Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1916 — SCRAPS [ARTICLE]

SCRAPS

The per capita use or gas in Md> sachusetts showedi~ docline in 19... as compared with the previous yeai. The tota' production of gas of r)» kinds amounted to 15,786,630,00 > cubic feet in 1 jjb, while in 1914 ft

was 15,536,1’3. "00 cubic feet ;i gain of only 1.7 per cent in actual output. During the year the pope lation of the state inireased abort 2.5 pei cent. The aeon-\yorn vase of Glare church at Tenth street, New Yoi' . is an antique ’doliola’’ of ancient Rome—-a receptable for grain that was fastened to some gate post on the Tiber’s edge in the dim-distant long ago. Workmen dug it up in the church yard of old St. Paul's, Via Natlonale, Rome. The Rev. Dr. Nevin gave it to Grace church. It is probably 3,000 years old. A novel life preserver has been devised to supplement the ordinary cork jacket in rough water. By its use the person in distress is able to breathe, even when the waves sweep over his head. The appliance adds’ to the cork jacket a light metal chamber which floats high, a spout ending from it riding two or three feet above the water level. A tube leads from this chamber to a face mask, through which the wearer of the jacket breathes. Even if the water sweeps over his head the spout of the air chamber Is still clear and the air supply unimpaired. In reports and records of the war there are few words more frequently met with than salient. Yet as a noun it is quite modern, and is only to lie found in the most modern die tionaries, but as an adjective it was in use centuries ago in its original sense of “leaping." Now that which leaps is prominent, and so this became the secondary meaning. Then as that which projects is also prominent, a projecting angle was called a salient angle, and the expression passed into use by military author! ties. Short as it is, however, they found it too long, and, dropping (lie angle, gave us the new term with which we are all familiar - London Chronicle.

By a coincidence the death of Sir Victor Horsley occurred the day fol lowing that of Metchnikoff, whose momentous discovery that the white corpuscles had the power to destrov certain disease-producing microbes, profoundly influenced the great sur-geon-neurologist’s views on total abstinence. Experiments carried out after Metchnikoff’s discovery con vinced Sir Victor that the consumption of alcohol “even in liny quantities,” lowered the body’s resistance to disease. The good phagocytes, whose duty it Is to play (lie sentinel and destroy noxious bacilli became temporarily paralyzed under the influence of a very small amount of alcohol, and this, in the opinion of Sir Victor Horsley, sufficiently ex-