Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1910 — THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW [ARTICLE]

THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW

Siam's imports of electrical supplies have trebled in five years. Half of the world’s production of nickel comes from the United States. There are in Argentina four broadguage railroads, three narrow gauge and two English gauge. • v Gas lighting has recently been boomed in Japan, and some ten new companies are to be floated. Textiles may be rendered fireproof, according to the Paris board of fire commissioners, by steeping them in a 10 per cent solution of phosphate of ammonia, then drying them in the open air. Wages are not 4 excessive in Japan. Of skilled operatives, the highest paid are spectacle and precious stone workers, $1 a day. Shipbuilders receive 75 cents a day, masons 70 cents, fireworkers and carpenters 60 cents. Printers receive 9 cents. Logging by electricity, it is said, will soon become the common practice in British Columbia, where electricity can be readily obtained from water power. With the disappearance of the steam engines in the woods will go 95 per cent of the annual forest fires. Freight rates in Cuba are legally subject to discriminating rebates on commodities such as sugar, tobacco, coal and fertilizers. Each railroad in Cuba serves a district of its own and the lines are noncompeting. The rates given under the authority of the national railway commission are very high, leaving plenty of room for rebating. At thirty, Caesar achieved his greatest conquests; Luther broke the sable night of the sixteenth century; Charlemagne had made himself master of the French and German empires; Cor- ( tez gazed on the golden cupolas of Mexico; Alexander Hamilton had formulated our federal Constitution; Horace Greeley had founded the New York Tribune and John Howard Payne had sung his deathless song of “Home, Sweet Home.” Miss Jean Gordon, Louisiana’s only woman factory inspector, is vigorously Opposing the effort which is being made by the owners of theaters in New Orleans to exempt first-class theaters from the provisions of the child labor law. Miss Gordon is backed by the New Era Club, which is said to include every woman of influence in the city. They declare that late hours and excitement are bad for children, without regard to the class of the theater in which they work. Railroad people do not so much dread strikes as they dread the effect upon net earnings of granting merely such demands for higher pay as they privately believe to be reasonable. Their last experience with wage increases was practically awkward. Late In 1907 and early in 1908, when the higher schedules began to go into effect, gross earnings began to vanish, and between the increase of outgo and the diminished income, the results on income statements were heartbreaking. —New York Evening Post. A Durham farmer was traveling to London to consult a lawyer, when the fear struck him that he had left certain important papers behind. He made a hurried search of his bag. “If I did leave those papers,” he remarked, "I’m a fool!" Just as he was ekamlng the last bundle of papers he exclaimed; “Well, I’ll bet I am a fool.” A man on the other side of the compartment lowered his newspapers for a moment and said slowly and deliberately: “Oblige me, sir, by laying a little money that same way for me.” One of the novelties of the vaudeville stage in Europe is a drove—six in number —of performing pigs. “They have been seen in various places on the grand circuit,” says a Berlin paper, “and since their arrival in this city have been much spoken about. Of course they are American, and the man who drives the six animals harnessed to a miniature racing wagon is also an American. We have seen the inanimate hog in barrels and the animate elsewhere, but the animal never before interested us as much as do these, because of their remarkable training.”

Queen Margherita has a weakness for the books of American and English novelists. She also reads English and American magazines and It Is her opinion that the American school of short story writers at present Is the best In the world. The queen gives over several hours every day to Action. She reads extensively in Italian, of course, but her especial fondness is for books of English. She talks and writes English Auently, and in all literature likes nothing so much as talea of Western American life, whether of the mining camp or the ranch. She has read almost, everything that 'has been written about the cowboy.

Statistics furnished by the mint show that the world’s production of gold in 1908 exceeded that of 1907 in value by $81,376,000. The total yield was 21,378,480 fine ounces, which were worth $441,932,200. The total yield In the world’s silver in 1908 -was 203,186,370 fine ounces, an increase over the output in 1907 of 18,999,300 fine ounces. Africa led all other countries In gold production in 1908. while Australia was the heaviest loser. Mexico was first in silver production with an Increase of’ 12,517,000 fine ounces, and Canada was second with a gatn of 9,826,400 fine ounces. The United States lost in silver, in comparison with 1907, 4,074,000 fine ounces.