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KNOXVILLE JOURNAL. KNOXVILLE, GEORGIA. It is estimated that $250,000 worth of grain was raised on the unused portion of public roads in Iowa last season. The sum of $400,000 was recently offered for the well-known English medical journal, the Lancet, which was founded in 1823 by Doctor Wakely. The offer was declined, the paper not being for sale. _ Three physicians have left Paris for " Australia, taking with them germs of chicken cholera. The Australians are about to adopt Pasteur’s plan of de¬ stroying their raobits, in the face of very strong opposition. In the office of the Recorder of Deeds, Philadelphia, is preserved a justice’s docket over 100 years old. One of the entries in the volume is as follows: “Commonwealth agt. Stej hen Blunt, July 24, 1778. Charged of drinking Damnation to General Washington and all his army. Defendant held in £200.” The Reverend A. J. Swartz, of Chi¬ cago, a believer in metaphysical healing, says that a letter was recently sent by a family in New Zealand describing the symptoms of a friend in this country who was sick with diphtheria. So graphically was the epistle written that its recipients in New Zealand at once became ill from diphtheria. Old Fhilip Winebiddle, the founder of the Winebiddle Estate in East Liberty, Penn., bought 100 acres of land where the City of Erie now stands sixty years ago and paid $300 for it. Almost be¬ fore the ink -was dry on the papers he made up his mind that he had been swindled, but thirty years later the land could not be bought for $2,000,000, and it is now worth $3,000,000. A correspodent, writing from Havana, says that ne never saw a people so clean in regard to their dress. A Cuban stev¬ edore will load molasses on a vessel for a week and one can hardly find a spot upon the white suit when Saturday night comes. The clerks in Havanna look as if they had just stepped out of band boxes. They are usually dressed in pat¬ ent leather gaiters, silk stockings and linen trousers and shirts that are spot¬ lessly white. According to United States Consul, Smithers, our Chinese brethren have recently been playing some sad tricks upon the barbarian merchants of the West. Camels’ hair and wool received in London fromTientsin have been loaded with sand to the extent of one-third of their weight; hides have been gener¬ ally woimy, and many shipments of straw braids have been a total loss, ow¬ ing to damp straw and inferior dyes. Many of these Chinese commodities are now coming to this country. In the case of the death of the Em¬ peror William a custom which has hith¬ erto attended the decease of Prussian monarchs has been omitted. According to this old ceremonial, as soon as the King is dead the Alinisters of the Crown, foreign Ministers, and the Court in gen¬ eral visit the palace in full dress. The first rooms on entering are found brill iantly lighted, but gradually as they progress the light becomes dimmer and dimmer, until finally the throne room, almost in darkness, is reached. Wax work figures deeply veiled in black are grouped about the throne to represent the chief members of the new court, and all dignitaries pass solemnly before them, bowiDglowand going out back¬ ward. CONVICTS’ SIGNALS. A SYSTEM. OF TELEGRAPHING IN VOGUE IN ALL PRISONS. Commnnication in Spite of the Closest Surveilance—Prison¬ ers Keeping Each Other Fully Informed. Incidents that must necessarily follow from intercommunication often happen in penitentaries where the rules arc rigid and surveillance so close that a convict is never from under the eye of a guard or taskmaster, says the Indianapolis Journal. No matter to what extreme the rule prohibitingconversation between the convicts may be enforced, they find some means by which to inform them¬ selves of what is going on or what is to occur. But, more than this, a convict may conceive the idea of escape or re¬ volt, and for him to communicate it to one,he wishes to have as an accomplice is not difficult. They bring others into the plot or plan until twenty or thirty know it, details for the carrying out of which each is assigned his particular part. This necessitates a thorough ex¬ planation of minutiae and calls for a sys¬ tem --------------------- of communication for which a limited use of signs would not answer. Penitentiary officials have tried again and. again, to obtain even a clue to the system, but they are no nearer a solution than when they first began there to investigate is the matter. They know a sys¬ tem, and that it rests on signs, but whether on those made with fingers, eyes and lips, or the bringing into play of other together, features, or whether it depends on all they do not know. Prison¬ ers, to curry favor with the officials, often tell them what they have learned from other convicts. They go to especial trouble at times in exposing plots, and are ready to reveal everything learned except the means by which they the facts. No convict which has yet given the slightest suggestion the would lead has to defied the dis¬ covery of secret that the shrewdest detectives. “I have seen,” said an ex-prison