Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1915 — SCRAPS [ARTICLE]

SCRAPS

Carp have been taught to come and be fed on the ringing of a bell. More than a third of the total area of Holland lies below sea level. Lager beers, despite popular notions, contain 3% to per cent alcohol. Some of the best gas coal in the world has been discovered in Venezuela, When first introduced into England, umbrellas were used by women only. Tests of human bones have shown them to be 50 per cent stronger than hickory. . - .Macadamized roads are sb called from John Loudon .Macadam, their inventor. . Telephone service between England and Switzerland is maintained, over two routes. Smoking diminishes hunger, and should, therefore be avoided shortly before meals. British Maxims fire the same bullets as an ordinary rifle, at the rate of 450 a minute. Tn Holy Scripture the day is always reckoned from the sunset of the previous evening. Queen Mary of England prefers China tea and : nearly always drinks it when she can obtain it.

To convert Centigrade to Fahrenheit, multiply by nine, divide the result by 5, and then add thirtytwo. European factories that make artificial butter with cocoanut oil as a base turn out about 16,000,000 pounds weekly. The rivers of Europe are estimated to be capable of supplying 4 6,000,000 horse power. Russia’s share being 12,000,000. A simple but accurate method for measuring the surface of a human being has been invented by a French scientist. The man who was assessed a $2 poll tax objected. “ ’Tis a plain case of overvaluation,” said he. “Wid me g-ittin’ but $1.50 for me vote.” An English inventor’s aeroplane can be converted into a tent whenever its pilot may happen to stop by the addition of curtains between its planes. The ultra-violet ray is of all light elements the hardest on the eye. It is also called the actinic ray- and is described as ‘‘like a little barbed arrow.” On the basis that every grain of wheat will produce fifty of its kind, a German scientist has figured that the third-year progency of d single grain would give 300 men a meal. •

Courses in horticulture, landscape gardening, law and journalism are to be begun at Vassar next year. Landscape gardening will be “practiced in Arlington, the college suburb.”-.. : ■ J The governor of Kansas rode thirty miles in a wagon recently to address the graduating class of a high school. The class, with his hair brushed and his best necktie beaming, listened attentively. The men of the United States coast guard cutter blew up an abandoned schooner off the Florida coast not long ago. In the process they secured 853 pounds of fish, the largest specimen weighing 320 pounds. The time necessary for the production of anti-dysenteric serum has been reduced from one year to ten weeks, through the demands made on the Rockefeller institute by the warring nations of Europe. Lars Tisdale, the oldest resident of South Dakota, died the other day at the age of 105 years and eight months. He was born in Norway and lived nearly an average lifetime there before going to the northwest. Agriculture is the primary industry in the west of England, where it is notable for its diversity. Dairying and cattle and sheep raising are carried on in Somersetshire. The Cheddar cheese industry is situated there.

Constantinople is 1,585 years old. It was founded by the Roman, Constantine the‘Great, A. D. 330. It is a city of climatic extremes. In the winter the winds are bitterly cold, in the summer the heat is stifling. An inch of rain coming down on a single acre of ground would fill more than 600 barrels of forty-five gallons capacity each. This amount of water would weigh more than 110 tons, or nearly a quarter of a million pounds. The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Com-' pany has placed an order for ?1,413,000 automatic cab signal and speed control system. Its installation on the big subway will mark the first application of such an arrangement to any subway in the world. The meat ration of the British and the German soldiers is about pounds a day; that of the French soldier only one-half pound. But the French soldier has nearly twice as much bread as the Englishman

and about ten ounces more than the German. There are some thirty substitutes that can be mixed with wheat flour in making bread. - Many of these are more nutritious than wheat flour; some of them are cheaper than wheat flour; and of these two! or three at least are commercially obtainable almost anywhere. It is reported that an experiment is being made with a material that heretofore has been a waste product of glass factories for roadmaking. This is a thick, sirupy liquid that hardens when exposed to the atmosphere, forming a substance that somewhat resembles glass. Owing to the difficulty of obtain.ng skilled workers, the high cost of land and water, and the increased cost of labor, rice production in Hawaii (which has been averjng over 25,000,000 pounds annually) is decreasing at the rate of about 10,000 bags a year, it is estimated by a Honolulu paper that the 1915 crop will be 60,000 bags less than that of 1909.

The Dominion of Canada, the provinces and the municipalities make such liberal provisions for general education that less than 7 per cent of the population over five years of age are unable to read and write. The largest single item in the expenditures of Ontario, is for education. The school house is recognized as an important factor in the successful colonization of New Ontario. There were more changes <a the cabinet of the ninth aoministration of the United States than any in the history of the United States. The campaign which preceded it was known as “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too,” which elected General William Henry Harrison, with John Tyler as \ ice-President. Harrison died one month after his inauguration on March 4, 1841. When Tyler became President he retained the same cabinet members, but they soon resigned, and by the end of four years the country had had five secretaries of state, four of the treasury, four of war and five of navy. The cause of these rapid changes was owing to the fact that Tyler had broken faith with the party that had elected Tim.