Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 74, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1910 — Topics The Times [ARTICLE]

Topics The Times

"Oblige,” of all the words In the English language, is the one most frequently misspelled. The word “pageant” originally signified the fixed or movable scaffold on which plays were presented. The indications are that at no distant date there will be more Gertnan students in America than American Students in Germany. During the first nine months o*f 1909 Tacoma shipped 104,536,596 feet of lumber. Portland, Ore., during the isame months shipped 135,392,630 feet. By means of a systematic warfare on the prairie dogs of the ern part of the United States, J. W. Halmon has killed 600,000 of these animals. In the Beven years 1901 to 1908 China’s postal service expanded remarkably. The postal routes now cover 88,000 miles and the postoffices number 3,493, as against 176 in 1901, an Increase of 3,317. Americans are the greatest peanut eaters in the world—they would be, even If there were no circuses. In 1907 and 1908 Japan exported 17,000,000 pounds of peanuts, and the United States took nearly all of them. Hubert Latham recently took up a moving picture operator on a sevenminute trip in his aeroplane to an elevation of eighty feet from the ground. The operator took pictures with the lens point downward. The apparatus weighed 200 pounds and Its operator 196. Dr. Emily H. Jones Barker recently resigned ?.s resident physician at Wellesley College. Dr. Barker was appointed to this post in 1875 and was the last officer in academic service whose appointment dated back to the first year of the college. For more than twenty years she served as superintendent of. Eliot College. Following Is* a list of the wealthiest widows in the United States: Mrs. E. H. Harriman, $100,000,000; Mrs. Russell Sage, $70,000,000; Mrs. Hetty Green, $60,000,000; Mrs. W. B. Leeds, $30,000,000; Mrs. J. H. Smith, $18,000,000; Mrs. G. M. Pullman, $16,000,000; Mrs. C. Vanderbilt, $15,000,000; Mrs. M. K. Jessup, $10,000,000; Mrs. W. K. Thaw, $7,500,000; Mrs. Potter Palmer, $7,500,000; Mrs. H. H. Rogers, $5,000.000. The assessed valuation of all (Chicago real estate for 1908, $344,399,927. The combined wealth of those eleven widows, $338,000,000.—New York Journal. In half a century the United States department of agriculture has grown from a mere beginning to an institution with over 11,000 employes. Congress supplies it with an annual Income for its expenditure in the neighborhood of $15,000,000, while half as much more is spent by the states in their agricultural experiments, colleges and experiment stations. Of its employes nearly three thousand are scientists, hundreds are administrative officers and thousands are clerks and helpers. There are a dozen bureaus, ranging in expenditure from $60,000 to $4,000,000. ' Electric baking ovens have long been available, but their use has' not spread very rapidly, probably because of the cost, or the difficulty of procuring the requisite current. In the little Swiss town of Kerns, where electric power is cheaA the electric baking oven has just been established in a satisfactory manner. In a furnace less than eight feet logg 100 pounds of bread, in loaves of one and three pounds each, can be baked at one time, and eight bakings can be made in 12 hours. The cost of the heating is a little more than one cent and threequarters a pound of bread. Wonders never cease. Chicago women are really learning how to step off a street car properly and the number of accidents is rapidly diminishing. This is vouched for in an official report of on traction lines in January, which says: “A resume of the various causes shows that the people are becoming educated to the many dangers through being careless concerning street cars. This is especially true in relation to women, there being a decrease of 60 per cent in the number of women and children injured during last month, as cbmpared 'with the previous month.”