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kibout and penswnTcIaim agents have absorbed
one hundred million dollars of the
money paid as pensions since the Civil
War.
Slaveholders in Brazil are opposing
the final extinction of slavery on the
ground that it will be impossible to
carry ou coffee planting on a large scale
if slavery is abolished.
Royal weddings ought to be numerous
•within the next few months. Recent
statistics point out that there are now in
'Europe 108 Princes aud 66 Princesses of
marriageable age. Only six of these are
betrothed.
Chicago newspapers are bragging con¬
siderably because, as they say, the State
of New York has dropped to the sixth
place, judged by her miles of railroads,
and because Illinois stands first, Iowa,
Kansas, Texas, Pennsylvania, New York
and Ohio follow in order.
The latest London novelty is the utili¬
zation of the drop-a-nickel-in-the-slot
machine to the purposes of insurance.
A company has been organized, to be
known as the Automatic Accident In¬
surance Box Company, and its object is
stated to be “to provide the public with
a ready means of obtaining an insurance
for twenty-four hours against death aris¬
ing from accidents of every description
by simply placing a penny in the slot of
a box.
In 1870 the census returns showed that
the residence and business real estate
in the United States was valued at $0,
881,000,000, audit is reasonably certain
from the progress made since that date
it has increased fully one-fifth, amount¬
ing in 1887 to $12,000,000,000. The
railroads of the country in 1880 were
valued at $5,500,000,000, and taking
$50,000 as the average per mile of build¬
ing and equipping, there have been con¬
structed since then enough miles of rail¬
way to cost $2,700,000,000. That is in
seven years half as much has been ex¬
pended in railroad building as in all the
previous years, from .the time when
Stephenson's invention was first utilized.
The out-put of coal has been increased
from 70,000,000tons in 1880 tolG0,000,
000 tons in 1886, an advance of 50 per
cent. The production of copper has
more than doubled, and that of iron ore
and its products, iron and steel, has
been largely increased.
The New York Times thus editorially
summarizes recent results of the use of
the deadly car stove: Reports of rail¬
road accidents show that the car stove
is still used and still finds victims. A
west-bound passenger train on the Union
Pacific Road wa3 struck by a following
freight and two of its cars were tele¬
scoped. Both were burned by fire from
the coal stoves which they carried. “A1
the injured were removed before the
flames could reach them, except a boy
three years old, who was held in the
wreck and burned to death.” A passen¬
ger train on the Chester and Lenoir
Road fell through a trestle at Hickory,
N. C. “The cars took fire and were con¬
sumed.” No one was burned to death,
but several persons were seriously in¬
jured. A car containing immigrants
became detached from a train on the
Southern Pacific, near Sumner, Cal.,
and afterward rolled down an embank¬
ment. “The stove was overturned,”
says the report, “and the car caught fire.
Instantly everything was in a blaze. The
terrified passengers tried to escape, but
several were fatally hurt and others
severely burned. ” The cars of the train
which were wrecked at Bradford, Mass.,
were heated by steam. If they had con¬
dead tained would the old have coal stoves the list of the
been longer.
Frank Vincent, Jr., the author of “The
Land of the White Elephant,” may very
properly be called the great American
traveler. Within the last eleven years
he has traveled ‘.365,000 miles, and the
records of his outings are contained in a
dozen books of adventure aud dis¬
covery.
Some idea of the scale of the tunnel
operations under the bed of the Harlem
River, in connection with the new Cro¬
ton acqueduct, may be formed from the
fact that the shaft which has been sunk
on the northerly bank of the river to
meet the mouth of the tunnel is 426 feet
in depth—more than the length of two
cityjblocks. It is 36x17 feet in length and
breadth, with two elevators running day
and night, each capable of accommodat¬
ing twenty men. Excavation is goiug
on at the rate of nine feet per day. So
far the tunnel has progressed 550 feet
into the bed of the river. The distance
to be completed is 1,300 feet. The tun¬
nel is lighted by electricity from a
dynamo above ground.
The savage Kiug of the Metabeie. in
South Africa, has probably never heard
of the game laws of civilized nations,
but it has occurred to him that some¬
thing should be done to save the
elephants from utter extermination, and
he has set about the task. He has
issued an order that white men be no
longer allowed to hunt the elephant in
his large territory. lie says the Dutch
and English hunters have left very few
elephants alive, and that he will not
permit the noble animals to be hunted
again until they have largely increased
in number. The ivory trade South of
Zambesi is no longer profitable, hecause
so few elephants fall in the way of
huntera. No part of Africa is now rich
in ivory except the unhunted region of
the Congo basin.
The Color or the Sea.
