Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1898 — BITS OF KNOWLEDGE [ARTICLE]

BITS OF KNOWLEDGE

Sixty languages are spoken In the •mplre governed by the Czar of Russia. The • largest winged insect in the World is the Ablas moth of Central Braell. It* wings extend fourteen inch** f 'in tip to tip. An average of three British seamen I,de their lives every day by drowning, and 300 British steamers 'wd sailing vessels are lost yearly at sea. ■j’ltene weye only 500 mlh * of underg: and wire in London, England, in 1: ; >9; there are now 13,000 mile*. In 1869 there were five and a half miles es pneumatic tubes, compared with forty miles now. A bricklayer can lay about 1,500 or 1,000 bricks in a day of ten in irs where the joints are left rough; .. oat 1,000 jkt day when both £a< . . ve to be Worked fair; and not mo ? n 500 a day when carefully jointed d faced With picked bricks of a.uni. rm color. The human brain k eon ed of at Jc. ..st 300,000,000 of nerve cei each an Independent organism The lifetime of A nerve cell is estimated to be about Sixty days, so that 5,000,000 die every <ay, about 200,000 every hour, and nearly 3,500 every minute, to be ®uceeeOed by an equal number of their jwoivny. Thus onice in eveiy sixty days a man has a new brain. The most renuvnkable cas <. a letter iWicd tn the ovsnaaat no ■ ■* m*e THt RKD CROSS SOCIETY.

Bern* of It* Labars Since Its Organ' teatiou 25 Years A«o. The •epmlzatlun known as the Red Croaz Is the result of the in: rnatfonaJ treaty of Geneva, ana has for Its object the preventiiM or amelioration of suffering Incurred In war. >’l military hospitals under Its flag are heutral, and cannot be attacked or cipttired. Sur geos*, nurses, chaplains, attendants, and all non-combataats wearing Its badge, all supplies, and whatever else, under its care, are likewise protected. In this country it hkk a civil bran oh, knows as the American Amendment, 'which other countries are adopting, •nd which provides relief against woes •rising from fire, flood, pestilence and •the/ national calamities. As late as the Crimean war, civil help for military necessities was unknown, and Florence Nightingale walked into a pathless field. In our own civil war relief was afforded by the Sanitary and Christian commlaslor.s. The Red dross became active first ir the Franco-Ger-man war of 1870-1, and the annals of that war were not stained by any record of needless Inhurainity or cruelty to wounded or sick. Slate then no war between nations within the treaty has taken place in which the Red Cross has not done Its work, maintained Its position and been respected. Under the American Amendment it has had a •hare, according to. Mls» Clara Barton, Its originator and leading spirit, in relief work In the case of the forest Area of Michigan in 1881; the overflow of the Mississippi In ]&<; the drought ot Texas in 1888; the relief of the sufferers from the Mount Vernon cyclone in 1888; the yellow fever epidemic In Florida in 1888; the Johi.stown disaster in 1889; the Russian famine in 1891-92; •nd the hurricane and tidal w a ve of the South Carolina sea island coast in 1893. (H. It, has also, during that time, takes part la several uUernaD<w>l nov* meats.