Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 163, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1910 — SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY [ARTICLE]

SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY

The growing scarcity ot finishing ■woods has led to an annual production of over 1,100,000,000 square feet of veneer. Porcelain was discovered by an alchemist who was seeking a mixture of earths that would make tbo most durable crucibles. The latest mechanical furnace stoker not only puts the coal on In the most approved manner, but it also disposes of the ashes auteihatically. While the number of violent deaths * thousand among miners has undergone in European countries a decided decrease, in this country it is steadily increasing. Switzerland has 14,717 miles of telegraph and telephone lines. In 1908 the 2,255 telegraph offices handled 4,942,000 telegrams, producing a revenue of 1680,444. After six years’ contest Peter Cooper Hewitt has received patents for his mercury vapor electric lamp. The patents have been in dispute almost since the date when they were first applied for, in 1901. "One cannot be long in any hotel or restaurant in Canada without seeing halibut on the bill of fare,” says a writer in "Canada.” “In this respect it assumes the position of a national dish. It is there on Christmas day and again on Midsummer day.” The comet’s tall could have been packed in an ordinary trunk —if packed by a man. If packed by a woman, she would still have had room for eighteen dresses, four nebulae, two bonnets, six pairs of shoes, the children’s clothes, and two entire comets. —Chicago Post.

Noting a projecting ledge a poor prospectop struck it a casual blow with a sledge, and one of the world'z famous gold mines was discovered. The poor prospector was Stratton. No wonder he called his mine the Independence, for it made him independent, converting the prospector into a ricir man. The finishing touches have juse been placed on the exterior of “the model power plant of the world’’—a 11,500,000 structure erected by the United States government a stone’s throw from the capitol at’ Washington. This station is to furnish heat, light and power to the entire group of Immense government buildings on Capitol hill.

Vacant lot cultivation in Kansas City, Mo., is done this season under the direction of the City Club. One nine-acre tract and several smaller lots have been set out in vegetables, the farming being done by needy persons. They are not taxed for soil, seeds or tools, and the City Club has engaged a practical gardener to supervise the work.

A public school teacher on the east side recently asked a pupil in her United States history class to describe the death and repentance of Benedict Arnold. She was somewhat astonished when the child, •) whose mind American, British, Union and Confederate ■oldiers were pretty well mixed, replied: “He begged to be allowed to die In a Union suit.”—New York Sun. Much attention and thought, states the Chemical Trades Journal, have been bestowed by those engaged in the breaking up of battleships and other craft as to the profitable disposal of the large quantities of wood obtained from the various vessels in course of destruction. Although there is much useful timber got that can be sold for re-use, there is a considerable quantity that is splintered to such an extent that renders it practically valueless. One or two firms are contemplating putting down wood distillation plants to utilize the hitherto valueless wood.

Trial by ordeal still exists in some parts of Japan. If a theft takes place in a household, all the servants are required to write a certain word with the same brush. The conscience is supposed to betray its workings in the waves of the ideographs written. Tracing an ideograph involves such an effort of muscular directness and undivided attention that this device often leads to the discovery of the guilty party.' The test is, at all events, more humane than the ordeal by boiling water, to which accused persons were formerly submitted ia Japan.London Chronicle.

Professor Elliot Smith, of the University of Manchester, has lately made a minute examination of the mummy of Ra-Nefer In the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, England, and finds that It Is older by eleven centuries than any other known mummy. The body of Ra-Nefer, a high official In the court of Seneferu of the fourth dynasty (8000 B. C.), was found by Dr. Flinders Petrie at Medum, Egypt, in 1892, and presented by him to the museum of the College of Surgeons. Although discovered so long ago, it is only now that its importance has become apparent. Street traffic in Chicago is now being handled by the police according to an elaborate code of rules recently promulgated. Under the new regulations a driver before stopping or slowing up must signal by raising the right hand. Horse drawn vehicles have the right-of-way over all others, street cars excepted. An Important rule requires drivers of vehicles to use great caution when passing street cars, so as not to Injure passengers alighting or getting on the ear. Another stipulates that "No vehicle shall emerge from an alley, stable oi at a pace faster than a walk; at the latter place an attendant should precede the vehicle to give warning."