Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1897 — Current Condensations. [ARTICLE]

Current Condensations.

Professor Spencer places the age of Niagara at 32,000 years. Hildrian says that mosquitoes and fleas never bite red-haired persons. Newsboys on bicycles Is the fatest form of newspaper enterprise in London. Admirers of Rudyard Kipling may be interested in knowing that a fatal fire broke out recently in Rudyard place, Kipling street, Long lane, Bermondsey, London. On the eastern coast of Ireland it rains on an average of 208 days in the year; in England about 150 days; at Kazan about ninety days, and in Siberia only sixty days. In the case of a Springfield, Mo., man who was on trial in the police court for keeping a vicious dog the somewhat singular verdict was rendered that he was not guilty, but must kill the dog. Henry Norman has written a book on China. Bribery and corruption, according to him, flourish in high places in that land, while ignorance, deceit and filth of body and mind are universal. A series of fetes, to take place In Paris in October for the benefit of the poor, are being organized. The municipal council has contributed $10,444 on condition that It approves of the program.

It Is well known that burns by heat differ very little from bums by cold. Precisely, or nearly precisely, the same chemical and physical changes can be produced in animal flesh by exposure to extreme cold as by exposure to heat. A curious partnership often, exists between the sea-anemone and the hermit crab. The latter always has an anemone fastened to its shell, and when he changes his quarters he takes his anemone along, provided he can detach it from the old shell. In the highland districts of Scotland ' the custom held for many years of placing on the breast o£ the corpse a I wooden platter, on which was separately placed salt and earth—earth being emblematical of the corruptibility of the body, and salt as emblematical of the Immortality of the spirit. Farmhouses in Carroll County, Maryland, are supplied with a telephone service at sls a year, and it Is said by those who have tried it that life In the country is made far more attractive when instant communication can be had with the family doctor, the poetoffice and village stores, to say nothing of an occasional chat with a distant friend. The cost of the service is more than returned in various ways. According to the census returns of 1890, the value of real property In New York was $3,025,000,000; of personal, $336,000,000. Compared with this enormous wealth that of any Western State is insignificant. Missouri, for instance, one of the richest, has real property valued at $553,000,000 and personal assessed at $289,000,000. This vast difference lias, among other things, probably bad a share in suggesting to the Populists their familiar figure of the cow with her mouth In the West, while her milk is pouring into Eastern buckets.