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The last penny of the $100,000 which
Buffalo proposes to give as a prize to the
man who invents a feasible method of
harnessing the immense water power of
Niagara has been subscribed.
On January 1, 1887, President Grevy,
of France, received 8,000 callers. On
the first day of the present year fourteen
persons visited ex-Presidcnt Grevy. That
little prefix “ex” is terribly potent in
this world.
There are two hundred private rail¬
road cars in the United States, represent¬
ing a value of nearly $5,000,000. They
are worth anywhere from $1,000 to
$60,000 each, the most luxurious, prob¬
ably, being that owned by George M.
Pullman.
In the matter of eclipses the United
States is treated perhaps a shade better
in 188S than usual, as the eclipses of the
moon are visible here. But none of the
solar eclipses are to be seen, and it is
surely time some consideration was
shown in this respect.
The total cf anthracite coal for the
past year is put at 84,400,000 tons in
round numbers, exclusive of local sa cs
at the mines and colliery consumption.
The total for 1880, with which these
5gures are to be compared, was 82,106,
303 gross tons. Crediting the present
year with an increase of 5 per cent, only,
will show up a total of 86,120,900 tons
for 1888.”
Colonel George L. Ferkins, Trcasurci
of the Norwich and Worcester Railroad,
is the oldest railroad official in the Uni¬
ted States, and probably in the world.
He is ninety-nine years old, is six feet
two inches in height and stands as
straight as many men of thirty. Colonel
Perkins is the only surviver of the pas¬
sengers who steamed down the Hudson
in Fulton’s pioneer steamboat, the Cler¬
mont, on her trial trip.
Among the many expenses that Wall
street brokers have to face every year is
the item for flowers with which they
brighten and adorn their offices in the
Metropolis. Winter and summer, spring
and fall, huge hunches of expensive po¬
sies are kept on hand in many of the at¬
tractive offices. It is reckoned that the
average expense for an office is $10 a day.
At dusk the office boys and lesser clerks
divide the flowers, and who knows but
some tender heart has had one or two
ecstatic beats at receiving some of them?
Late details of the Chinese floods
make the story one of the most terrible
in history. What was a beautiful,
populous district of 10,000 square miles
is now a rolling sea. At least 3,000,000
people are homeless and absolute'y desti¬
tute of the barest necessaries of life,
while it is thought that the loss of life
will reach 750,000. Everything in the
way of figures is as yet, however, pure
speculation, with the chances of a total
mortality far greater than the present
estimate. Court and business circles in
Pekin, Canton and other centres, are
doing all in human power to cope with
the disaster.
The new industry in the South, which
has been noted, develops another use
for pine needles besides that of spread¬
ing an aromatic odor from the filling of a
pillow. One product of these needles is
a remarkably strong oil, claimed to pos¬
sess valuable medicinal properties; an¬
other is pine wool, which is bleached,
dyed and woven, this wool being a fleecy
brown mass, possessing a pleasant odor
which gives it value as a moth destroyer
when employed in the form of carpet
lining; and to these is to be added an¬
other product made from this wool, viz.,
a strong, cheap matting, adapted for
halls, stairways and offices.
More than a hundred descendants in
Milwaukee of Martin Ivroeger, the oldest
man in Wisconsin, received their aged
relative at a party reunion recently. He
is 114 years old and a native of Prussia.
He was a resident of Milwaukee from
1850 until three years ago. His eldest
son is 78 years old, and he has great
grandchildren 25 years old who have
children. He looks as though he were
about 60; goes about without a cane,
and is as clear-headed and jolly an old
man as there is in Wisconsin. He can
see very well without glasses, hear per¬
fectly, and has an unimpaired memory.
He was in the wagon train of Napoleon's
irmy in its invasion of Russia, aud tells
many a reminiscence of the campaign.
The American Cultivator refers to the
fact that New Zealand is making a prac¬
tical effort to compete with America in
the supplying of cheese to the .English
market and adds: “Advices from New
Zealand state that in the provinces of
Otago aud Southland alone there are
over twenty cheese factories operating
already, turning out each season an
average of fifty or sixty tons of cheese,
and capable of doubling the production,
[n the other provinces there are also
several factories in operation; and,
though on a less extensive scale, the
total yield from both the north and
niddle islands for the season ending
luly last is estimated at about 1500 tons
of cheese. Up to last year a market was
found for the whole output in New
Zealand and Aust alia, but this year the
producers are looking to England for a
market for their surplus cheese. It will
probably be some time before there is an
important factor in the competition with
American cheese, but it will be well foi
our checsemakers to be forewarned, that
they may endeavor, by superior make
and quality, to still command the
British markets.”
Tons of Diamonds.
