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TOPICS OF THE 1)AY.
A New York physician “who is taken
by everbody to be ten or fifteen years
younger” than he is, attributes this
favorable condition to the use of lem¬
onade taken regularly four times a day.
He has used 3000 lemons a year for ten
years.
The safety of mountain travel in
this country is proved by the small
number of accidents reported each
year. Compared with the results of
an Alpine season, or even of a sum
mer among mountains in Wales, the
sum of the season among our moun¬
tain resorts is most satisfactory. Per¬
haps Americans are more careful in
their ventures in mountain-climbing.
Martin Ewing, a colored man living
at Keyterville, Mo., was born in 1765,
and is the oldest man in this country.
His memory is good and his mind clear.
But few wrinkles furrow his cheek.
If he would dye his hair, his general
appearance would indicate a man about
seventy. He has lost but a few teeth,
his eyesight is good*, except a cataract
in one eye from a blow forty-five years
ago.
The total annual product of fish is
about 1,500,000 tons for Europe and
America; a ton of fish being equal to
about twenty-eight sheep, a year’s fish
supply is, therefore, for the United
States, Canada, and the ten European
countries included in this estimate,
equal to 42,000,000 head of sheep. Of
this amount, 1,000,000 tons, or the
equivalent to 28,000,000 head of sheep,
are consumed in the United States,
Canada, the United Kingdom, and
Russia.
The richest single woman in the
country is Catherine Wolfe. She has
an income estimated at half a million
a year, and she owns real estate all
over New York. Her father, Peter
Wolfe, married Peter Lorillard’s sister,
and with her got a dowry of $1,000,000.
His wife died soon after and he mar
ried.another of the Lorillard sisters,
and with her got another million. In
a short time she died also, and Wolfe
after speculating awhile with his two
million and more, died himself, and
his property came to his daughter
Catherine.
Of the 2,647,000 women in occupa¬
tions in the United States 595,000 are
engaged in agriculture, most of them
colored women in the Southern States;
632,000 are in manufactories, of whom
about one-half are in New York, Mas¬
sachusetts and Pennsylvania; 282,000
are milliners, etc.; 50,000 are tailors.
Of the 44 occupations recorded as
“personal service,” 40 find women in
them. The 525 female surgeons of
1870 have increased to 2,743; the 7
lawyers to 75; the 65 clergymen to
165. The number of laundries have
increased from 61,000 in 1870 to 122,
000, and of the latter 108,COO are kept
by women. This large increase shows
a great lightening of the housewife’s
labor.
According to the last United States
census there are 563 establishments in
this country devoted to the proprie¬
tary medicine business, employing 4,
015 operatives, with an aggregate in
vestment of capital amounting to $10,-
620,000, and the annual product is
valued at $14,682,000. New York
State leads all others with an invested
capital of $3,512,430, which is about
one-third of the entire country’s in¬
vestment. Pennsylvania comes next
and Missouri ranks third in invested
capital, followed respectively by Ohio
and Massachusetts. In the amount of
annual product New York again
stands first, followed in order by
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, the
other States standing about even. A
fair calculation is that about twenty
five American proprietary medicines
have at present a very large sale in
England.
The American Exhibition in Lon¬
don next summer promises to be a
success. The site is already engaged,
and occupies twenty acres near the
West Brompton station. The exhibits
will have for their aim the “showing
to the Old World what the resources,
products, manufactures, and arts of
the United States are at the present
time.” Perhaps one of the most in¬
teresting parts of the Exhibition will
be the “American Garden,” in which
will be seen as complete a flora of the
United States as can be collected. The
trees, shrubs, and plants are to be ar¬
ranged according to longitude and lati¬
tude. In this way the student may
study local diversities in systematic
progression, *and many flowers and
flowering shrubs will appear for the
first time away from their native habi¬
tat. A special newspaper, published
monthly, called the American Eagle , is
issued to promote and explain the ob¬
jects of the exhibition, which is ex¬
pected to form a leading attraction of
the next season.
The Boy that Was Buried.
A Madrid (Spain) letter tells this
story of the cholera epidemic: In Ulea,
Murcia, there was attacked a man of
over middle age, the father of a fami¬
ly, and also his little boy, aged 11,
called Jose Gomez. The father died,
and a few days after, at 6 in the after¬
noon, the boy died also, and was carri¬
ed immediately to the churchyard, at
the same time when the gravedigger
was finishing his day’s toil. He view¬
ed the last arrival, but although the
grave was almost filled up he threw in
the dead body and went away. Upon
the next morning, as he opened the
cemetery gate, the first thing he saw
was Jose Gomez, almost naked, just as
he was buried, amusing himself.
“Hullo!” exclaimed the astonished
gravedigger, “who took you out of
that?” “Nobody,” replied the boy,
cheerfully, “I came out myself.”
“Bueno (good); come here, I wish to
speak to you.” El chico (the little
one), believing that he was to be
treated to another burial, began to
run, and did not stop until he reached
his mother’s cottage, whom he fright¬
ened out of her wits, as she believed
he had come from the other world.
“Where is your father ?” was the first
question put by the poor woman. “Oh,
he stayed there; but give me some¬
thing to eat, mother, for I am very
hungry.” The mother broke out into
cries and lamentations, and the neigh¬
bors crowded in and tried to surround
the chico, who fled and endeavored to
hide himself, believing firmly those
attempts were premonitory of another
funeral. In the end he was caught
and put to bed, all the time protesting
that his one malady wa3 hungei. So
they gave him his brsakfast, and now
he is the pride of the village as he
runs about stoning dogs, which, it
seems, w r as his favorite recreation
before he was attacked by cholera.
The final touch in the story is a strik¬
ing instance of the truth of what the
poet sang: “They change their sky,
not their dispositions, who go across
the seas.”
