Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1875 — FACTS AND FIGURES. [ARTICLE]

FACTS AND FIGURES.

—lt is estimated that but one in 50,000,000 railway passengers is killed. As a much greater proportion of those who stay at home die in their beds it is claimed that it is safer to travel on the railroad than to go to bed at home. —Over 300 trees and more than 800 woody species of plants are believed to be embraced in the flora of the United States, and of the trees 250 species are. tolerably abundant in one region or another, 120 of them growing to a large size. appears from statistics prepared by the Massachusetts State Board of Education that the cost of education per pupil, in the State incorporated academies is nearly $35 per year, while in the private academies it is only $33. In the Boston Latin School the cost is $l7O per pupil. r —The earnings of the BalLmore ct Ohio Railroad the past year were $14,947,420 • expenses, $9,416,650.67; net earning $5,670,626.20. The expense of working the road is stated to be 57 8-100 per cent, upon the earnings, showing a decrease of 2 64-100 per cent, compared with the previous year. The surplus fund of the company on the 30th of September, 1874. was $32,144,160.15. —ln one of my previous letters I gave an account of the value and the destination of the dead leaves of Paris. I have just learned what the mud of Paris is worth. In its crude state it is valued at $120,000 per annum, but when prepared for manure it sells at prices ranging from sixty cents to one dollar for a cubic yard, and is worth $600,000 for the annual product. The bidders to whom it is adjudged must pay for sweeping the streets and for removing all accumulated filth under the surveillance of the authorities. Several thousand persons are employed in that service. In 1823 the Paris dirt was sold for 75,000 francs ($15,000); in 1831 the purchasers paid over $31,000; in 1845 the value had risen to $160,000. — Paris Correspondence Philadelphia Press. —lt is said that probably about 60,000,000 or 70,000,000 codfish are taken from the sea annually around the shores of Nerwfoundland. But even that quantity seems small when we consider that the cod yields something like 3,500,000 each season, and that 8,000,000 have been found in the roe of a single cod. Other fish, though not equaling the cod, are ■wonderfully productive. A herring six or seven pounds in weight is provided with 30,000 ova. As ter making all reasonable allowances, for the destruction of the eggs and the young, it has been calculated that in three years a single pair of herring would produce 154,000,000. Buffon said that if a pair of herring were left to breed and multiply undisturbed for twenty years, they would yield a fish bulk equal to the globe on which we live. The cod far surpasses the herring in fecundity. Were it not that vast numbers of the eggs are destroyed, fish would so multiply as to fill the waters completely.— Scientific Ameri—He was going up Jefferson avenue, in Detroit, sachel in hand, when he saw an old hat on the walk. He deviated considerably from his course, stopped close to the hat, and drew back and kicked with all his might. Some boys gathered around him as he sat in the doorway holding his foot land grating his teeth and weaving his body to and fro, and they explained to him that he never should kick old hats in a strange town. —Another man to be hangedjin Pennsylvania. No State can stand this drain on its population.