Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1893 — SOMEWHAT CURIOUS. [ARTICLE]

SOMEWHAT CURIOUS.

The population of America increases by 7,000 persons a day. The number of deaths in the entire world in. a century is estimated to be 4,500,000,000. BrSiray' |is the invention of the French, and has .been known to the world for nearly six hundred years. It is said that the people of Tokio recover quickly from surgical operations because they consume but little alcohol and eat but little meat. It is reported that the Tam O’Shanter Inn, at Ayr, famous wherever the verses 1 of Burns are read, was sold at auction a short time ago for about SIO,OOO. The Lord Mayor of London’s badge of office contains diamonds to the value of $120,000, and the temporary owner has to give a bond for it before he is sworn in. It has been discovered that the Congo river is 1,452 feet deep at its mouth. The mouth of the Mississippi has a depth of thirty-three feet, and the Thames of forty feet. A rattlesnake will pot cross a hair rope. Experienced campers, when they fear that rattlesnakes are in the neighborhood, eneircie their camp with a hair lariat or two, and feel seIt is said that Massachusetts is the only State in the Union which provides, by act of Legislature, that banks may pay checks for a certain time after the death of the drawer. During the reign of Elizabeth, English dudes wore shoes three feet in length, the toe pointed and fastened up to the garter with golden chains, to which little bells were attached. Stenography was first used in the French Parliament about the year 1830, and one of the few official stenographers of that period still surviving is M. Lagache, who is now a Senator of France. Children's clothes can be made fireproof by adding to the. last rinsewater two ounces of pulverized alum. A prominent English chemist says that all children’s dresses should be thus treated. Dr. Murray, of the Royal Society of Edinburg, estimates the mean height of the land of the globe to be 1,91)0 feet above sea ffivel. Humboldt’s estimate placed the same levul at only 1.000 feet above high-water mark. Gutta percha was first introduced into Europe from Malagna in 1812. The annual consumption now amounts to 4,000,000 pounds, and the East Indian trees which supply the demand are diminishing at an alarming rate. j To such au extent does religion prevail at Gonoatoa, in the South Seas, that every mau, woman or child on that island who does not go to church at least three times a week is liable to be arrested aud fined, the fine going to the King. The inhabitants of the Andaman islands are the smallest race of known human being9—that is. taken as an average. The height of a full grown Andamnnian seldom exceeds three and a half feet, and few weigh over sixty-five pounds. It is said that mail matter dropped In the postofilce at Paris is delivered in Berlin in an hour and n half, and sometimes within thirty-fivo minutes. The distance is 750 miles, aud the mail is sent by means of pneumatic tubes. ■ —'