official, “two convicts, six feet apart facing each other. They did not utter a word, nor could I discern the slightest movement of the lips or eyes, yet 1 knew they were communicat¬ ing other something. for minute They gazed before at 1 had each a or two a chance to interfere, but I am satisfied that one told the other all he wished to tell. Three or four of them will be standing around a stove, or together in other places of the prison, and yet with sufficient distance between them to lead one to think that they have nothing in common,and while there is not the least sign of conversation observable,they their are talking to each ofherdn own way.” Attorney-General Miehener, of Indi ana, relates an instance or two showing the perfection to which the convicts have carried their system of conveying infer mation among themselves. On his first visit to Jeffersonville Prison to look into the matter of Jack Howard’s shortcom ings as warden of the Southern prison,he was afternoonf sitting in the office of the prison one when the deputy warden or some other subordinate asked him if he did not wish to go through the shops. It was but, something the he invitation,they did not expect passed to do, accepting through the inner gates, crossing the first cell-rooms, out into the courtyard and across that directly to the shoe'fac tory. They were not three minutes in going, they reached nor did the thev stop anywhere until factory. The Attorney General had gone hut a few feet into the room with the prison officers when a con vict stepped up. and, asking the latter if he could speak to the gentleman with him, said, on permission being given him: “You are the Attorney-General:” “Yes,” was the only reply r of that 0 fl* cer “Your name is Miehener?” “Yes; but how do you know that? I have never seen you before.” “That is true, nor did lever see you until now, although then I am from Shelby County.” He went on to tell who he was, where he lived in the-county,and what he had done to bring him into the penitentiary. But the convict gave the Attorney-General further he cause for wonder by telling him that knew of his reaching the city the day before, how many visits he had made to the prison, and for what purpose. Leaving ,the shoe factory the Attorney General and prison officer went into an¬ other intervening room, separated and from with the neither first by an room, of which could any person in the third have direct communication. Here Mr. Mich- ener was told approached about by what another the first convict, had iWio him done, except he asked him to see the Governor in his behalf. Going to the foundry, which is a considerable distance from the shoe factory, the third convict came up to the Attorney General the in¬ stant he entered the room. This man had the identity of the visitor and the cause of his coming to Jeffersonville as accurately as the other two. He also wanted a pardon. On the way to another building the prison official said to Mr. Miehener: “livery convict who eared to know had all information about who you are and why you have come within a few minutes after you came Inside of the prison door. The convicts have no privilege of writing or speaking to each other, but so perfect is their system of communicating with each they other that in forming plans leaders, to escape and can agree on time, methods singals. But there is always some convict who, though not in the plot, learns all about it, and tells the details to the officers. Investigation incidents always brings to light their enough being to formed convince us that Warden plans are constantly.” Patton not long ago had oc¬ casion to order the punishment of a con¬ vict for the infraction of the rules. The convict, without the knowledge of his fellow's, was taken to a distant part of the prison where there was not a sign of anyone took place, being near enough three to learn what But minutes after ward every convict of the many hundred there knew not only the punishment, and the kind, orders but why, aud by whom, and at whose it was inflicted. An ex prison official said recently: “Not long ago reached I took the a convict prison to Michigan City. I about eight o’clock in the evening, after all the convicts had been locked up in their cells. No one knew in charge of my being that time there of but night. the officer I did at not stay longer lhan five minutes, but, turning over my prisoner, went to down the hotel and to bed. When I came to breakfast-the next morning there was a messenger from the prison stating that such and such a convict wanted to see me. A half dozen in all wished to have me come out to them. How they knew I was there nobody knows. Prison offi¬ cials are constantly seeing the effects of communication among tiie convicts, but cannot detect tbe system.” The Chancellor’s Promise Fulfilled. There are several , very excellent ,, , stones , . eonceraing Lord Chancellor Elaon. ™< e , for instance, the story of Miss Bridge s morning call upon him. There a PP ea [ ed before him a pretty young girl, >?. rustic ln her attlre ’ but ough y in command , of , her wits. “My dear - sald the Chancellor, rising