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Tliere will he plenty of international
exhibitions this year. Among others
will be one relating to music at Bologna,
one at Vienna, covering architecture,
sculpture and painting, and one at Mel¬
bourne comprising everything.
There is such a boom ia the Argentine
Republic that Buenos Ayres has become
the dearest city in the world to live in.
The city is growing very fast, and rents
are up to the skies. Provisions of every
description are almost as high as in Eu.
rope, and general living expenses have
rapidly increased.
China lias made more progress toward '
civilization in the last five years than fo
twenty years before. The population of
the empire is so vast that it is estimated
that 24 are dying every minute, 34,500
every day, and 13,441,600 every year. At
this rate the whole population of the
~ United Status would be swept off in five
years.
The interior of a cafe at Montmartre,
France, is modeled like an immense tub,
and the illusion is further carried out by
the circular shape of the doors and win¬
dow frames. As the signboard bears the
classic inscription “Diogenes,” there is
some curiosity to know if the proprietor
of the cafe tiiinks there is no honest
man outside his establishment.
J. N. Bigles represents a syndicate of
United States capitalists who propose to
build a railroad from Quebec to the most
easterly point of Labrador, from whence
they will run fast steamers to England in
eighty-four hours. By this route a
traveler could leave Washington, D. C.,
on a Monday evening and eat his dinnci
iu England on the following Saturday.
The whole population of Utah is at
least 200,000; four-fifths of them are
Mormons in religious faith; the rest are
non-Mormons or what are called there
“Gentiles.” There are or lately were,
about 2,000 heads of polygamous fam¬
ilies. Very many of them are old people,
some of them married their plural wives
long before there was any prohibitory
law against such marriages. These
older people and their older wives are
now rapidly passing away. The younger
men of the Mormon faith, of the ages of
40 and under, have not married more
than one wife.
The London Telegraph says that it is
an “undoubted fact that thousands and
hundreds of thousands of acres of fine
farming land in ‘the British Islands’ can¬
not at present be let to tenants at ten
shillings, or even less per acre. Yet it
thinks that ‘the horizon is brightening
all round for the sorely-tried agricultural
classes,’ and that ‘better time3 are in
store for British farmers.’” It believes
the improvement is coming in the
direction of stock-raising to supply the
large demand for beef and mutton,
•which has been to so large an extent
supplied from abroad.
British officials in India are much
troubled about the affairs of the King of
Oude, who died recently at Calcutta. He
and the members of his family had about
5,000 servants, many of whom had their
families with them, so that about 10,000
persons were in one capacity or another
resident about his palace and dependent
on him. How to provide for all these
•was the problem. The Government has
devised a scale of gratuities for such of
the King’s servants as will agree to re¬
turn to Lucknow, and, further, a free
passage is to be given them. The re¬
moval will involve the transfer of a
•whole town Horn Calcutta to Lucknow.
The debts of the King are said to be
enormous, and the claims from creditors
still larger and more numerous. It is
anticipated that the cutting down of the
claims will be of a ruthless kind.
The New York city police last year
arrested 80,996 persons, IP, 139 of whom
were females. The station houses shel¬
tered 71,333 male and 50,378 female
lodgers. The causes of arrest were: In¬
toxication, 38,594, including 8,402
women; disorderly conduct, 13,532, in¬
cluding 1,95S women; burglary, 013;
petty larceny, 3,360; picking pockets,
323; violations of the Excise law, 4,701.
host children numbered 3,263and found¬
lings 177 ,
Mexico is making a high bid for im¬
migration. It is reported that the Mex¬
ican Government has made a concession
to a real estate company, whereby 55,
000,000 acres of land in eleven different
States is to come into its possession, to be
occupied by immigrants. Settlers on
these tracts are to be exempt from tax¬
ation on the land, and the Government
guarantees them protection. It is pro¬
posed to establish agencies in the prin¬
cipal cities of America and Europe to in¬
duce immigration to Mexico.
The fact that fifteen to twenty-five
steamers a month arc now arriving at the
mouth cf the Congo, illustrates the
growth of commerce in tint region of
Africa since Stanley showed the im¬
portance of the great river. One ocean
steamer has already ascended the river
to Boma, fifty miles from the sea, and
the best channels are being marked bj
buoys, so that deep-draught vessels may
safely navigate the lower river. 1 ittle
hotels for the entertainment of travelers
have been built at Banana and Boma.
One reason why the whites on the lowei
river enjoy far better health than
formerly is said to be because they have
discarded canned meats and now raise
their own beef. Cattle thrive finely at
Boma, and it takes a steer every three
days to feed the whites who are now
living at that station.
A Wife's Devotion.
A remarkable case of a wife’s devotion
has been reported from North Bay, Can¬
ada, where, in a dreary and isolated hut,
lived John Benoit, his wife and five chil¬
dren on the shore of Lake Nipising.