Artists always seem at a loss to deal
with the color of the sea, and few arc
those who please the public. Professor
Tyndall has come to their aid. He re¬
cognizes three principal hues in the sea
waves—blue, green and yellow. Solid
partiejes held in the water act as minute
mirrors reflecting the light which pene¬
trates the liquid. The rays which are
sent out, after having traversed only a
thin stratum of water, preserve their
yellow parts; but if the reflections are
attenuated the water appears green; and
if they do not exist at ail, the sea being
clear and free from muddy matters, the
color is deep blue. In an indigo sea the
crest of the waves will appear green ou
account of thoir lack of thickness. Sea¬
weed, animalculte and other local or ac¬
cidental causes may have much influence
on the color of the water .—Court
Journal.
Seedless Raisins.
“What is a ‘seedless’ raisin, and how
is it produced?” was asked of an im¬
porter of fruits. “The next time you
eat a piece of mince pie,” he replied,
“you will find the seedless raisin in it,
if the ‘meat’ has been properly made. It
is a smallish, cream-colored fruit, about
the size of a gooseberry, and is used with
an unbroken skin. It comes from Smyrna,
and is called the ‘Sultana.’ It is grown
seedless, simply by arresting one of the
laws of nature. When the grape is about
half ripe the end of the vine is bent and
buried in the ground. This prevents
the formation of seed and the full de¬
velopment of the fruit, but it ripens all
the same, and lias a delicious flavor.”—
Pitiladelphin Time*.
Died With Horns Locked
E. J. Shipman came across two large
deer in the woods north of Thorp, with
their horns locked together, in which con¬
dition they had evidently been for several
days. One of the animals was dead and
frozen stiff when found, but the other
was alive and evidently in a starving
condition, having dragged the dead deer
a distance of about forty rods and ripped
the brush and ground up generally in his
efforts to get loose. Mr. Shipman de¬
heads spatched the live deer and to get their
apart had to break the horns of
each.— Wausau (Wis.) Central.
tJTT&JOTEMM^X
AN ACCOUNT OF OUR FRIE74DLY
MONGOLIAN VISITORS.
Their disantic Hats and Gaudy
Raiment—A Nation of Gour¬
mands—Some of their
Peculiar Customs.
New A Washington York correspondent writing of the
Work/, concerning
the Corean Embassy to this country,
says: ,
•It is the first time Corea has been
represented here as a fixture, and the
Coreans came direct from San Francisco.
They regist ered their names as a legation,
spelling Corea with a K.
But where and what is Corea? It is
a peninsula, of the shape of Florida or
Italy, and of a size not larger than Kan¬
sas. It runs from the continent of Asia
down between China and Japan. The
country is mountainous and its climate
is like that of Ohio. It is well watered
and wooded, and it has, Dr. Allen tells
me, three 15,000,000 people, or more than
times as many as the State of New
York. It is not twice the size of New
York in area, and it has some large cities.
Seoul, the capital, is twenty-seven miles
from the seaport and it contains 300,000
people. It is here that the King lives,
and he has a grand palace, and his power
is almost despotic.
There arc ten Coreans in the Legation,
and seven of these have blue blood in
their veins. There are distinctive marks
about their dress which tell their rank,
and the Minister has a gold button on the
side of his head.
Pak Chung Yang, the Minister, is about
five feet five, anu his frame is slight
rather than portly. His skin is a pale
orange, or rather lemon color, and his
eyes just verge upon almond shape. They
arc black eyes, and the forehead above
them is broad and intelligent. He has
a beard straight and rather fat nose, and iris
is a very sparse imperial. His head
is never seen undressed except by his
servants, and lie braids his long hair
and fastens it on top of his head. This
he first covers with a of
woven silk and binds a silk band around
his foreherd. On the top of this skull-cap
rests the gigantic Corean hat which the
rest of the legation wear. Its crown is
of horsehair made over bamboo and silk.
Some of the hats are as black as though
made of papier-mache, and the Min¬
ister’s looks like one of Oliver Crom¬
well’s time, though it is made about
three sizes too small for his head. All
of these Corean hats are too small, and
that is the fashion, I suppose, in Corea.
On the top of the Minister’s hat is a
little button of gold, in which there is
a white feather, and his hat seems to
be held on by a baud of gold beads
which runs around his clun.
The Corean never cuts his hair, and he
wears it in a braid down his back until he
is married, when he has the right to curl
it on the top of his head. A man is not
supposed his hair to be a man until he can wear
on the top of his head.
These Coreans eat with their hats on.
They their have good manners, and they use
knives and their forks as though
they had never known any other method
of eating. They wipe their lips with
napkins and appreciate the use of fiuger
bowls.
