Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1880 — FACTS AND FIGURES. [ARTICLE]

FACTS AND FIGURES.

West Virginia has, out of 448,014 population, 81,490 “ illiterates.” Milwaukee made 768,000 barrels of flour last year, being an increase of 200,000 barrels over 1878. Fever-stricken Memphis is happy at its business revival- Its cotton receipts were 10,118 bales in one day recently, the largest ever known. Wells, Fargo & Co.’s circular announcing the production of precious metals during the past year fixes the amount at a little more than $71,000,000. - It is computed that in Paris there are 1,700 women of letters and 2,160 women artists. One thousand of the former write goodish stories for children. Over 30,000 men in the Lehigh Valley are employed at the furnaces, of which there are fifty-four, with an annual capacity of 624,000 tons. These furnaces produce one-fifth of the pigiron made in the United States, and consume 1,400,000 tons of iron ore annually. # M. Henri de Pairvlle, a French author, after protracted investigation of the subject, finds that smokers smoke? the most in cold weather. The sales of tobacco dnring the period and at the places covered by his examination amounted to $184,000 a day in December and January, but only $164,000 a day in July. Provisions were never so dear before as at present in Naples, and the Mayor and his agents are investigating the charges of the grocers, butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers. Milan is also suffering from exorbitant prices in meats. Every large city in Italy is, in fact, complaining over the cost of the prime necessariesof life to the poorer citizens. Bome idea of the amount expended annually in. patent medicines in England may be drawn from the accounts published of the last financial year, which show that no lessthan 16,727,669 stamps were affixed to these medicines, the duty amounting to £122,385 19s. 4jd. As the duty at its highest rate is only l}d. in the shilling, it follows that more than a million pounds must have been paid by the public for patent pills and other compounds. Speaking of pork packing in the West the Cincinnati Price Current of January 7 says: The information furnished indicates an increase of 200,000 hogs in interior points, and a decrease of 700,000 at the six large packing cities making a total of about 6,980,000 to March 1, against 7,480,000 last year. The average weight to date is about nine and a half' pounds lighter than a year ago, and the yield of lard four te five pounds less per hog. The future ■of the season is expected to depend largely on the weather, which of late has been unfavorable for slaughtering, it being understood that there is an ample supply of hogs to reach the estimates given ana probably to exceed them. The total packing to date at all points is 4,068,000, against 4,086;000 last year. A miner’s inch of water is a quantity that will flow through an inch aperture with a free discharge—and under a constant pressure of six inches above the top of the opening. An aperture twelve and one-quarter by fifteen and threequarter inches, under pressure of six inches above the top of the opening, will discharge 200 and is the basis of all measurements where water is retailed in small quantities in the States of California and Nevada. A miner’s inch will discharge a quantity of water equal to 2,250 cubic feet, or about 17,000 gallons, weighing 189,600 pounds, in hours. Water will hold in suspension or solution 1,670 of its entire vojume—i. e., an inch of water (miner’s inch) having a. grade of four inches to the rod, will carry off, in twenty-four hours, a distance of ten miles, ten tons of heavy quartz, sand and iron. At one gravel mine in Nevada county, California, twenty-five cubic yards, or forty tons of detritus or tailings, as the washed material is called, are moved from three to fifteen miles every twenty-four hours. One hundred miner’s inches 6f water, conducted through iron pipes mid falling 350 feet vertically, ana applied by means of a nozzle against a hurdygurdy wheel sixteen feet in diameter, will furnish sufficient power to run an 80-stamp mill, besides carrying off all the ore which it has furnished the power to crush. —Deadwood Times. —The night is pitch dark, and the compartment in the car is crowded. An honest peasant would like to take a little nap, but his huge three-cornered hat is in ms way, and ne does not see what to do with it. “Here, put it in the cupboard, my good man,” says a commercial traveler, opening the window. The drowsy peasant complies, murmuring his thanks and expressing his ignorance of the wavs of the rail, ana falls into a sweet sleep, during which the commercial traveler gets into another compartment —English Paper. —The blunders of one man form the foundations of another man’s success.