Benoit’s wife had been bedridden for
many months, and was helpless to attend
to the household duties, which devolved
upon the husband and the elder of the
children. On Thursday home Benoit, who
had been absent from at lionsteel’s
Point, started to return, but when within
100 yards from the shore he found thick
ice which prevented his going farther
ahead in his bark canoe. With an axe
he commenced cutting a channel, but
had not proceeded far when this fell out
of his hands into the water. He then
started to crawl on hands and knees to¬
ward the shore, but his heavy weight
broke the ice, and he was thrown into
the freezing shore water. When twenty feet
from the he became exhausted, and
could proceed no farther or lift himself
out of the ice, which would now bear him
up. From her sick bed his wife had wit¬
nessed his struggles through a window,
and, unable to contain herself longer,
rushed out of the house, without shoes
or stockings, on to the ice, where she, as
if by supernatural strength, managed to
pull him unconscious, out. By this time he had be¬
come and for over three
hours she endeavored to keep him alive
in by the rubbing hope and that keeping would his body warm,
help come, but to
no avail, as he died at eleven o’clock at
night. she Seeing that his life was extinct,
then started, with the youngest child
in her arms, for the nearest neighbor’s,
five miles distant, where help was secured
and the body taken from the ice.—
Globe-Democrat.
Floating Gardens of Cashmere.
The floating gardens on the rivers are
formed by the long sedges being inter¬
woven into a mat, earth being superim¬
posed thereupon and the stalks finally
cut under the bottom water, thus the releasing lake; they them
from of are
usually about twenty by twelve yards in
size. A dishonest Cashmiri will some¬
times tow his neighbor’s garden away
from its moorings and appropriate its
produce, which generally includes cu
curbitaceous fruits and vegetables and a
India fine description of grape .—Highlands of
SUGAR MAKING.
THE PROCESSES OP MANUFAC
ICRE IN LOUISIANA.
A Machine Which Chews up the
Cane Into Pulp.—Operating
the .Juices — The Three
Products of the Mill.
™ The Magnolia house , . generally ,,
known sugar »
m Louisiana as having the best
machinery and all the new processes. It
is not much imitated, for two reasons:
I'n-st, the conservatism of the older class
the o. planters, which leads them to stick to
methods they understand, and sec
end, the fact that the business of sugar
making able has not been sufficiently profit
in recent years to enable planters of
moderate capital to purchase new ap
paratus. their They are and obliged to hold on
to old pans kettles for want of
money to buy new'. Let us now go into
the great irregular brick building, with
its three tower-like chimneys and its
general big factory air, which contains
the sugar making plant, promising at
the start to go through hastily, and not
to bore the reader with details about
macninery, or with the fine scientific _
points of the business
h irst t.ie owner of Maspioua calls at
tention to his bagasse burner, whicn
makes more than half the steam used to
run the mill. Formerly the b.igasse-,
which is the cane after it has parted with
as much of its juice as the mill will ex¬
tract, was either burned in a furnace to
get rid of it or thrown out on the levee
to help fight off the river from eating
away the bank. Now every econom¬
ically managed mill burns it to make
steam by the aid of the draught of an
enormous burn chimney. The best method is
to it on the grates, under which air
is forced by a blower.
The canes, hauled in the big carts from
the fields, are dumped upon an endless
band and carried into the mill, usually
direct to the big iron rollers, but at
Magnolia fiist to a “shredder.” There
are only two shredders in the State, the
machine being a new invention. Its re¬
volving The teeth chew up the cane into pulp.
pulp and juice fall upon a rubber
apron, which carries them into the mill;
grinding three is simply squeezing between
or four sets of iron rollers. Now
:he juice runs in a trough to a strainer,
where a woman gathers up now' and then
these shreds of cane remaining and takes
them back to the mill. Next the juice
is pumped into an iron cylinder called
the “juice heater, ”, and heated with ex¬
haust steam to 190 degrees. This is a
lew process not much in use. Next it
runs into the claiifiers or defecators,
which are large iron vats with row's of
steam pipes at the bottom. Here slacked
quicklime is added, which brings to the
top all impurities, to be skimmed off into
a division of the pan at the end. The
juice is then boiled and “ brushed ” with
a white, long paddie until the bubbles become
w'hen it is allowed to settle for
fifteen minutes. There is a side oper¬
ation for saving the sugar in the skim
mings by putting them through filter
presses.
In the advanced process at Magnolia
the juice next goes through bone black
filters instead of to the ordinary settling
tanks, to settle for six or seven hours. A
filter is a big iron drum containing 10,
000 pounds of animal bone black. The
“char” must be washed with hot water
filtering, every two days and dried in a kiln. After
the juice, still thin as when
first pressed from the cane, goes to the
“double effects.” This is a new appa¬
ratus, portable resembling two upright boilers of
a machine engine. Each cupola-like
contains 500 tubes, in which
the juice is boiled in a vacuum by exhaust
steam. The usual plan is to boil in an
open cylindrical pan, having coils of
steam juice pipe at the bottom. Now the
goes to fresh filters, and next to
the vacuum pan, which is not a pan, but
a big iron cupola-shaped cylinder, with
an apparatus for exhausting the air and
multitudinous coils of steam pipe. This
is the process requiring most skill. The
chief sugar maker attends to it himself,
watching his vacuum gauge and ther¬
mometer carefully, and testing every
few minutes his boiling mass by drawing
out a tube which does not break the
vacuum.