Surely even Sindbad the Sailor never
ventured to compute his diamonds by the
ton. Six and a half tons of diamonds,
valued at about £10,000,000, are reported
to have been extracted from four African
mines alone in the course of the last few
years. The other great diamond field of
the world is India, also a British posses¬
sion. Everybody knows that Amster¬
dam has hitherto been the center of the
diamond-cutting industry of the world,
and in former times there was a good
reason for this, as in London, at least,
the industry was extinct. But every¬
body probably does not know that of
late years efforts have been successfully
made to reintroduce diamond cutting in
England, and that English cutters have
beaten the Dutch in several recent prize
competitions. trade—the Considering L’nited the enormous
value of the States
alone, it is calculated, requires £3,000,000
worth of ent diamonds per annum—care
should be taken that English diamonds
should be cut in England, and not be
sent either to Amsterdam or to Antwerp
and Paris, which have lately endeavored
to secure a portion of the Dutch trade.—
English Paper.
First Use of Torpedoes in Naval
Warfare.
Francis Edgar Shepperd is said to have
been the first man to use the torpedo in
naval warfare. He came of an old North
Carolina family, and was a graduate of
the Naval Academy. He resigned when
his State seceded, and entered the Con¬
federate Navy. Twenty-five years ago
federate Shepperd, then blew a Captain the United in the States Con¬
Navy, up
gunboat Cairo with an old-fashioned
fixed Mississippi. torpedo fastened Lieutenant-Commander, to the bottom of
the
now Rear Admiral, Thomas O. Selfridge,
was in command of the Cairo. He and
his men were badly shaken, but no one
was killed or seriously injured. Captain
Shepperd, who was lying on the bank
watching the explosion, made up Jiis
mind then and there that that was a
cowardly would way have of fighting, and of that it. he
not any more He
never used another torpedo. He died
recently in Georgetown, and was buried
near Philadelphia .—Ntw York Sun.
Forty-five years ago there was not &
postage stamp in the. United Sta' cs.
A MAN’S BITE.
THE AWFUL SUFFERING IT EN¬
TAILED ON THE VICTIM.
Racked With the Torturing; Spasms
and Convulsions that Attend
Hydrophobia—How a
Cure was Effected.
A recent letter from New York to the
Cincinnati dog Enquirer says; Because one
in a million is vicious, turns up his
nose to water and perhaps is tortured into
a delirious state, it is nonsense to con¬
demn all the other dogs in the world. A
real rabid dog is as rare as the genuine
hydrophobia is in man. While thousands
recover from dog-bites without anything
woise than temporary inconvenience, yet
it is an established fact that the bite of
a man, which is not thought to be dan¬
gerous. is more to be dreaded than the
bite of a dog without rabies. Taken
case for ease, the dog-bite wilt heal more
rapidly, and there will be fewer consti¬
tutional disturbances. The bite of a
human being is very troublesome. The
recovery from such a wound is always of
a lingering its responsibility, nature, and seems without to go along
on to the own remedies used. Death sometimes regard
follows from human bites given while
the owner of the teeth was in an intense
passion, a condition resembling some
stages of rabies in the dog.
The miscroseopc, advanced chemical
experiments and discovered the intelligence of things in¬
vestigators have many
that a few years ago were thought to be
unknownable, but with all the increase
in knowledge and the facilities for in¬
vestigation the hydrophobic poison re¬
mains as much a mystery as ever. The
effect of inoculation has been carefully
studied to determine, if possible, the re¬
semblance of.the symptoms to those
whicli follow the use of well-known poi¬
sons, but the hydrophobic poison stands
alone. It has symptoms common to all
poisons, and a few others which belong
to it alone, but it is as mysterious and
unknown in its nature as in its action.
The effect of the bite of a human being is
well shown in the case of Agustus
Spencer, admitted to Bellevue Hospital
as a patient. Spencer is a machinist and
got into a row with a fellow-workman
about a girl who showed a preference for
Spencer. thrown During and the melee Spencer ho had was
down, his assailant, w
wrought himself into a fastened passion, his bit off
the end of his nose and teeth
so firmly in the neck that the jaws had
to be pried open with an iron bar.
Spencer suffered severe pain from the
bites—muchgreater than is usual wound in more
extensive lacerations. The in
the neck was directly over the carotid
artery, and if the teeth had been a trifle
longer it would have been severed.
Spencer went to a neighboring cauterized drugstore,
where the wounds were and
dressed. He was confined to his house
for several days, aud then went back to
his work. The neck wound appeared to
be healing well until when about two weeks
after the injury, it became the seat
of an active imfiammation. The neck
swelled and the wound had a livid
appearance, The nose did not seem to
be as much affected. There was a sensa¬
tion of numbness in the neck, which
soon included the whole head, aud gave
the impression to Spencer that his head
was off his shoulders, He became ap
prehensive, and got an idea that some¬
thing terrible was going to happen, and
he would have to suffer greatly. His face
wore the look of utter despair that is
common cholia. to people unable suffering sleep from for melan¬
He was to any
length of time, and When he would fall
into a doze he would wako suddenly,
gasping with terror at some horrible
dream. twisting He complained all the time of of a
terrible pain in the nape the
neck. He suffered from nausea all the
time, and frequently vomited a green,
offenssye fluid. Though he had these and
many similar symptoms, the nature of his
malady was not suspected until a spasm
in the throat followed an attempt to
drink water. Repeated trials with dif¬
ferent fluids produced that the the seme effect,
with the exception spasms were
more intense and covered a longer period.
