Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 February 1900 — FROM FOREIGN LANDS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FROM FOREIGN LANDS.

China has six smokeless powder manufactories. Tangier is a city without vehicles. Donkeys are used for transportation. The new glass roof on the Sydenham Crystal Palace in England cost SOO,OOO. Two thousand Hebrew officers are on the active and reserved lists of the Austrian army. Trees and shrubs are being planted along the Suez Canal to keep the sand from drifting. Maori men and women in New Zealand have taken to golf and are developing remarkable skill. The subscription for the Boers opened at St. Petersburg has already reached a total of nearly $25,000. ,The nucleus of a fund has been collected to transfer the body of Chopin from Paris to Cracow. Publishers in Finland lose from SO,OOO to SIO,OOO a year due to suppression of books by the Government. Tarantulas arc being raised in Australia for their webs, which are used in making threads for balloons. Parisian authorities are try ing to devise regulations for automobile traffic which will be fair to all parties concerned. Prayers are being offered at the Mohanitnedan Mosque at Lanore for the success of the British arms in ,tlie Transvaal. The chief rabbi of London has ordered special prayers in all the synagogues for the success of the British in South Africa. Tokio, Japan, has, twenty-two- crematory furnaces. It is estimated that 43 I>er cent of those who die in Tokio are cremated. The German" Government has bought Schliemann’s palace in Athens, at SBO,ftOO, for the use of the German Archaeological Society. The tonnage of the "entire mercantile steam marine of Russia, Japan or Holland does not equal the tonnage of the merchant vessels taken over by the British Government as transports. Near Tangier a native, who stole a donkey worth $125, was taken before the' chief of the Duurt and as punishment he was tied so a tree while his eyes were burned out with a redhot iron. Because of—the unsuitability of war times for anything like public festivities the annual balls in connection with the Hnrborough and Melton hunts in England will not be given this winter.