He seeks to keep the temperature
down to 130 degrees. If it is too high
some of the surcose will “invert” "or
“caramel” into glucose, and the pro¬
portion of sugar will be lessened. First
he fills ‘ the pan only in part. Then
when he sees fine granulations of sugar
against the light in his test tube he ad»
mits more juice, and thus builds up the
grains little by little to laiger size.
When sufficiently boiled flhe thick syrup
iscalledthe ‘‘massa cuite.” The “strike”
is now done, air is admitted to the pan
and the contents are run -off into the
“mixer”—a huge oblong iron pan in
which steam arms revolve. Next the
“masse cuito” falls into the “centrifu¬
gals,” which are small drums Within holding
about 120 pounds of sugar. the
drum is a wire screen basket revolving
at the rate of 1,600 turns per minute.
The centri f uga i force throws but the
rnolasses through the wire network and
j eaves the sugar. Perfectly clear water
ia tbeu spurte d into the'drum from
a syringe. the This water is thrown out
through sugar, washing out the re
maining of the coloring trifu|al matter. The motion
cen is now stopped and
t he sugar let out of a trap in the bottom
into a screw con veyor, from which a
bucket band is carried to a big shovels bin. A
man stan d s i n the bin and the
suaar; as jf ft were wheat, into a tube
un der which the barrels are placed one
by one to receive it.
This first product of the sugar mill is
called “firsts,” and is the whitest and
best su r The molasses ig boiled
aga j u j tl the vacuum pan, goes again
through br0W the called centrifugals, “seconds” and a light
n sugar results,
Yet again the remaining molasse 3 goes
the pans, but the “masse cuite” is now
sticky " and stringy, and will not yield
its sugar to the centrifugals. It is put
into iron tanks on wheels called
“wagons,” each of which holds about
2,500 pounds, and wheeled into the hot
room. The temperature here is from 90
in to 100 degrees. Here the wagons stand
closely is packed rows for thirty days.
The mass now very stiff and waxy. It
is next thrown into the boiler, stirred up
well and put into the centrifugals with
cold water, which washes out the mo¬
lasses. The final remainder of sugar is
called “thirds” and is of a dark brown
color. The separated and molasses is of a
very poor quality Distillers sells for only about
13 cents alcohol a gallon. the use it to
make and glucose manufac¬
turers buy it to give a cane flavor to
their glucose syrup.— E. V. Smalley in
Century.
Gold “Bankets” in South Africa.
In the Witwatersrandt district (South
Africa), the gold-bearing formation is.«
what is known as “banket,” a sort of
conglomerate that is wonderfully easy
to reduce. Banket can be reduced for
less than $5 a ton. It is composed of a
sort fine of pebbly quartz, sand. cemented A together
by silicious piece of it
may easily be crushed, beneath the foot,
and a little water poured over a lump
will cause it to crumble at once.
Such is a “banket,” and the gold ia
contained chiefly in the cement. Veins
of positive quartz are found in the same
reefs as the banket, but the mills are
working exclusively on the latter so far.
Banket runs in lodes or veins, varying
from one to twenty feet wide. There is
such an abundance of this material near
the surface that it is practically inex¬
haustible, and as deep as shafts have
thus far been sunk it holds its own in
width of vein and richness. Thousands
of stamps may find remunerative employ¬
ment night and day for years on banket
now in plain sight.
At present nearly a thousand stamps
are working steadily on banket in tae
Witwatersrandt district alone, and it is
thought that by this time next year six
times that number will be hard at it.
The average clean-up yields about one
and one-half ounces of gold to the stamp
per day. At this rate some of the
companies have commenced paying divi¬
dends at the rate of fifty per cent. a.
year on the capital invested, and shares
are held at ten and twelve times their
original cost a few months ago. This
is what may be called an exceedingly
healthy state of affairs, everything being
bona-fide from beginning to end.
The banket lodes were discovered a
year ago by a Pretorean named Stuben.
The district was totally wild and un¬
inhabited, a barren plateau, considered
fit for nothing. Then came the inevitable
rush, and with mushroom spontaneity
has sprung into existence the town of
Johannisberg, already numbering 6,000
inhabitants .—New York World
In Long Metre.
There is a young lady iu Keokuk,
Iowa, who is six feet four inches tall,
and she is engaged to be it married. words; The
man who won her did in these
“Thy I’d beauty set my soul aglow,
wed thee right or wrong;
Man wants but little here below,
But wants that little long.”
