SaintCWttnas; the comte de Saint-Jean peddles mousetraps, etc. Of course, the newly rich in France are as ambitious as those elsewhere, and generally endeavor to ally themselves with some noble family; but the supply of marriageable noblemen and noblewomen is nptexhausted by this demand. Clear Lake, seventy-five miles north of San Francisco and 1,817 above the sea level, having its outlet in Cache Creek, a stream supplying 827.000,000 gallons of water daily, is to have its forces translated into electricity, sent on overhead copper

wires, 20,000 horse power and upward, to the motors at San Francisco, besides doing lots of useful work all around the region and on the line of transit. On the way, the waste water is to irrigate hundreds of thousands of acres of hind, making it bud an f d blossom like the rose. The water will be shot through Pelton wheels, which will be connected directly with the dynamos, the latter being among the largest and most powerful known. The transmission of the electricity under the water of the bay has been an intricate and difficult problem, but has found its solution, and now presents no obstacle of a serious character. Compared with the potentiality of Niagara, which is equipped to wend abroad 700,000 horse power over its electric channels, the forces generated by the descending floods of Clear Lake are not very great, but are enough to help along the industries of San Francisco greatly, besides those subordinate and various utilities on the way. California is taking a front rank in electrical enterprises, and has enough power stowed up in her mountain lakes and streaines to make her one of the greatest manufacturing and industrial regions in the world, at the same time promoting her fertility in an immeasurable degree.