In afew hours such after the spasms condition began
Spencer was in a nervous
that the slightest motion anywhere in
the room would produce convulsions in
the facial, thoracic and abdominal mus¬
cles. A fiend from the infernal regions
could not look worse than he did when
his face was distorted. All these condi¬
tions pointeil to hydrophobia, bite and as
there was no history of a dog the bite in the
case, it could only come from of
the man, and this was remarkable, ia-
deed. His sufferings dethroned liis.
reason and made him a raving maniac,
and he was taken to the Hospital, biting,
snapping, howling and spitting like a
mad dog. His face was alternately red
and white, and his eyes seemed to
be bursting from his head. He
kill was constantly calling for some one to
him, and his strength was --so great
that he could only be controlled by put¬
ting lasted him in a strait-jacket. The spasms
about fifteen minutes, and each
one was followed by a greater collapse,
and it was only a question of a little
while when the patient would die if not
relieved. Lachesis, hyoscyamus and
stramonium were given in large does, be¬
side chloral and opium, without having
any Dr. perceptible effect.
Robb, one of the consulting
physicians of Bellevue, heard of the case
and hastened to the hospital. It was just
the chance he had long been looking
for. He is an expert on hydrophobia,
and believes that he can cure any ease,
no matter how far it has advanced. The
patient was on the edge of death, but
Dr. Robb had him put in an ambulance
and driven rapidly to a Turkish bath
establishment a few blocks away. He
had a spasm on the road, and came out
of the horrible paroxysms more dead than
alive. Before he was in another spasm
he was in a temperature almost hot
enough to boil the flesh. He did not
sweat. He was given diluted, a hypodermic aud in¬
jection of ammonia it set all
the vital organs going at a lively rate.
The pores flew open and the sweat poured
out in little streams. A spasm came and
it was so terrible that it did not seem
possible that the patient would survive
it. But he did, and when the spasm
came again it was not so strong as before,
and did not last so long. Exhaustion is
what kills patients with this disease,and
Dr. Robb fought this with large quan¬
tities of whisky. In a little while the
patient got so that his skin could be
touched without producing a rubbing convulsion, by
and he was given a vigorous rubbed
the attendants. The legs were
until they bled. The swentings con¬
tinued, and in about an hour the spasms
became so mild that they amounted to
little more than quiverings of the
muscles, and the surroundings. patient became asked con¬
scious of his He
for a drink, and swallowed a quart
of lukewarm water without any
trouble The temperature was slowly
reduced to eighty-five degrees, and the
patient was kept in the room for six
hours. By this time there were no¬
spasms, and the patient was wrapped up
and returned and to the hospital. only just He about was
weak, even now can been kept
lift his head. The whisky has There
up regularly with a light diet.
have been” no spasms. Dr. Robb is
satisfied that hydrophioba can be cured
with ammonia, whisky and heat. The
only drawback is that the case did not
result from a dog-bite, but every one who
saw the ease admits that the symptoms
could not have been worse if the and patient it is
had been bitten by a rabid clog,
generally conceded that if this patient why
could be cured there is no reason
hydrophobia from the bite of a dog could
not be cured with the same treatment.
Iudians Fifty Years Ago.
“What kind of people were the In¬
dians in those days?” was asked.
“The best people I ever saw,” was the
prompt reply. “They never knew taught any
wrong except what the whites
them. They naturally taught each other
all the evil they knew. They were hon¬
est as the day and faithful until death
when they had possessed a friendship for
you. I have known Indians who pro¬
fessed friendship for me to kill other
Indians who wanted to do me harm.
Brother would kill brother. No book
ever written or anything else ever pub¬
lished has done justice to theIuclian char¬
acter. The vice and deviltry of the
whites have made them what they are.
— Omaha Herald.
Wedding Celebrations.
The following list shows the order in
which the various wedding celebrations
properly come; wed¬
At the end of the first year—Cotton
ding. Second year—Paper wedding.
Third year—Wooden year—Leather wedding. wedding.
Fifth
Seventh year—Woolen wedding.
Tenth year—Tin wedding. wedding.
Twelfth year—Silk year—Crystal and fine wedding. linen
Fifteenth
Twentieth year—China year—Silver wedding. wedding.
Twenty-fifth year—Pearl wedding.
Thirtieth
Fortieth year—Ruby wedding.
Fiftieth year—Golden year—Diamond wedding. wedding.
Seventy-fifth