The dresses of all the Legation seem to
be bellied out at the front. Indeed, in
Corea a capacious stomach is an honor
and full. a sign that the owner’s pocket is
To eat much there is de rigueur,
and the merit of the feast lies in the
quantity, rather than in the quality, of
the food served. There is little talking
develop while eating, the size and mothers take pains to
of the stomachs of their
children in infancy. They will take
their babies on their knees, says Criftis,
who Dr. Allen tells me, is the best au¬
thority on Corea, and, after stuffing them
with rice like the wad of a gun, will tap
them from time to time with a ladle on
the stomach to see that it is fully spread
out or rammed home, aud they only
cease possible gorging the when it is physically im¬
for child to swoll up more.
The Coreans eat everything, and
eating-matches are common. A quart
of rice is the ordinary portion of a la¬
borer, and this, when boiled with milk,
makes and a big peaches bulk. Dog meat is com¬
mon, and small melons are
devoured without peeling. A good sized
Corean thinks thirty peaches an ordinary
allowance, and beef is only eaten by the
better classes. The Coreans are not fas¬
tidious in their eating or ccoking. The
lower the intestines classes devour raw fish, and even
pass for delicate viands.
'I'TSIflSfSTSffy'vnnriEem a'jar of iffliiteil
pepper, and, when they hook a good
catch, they seize it between the two
fingers, dip it in the salt and eat it while
live squirming. well, The better classes, however,
but where .wages are not over
fifteen cents a day, what can you expect
of the poor?
The Corean race is Mongolian, and it
seems to partake of the character of that
of China and Japan. Its people are more
pjogressive than the Chinese, and less
animated with the spirit of progress than
the Japanese. A fair average of intelli¬
gence all the prevails among them, and nearly
Corean people language write is the Corean. The
is of bigger grade pollysyllabic, than Chinese. and it
a the
Every year the King of Corea sends a
present to the Emperor of China, and
the Emperor of China responds by send¬
ing one back to Corea.
There are some warriors among this
Corean Legation, and there are over
1,000,000 soldiers in Corea. The dress
of the warrior consists of a long silk
tunic of pale blue ^or pink, with deep
pendent sleeves of a bright red. This
represents the blood of war, and in his
court dress, before and behind, on breast
and on back, he has embroidered two
tigers.
It is now nearly six years since we
signed our treaty of peace and friendship
with Corea, and I am told that the. King
of Corea feels very friendly to the United
States. The Legation have great hopes
of the future of their country, and they
think that the progress is only begun.
Lending Human Bones.
The New'York Sun says that in the
“bone room” of the College of Physi¬
cians and Surgeons a large number of
disarticulated skeletons are kept and
loaned out to the students in the same
manner that books are lent from a circu¬
lating library. It numbered, is a novel labeled institution.
The bones are and
placed in order upon shelves»around the
room. An attendant is always on hand
acting rian. in the same capacity as a libra¬
It is his duty to keep track of the
bones lent, to enter them upon books and
to see that they are returned uninjured.
During the day scores of students flock in
and out of the place oorrying packages of
strange appearance in their hands or
sticking out of their pockets. They
contain human bones of all shapes and
sizes, which they are returning to or
taking from the “Bone Circulating enabled Li¬
brary.” By this means they are to
prosecute their studies at home. jSoma
of them may be seen going through the
streets carrying their fragments hands. of skeletons
uncovered in Every stu¬
dent is entitled to a complete skeleton
after having dissected an entire subject,
but during the prosecution of his stud¬
ies it is a great advantage to have sep¬
arate bones to study, and hence the es¬
tablishment of the circulating system.
Geniuses Who Were Dandies.
The foppery of great men has always
been a source of amusement—sometimes
of disgust—to their contemporaries. The
curled and scented ringlets of Disraeli
were and laughed is probable at by his that political Julius friends, Caesar
it very
was also laughed at, because he set the
fashion of wearing had earrings, confined which be¬
fore that been to women
and slaves. Disraeli’s letters, however,
proved that he could laugh at his own
foibles in dress. Like Byron, the great
Duke of Marlborough was a dandy when
young, but he lived to see the folly of his
ways. Whether the present generation
is wiser than its ancestors is, perhaps,
open to question, but there can be no
doubt that foppery us an institution is
dying out, although probably mild specimens of
the germs may exist until the
end of time. — Chambers' x Journal.
Crazy King Ludwig’s Property.
The sale of every scrap of property left
by the late poor King of Bavaria is pro¬
ceeding apace at Munich and other places. of
Even a royal stag—a favorite animal under
His Majesty—was to be brought
the hammer; but the noble animal lias
had the good sense to elude his pursuers
by liohenschwangau. bolting into the forest wilderness things lately of
the splendid Among dresses which.
sold were in
Louis loved to dress himself when per¬
sonifying Lohengrin aud Tannhauser iu
his nocturnral journeys in the Bavari&u
mountains. They fetched good prices,
but their destination would no doubt
make the sensitive art Prince turn in his
grave were he cognizant of it, thoir pur¬
chaser being a Viennese actor, who hopes
to Vanity gain notoriety Fair. by appearing in them.
—