COUNTERFEIT EXPERTS.
Women Whose Sense of Feel
ing is Marvellous.
Ahla to Piok Out Spurious Money as
Though by Instinct.
There is a very large amount of
counterfeit paper afloat, and some of
it finds its way to the Treasury, when
it is discovered in the redemption
division, says a Washington letter to
the Pittsburg Post. It is here that all
the money sent in from outside sources
is counted and examined. The
counting and sorting is dotfe by ladies,
and they are the most expert in the
country. They can tell a counterfeit
instinctively, with eye3 open or shut,
and there is not a bank cashier in the
United States, or even among the
large contingent now sojourning in
Canada, who could compete with them
in the matt ;r of determining counter¬
feits. They can tell a spurious bill as
far as they can see it, and the mere
handling of the paper is enough for
them to decide upon its genuineness.
The silk paper upon which Treasury
notes are printed can only he made by
expensive machinery, and it is a felony
to even manufacture the blank paper
without due authority. Under the
circumstances all counterfeits are print
ed upon inferior paper, which lends
this great facilty in the matter of detec¬
tion. A guide was once taking a party
of visitors through the redemption di¬
vision, and was expatiating upon the
expertness of the fair money handlers
in this respect. He solemnlyassured the
party that one of the girls had detect¬
ed a counterfeit in the middle of a pile
of money six inches thick by merely
seeing the thin edge of it. To a stran¬
ger it seems more like diablerie than
the possession of trained vision and a
delicate sense of touch in the detection
of counterfeits.
These females experts receive $75 a
month for their services. They do
nothing but count from 9 in the morn¬
ing until 4 in the afternoon, and their
hands move vvith a rapidity seldom ac¬
quired by the most expert bank clerks,
But they make no mistakes. A mis¬
count or a counterfeit overlooked
comes out of the wages of the one
making the error, and two or three
mistakes a month would wipe out a
girl’s salary, as some of the bills hand¬
led are very large. The great draw¬
back of the position is the poison ab¬
sorbed by the continuous handling of
money. The hacks of all Treasury
notes are printed with a pigment
which consists chiefly of Paris green.
Small particles of this substance are
absorbed, and in a year or two the girl
who may have entered the Treasury
smooth skinned and healthy finds her¬
self a victim of lassitude, and with her
hands and face broken out in malig¬
nant sores. Each employee is fur¬
nished with a sponge to moisten the
fingers while counting. A new one is
supplied every morning, and by even¬
ing its color will have changed to a
dull black by the action of the poison.
Notwithstanding this drawback there
is never any difficulty in filling vacan¬
cies.
Bones have been proven to quickly
dissolve in sea-water. They are eon
sequently seldom obtained during
ocean dredgings, although teeth, which
resist the action of the water indefi
nitely, are often brought up.
At the Waltham manufactory each
watch undergoes no less than 3,746
operations before it is finished.
Texas Rivers.
The Texas river is an institution
that is peculiarly Texan. In the
southern portion of the State many of
the rivers and streams manage to gel
along during the summer with very
little water. Near El Paso it has fre¬
quently occurred that the natives
have had to dig wells in the dry bed
of the Rio Grande, in order to get
drinking water. For many miles the
river bed was as dry as two volumes
of the Congressional Record.
The writer has crossed the Nueces
river without knowing it. The dust
was so thick that he did not perceive
that the road crossed the dry bed of
the river. About two hours after I
crossed the Nueces river without
knowing it, a tidal wave six feet high
came rolling down the river bed. Six
hours afterward the river had risen
thirty feet, and before twenty-four
hours had passed away the river iu
some places was upward of three miles
wide, and at the place where I stirred
up the dust the raging waters were
deep enough to lloat the Great East¬
ern.
The Cibolo is a creek, between Aus¬
tin and Antonio, that for many miles
runs almost altogether under ground.
It consists of a succession of pools. The
water sinks out of sight, and reappears
a mile or so distant. The banks of the
Cibolo are quite steep, and in some
places are forty or fifty feet, which
makes it very difficult for wagons to
cross, particularly in wet weather.
The San Antonia, Comal, San Marl
cos, Gaiulaloupe, Brazos, and Sabine
rivers do not become actually dry, but
in summer they dwindle away to ah
most nothing. The statement that th#
water gets so low that the catfish liavl
to stand on their heads and fan them*
selves with their tails to keep cool ii
exaggerated a little.
The habit the Texas rivers have of
rising sixty feet in twenty-four houri
makes the building of railroads very
expensive in Texas. The bridges ovei
the apparently most insignificant
streams have to he made very high,
and of the most durable material.
When a stranger sees an immense
bridge over a small stream, he is in¬
clined to suggest that the people sell
the bridge and buy some water to put
In the creek, hut after there has been 9
rise it would he more appropriate t*
sell some water to buy a new bridge.-*
A. E. (Sweet in Texas Siftings.
In Hard Luck.
“I think I’m the unluckiest man in
town,” said a husband to his wife.
“Smith has owed me $20 for threa
months, and he promised to pay ine
to-day.”
“Didn’t he pay ?” she asked, anxi¬
ously.
“Yes, he paid, but while he w'as in
the act of giving me the money Brown
came in—you know I’ve owed Brown
$20 for more than a year—and, of
course I had to turn the money over
to him. That’s what I call hard luck.”
—New York Sun.
Why the Vase Looked Small.
Bromley—That is a beautiful vase
you have in your hall, DeBagg. Is it
a new purchase?
DeBaggs--Yes, my wife bought it
last Tuesday.
“I admired it very much. Quite a
a work of art, and so large !”
“Very. But there was an aitaoh
ment came with it that made the vase
seem very small.”
“indeed! What was it?”
“The bill.”— Calk