Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1874 — FACTS AND FIGURES. [ARTICLE]

FACTS AND FIGURES.

—There are $500,000,000 invested in cows in the United States. —The tea crop of Japan last season amounted to 19,854,000 pounds, all of which the United States imported. —The Mormon Temple at Salt Lake was commenced twenty years ago, and the walls are now only fourteen feet above ground. _

—The salary of SIO,OOO per annum paid to President Jewett, of the Erie Railway, is the largest paid to any railroad official in the United States, and it is believed larger than any paid to any railroad officer in the world. —The cage-birds of the United States consume about 175,000 bushels of seed in a year, of which more than two-thirds is canary-seed, the rest being hemp-seed, rape-seed, millet, cracked wheat, etc} to the value of more than $2,000,000 annually. —The Chicago Temperance Monthly is The title of a new forty-eight page illustrated magazine, to be devoted to the cause of temperance, and the first number of which will be issued in January next, by Mrs. C. Augustus Haviland, of the Gem of tlie West. —The tobacco statistics of the world, could they be seen in one mass,, would astonish the economists as well as the moralists. France consumes annually 43,000,000 pounds of smoking tobacco, 8,000,000 pounds of cigars—say 50,000,000 in number, 17,000,000 pounds of snuff; 1,500,000 pounds of chewing tobacco, and 1,000,000 pounds of roll toTjacco, which Ts either smoked, chewed or snuffed. —Mr. Henry Vaughan, State Assayer of Rhode Island, lvas made a chemical analysis of thirty-five samples of “bitters,” including all the more important ones in the market, and finds that they contain from 6.36 to 43.20 per cent, of alcohol. The highest percentage is near-' ly equal to ordinary brandy or whisky, and tlie lowest exceeds the strength of Edinburgh ale, while nearly all the specimens contained more alcohol than the strongest wines.

— Appletons' Journal says: “In a recent number of the Journal we directed attention to the interesting fact that warm and dry seasons were regarded as favorable ones for the development of the suicidal mania. If this be the case, the climatic conditions of tlie countries given below may have somewhat to do with the number of suicides. The table records the fact that out of 1,000,000 inhabitants, 14 commit suicide in Spain, 32 in the United States, 43 in Belgium, 66 in Sweden, 69 in Great Britain, 73 in Bavaria, 94 in Norway, 109 in the GrandDuchy of Baden, 110 in France, 123 in Prussia, 128 in Hanover, 155 in Oldenburg, 156 in Lauenburg, 159 in Mecklenburg, 173 in Holstein,'2o9 in Schleswig, 251 In Saxony, 288 in Denmark, 333 in Saxe-Altenburg. It is furthermore observed that of the previous occupations of these suicides, 9 per cent, belonged to the agricultural classes, 13 per cent, to the tradesman, 15 per cent, to the merchants, 22 per cent, to the professions, and tlie remaining4l percent, are classed as having no occupation.”