and bo ' vl “S '’ eI * courteously, “who are 0 1 “Lord , Eldon’’said , „ .. the ., blushing ,, , . in truder . > “I.am Bessie Bridge, of Woelby, aud P. a P a las sent me T ° vol ! of a - promise which , you made to him when I )vas a little baby and you were a guest “ h “ house 011 \ ho occasion of your first election iis member of Parliament for A dear young lady A in terposed . the Chancellor,, try mg to recall bo le bad P, ed » ( ' d himself. ™ ' e 9 ’ T .? rd Lldon ’ a _ \ ou were said standing t over my cradle when papa to you: ‘Mr. Scott promise me that lf ever you are Lord Chancellor, wh en m y ldt le F‘ rl ls “P°“ r clergyman’s wife,you , will . give , her husband a living,’ and J ou answered. Mr. Bridge, my . not worth half but I P rom) ? e is a crown, » IV0 ^to f you, wishing it were worth m0 J e ‘, Lcthusiastically . ,. ,, „ the Chancellor „ ex claimed: . “lou are quite right ; I admit the obligation;1 remember all about it;” and then, after a pause, archly surveying the damsel, whose graces were the re verse of matronly, lie added:“But surely the tune for keeping my promise is not yet arrived. You cannot be any one’s wife at present. for moment Miss Bessie . ent a was si and then, with a fiush and a ripple of laughter she somebody’s replied: “Ao, but I do so wish to be wife. I amea S a ge f l t0 a young clergyman, and there’s . Herefordshire, old ? Lome mn S which PI has recently fallen near vacant, my and if you will give it to Alfred, why, fj en . Lord Eldon, we shall marry before d '° f. nd <A year. Her Alfred got tbe “ vln ff Neto York Press. It is said that the Czarina of Russia, although employing a houseful of seamstresses,makes nearly all the clothing for her youngest children and also takes their new hats to pieces her and trims them over according to own taste. -CURIOUS FACTS. Coaches were first used in England ill City Park, Philadelphia, is the larges I in the world. water The is latest discovery for burns. is that seltze;] a cuve ivarius The highest violin is recorded said to be price $8,000. for a St rad] Zalediscoffokenonisehi is the name oil a man who is working in the Schuylkill coal regions. The longest suspension bridge in the ■world is at Freibourg; then come those I at Pesth and Bourdeaux. It is 1085 years since the death of St Patrick, the renowned apostle of the Christian faith in Ireland. An ancient Japanese coat of mail was recently Victoria, unearthed British Columbia. in the vicinity of I chois A Montreal arrested butcher and fined named $100 Desmar-*| recent- ] was ly for kissing a woman against her will. 1 He decided to go to jail rather than pay the fine. The venerable American Philosophical the Society, chair of in Philadelphia, which Thomas still JeOersonsat possesses ] when pendenee. he wrote the Declaration of Inde- I In an appeal from a justice’s court in Ohio the lawyer couldn’t find any par¬ ticular technicality, and sc he based the appeal on the ground that court was not a opened with prayer. theater The mascot walked black cat of the a Washington during j out on stage 1 a performance the other night and took a good look at the President, who sat • in a box with a party. There is a legend current among thes peasants life of Kaiser of Bavaria AVilhelm that the" long f was due Imperial! to aj mysterious philter of which His Majesty alone possessed the secret. Robert McCrone, of Thompsonville, Conn., is the most consistent vegetarian in the Nutmeg State. He has eaten no animal food tor over forty years. He is now sixty-five and in perfect health. Vienna must be a jolly place to live in. On one Saturday night, in a single dis- I triv t of the city, 340 public balls were held, and there are about twenty such 1 districts included in that gay metropo lis. Some Florida cabbages measure five feet across the top and weigh twenty-five pounds, so the Florida papers say. They also tell of a potato twenty-seven pounds || in pounds. weight and a turnip weighing ten A new rule for removing a cinder ia the eye is given by an engineer. It is: “Let the in jured eye alone and rub the other one, and the cinder will be out ia two minutes.” It is a simple remedy and-wortli trying. An English judge recently commuted the sentence of a prisoner to -five years’ imprisonment months’ imprisonment at hard labor instead of six and two flog¬ gings. He merciful. thought the former sentence was more The Alexandran era fixes the creation 1 at 5503 B. C. This computation con¬ tinued till A. D. 285, but the following year teu years were subtracted, and 5787 became 5777. This coincided with the Mundane era of Antioch. Bob aud Ben Day, of Conyers, Ga., have trapped sixty-four beavers and four otters on Georgia streams during the last three months, besides a number of smaller animals. They will realize $400 from the furs which the animals yielded. Mrs. Nancy Miller, who died at Cum¬ berland, Aid., recently, at the age of 108 years, remembered well the day she saw General George Washington review his troops at Fort Cumberland on October 19, reminiscences 1794, and had many interesting Ameri to tell of the first can President. discovered At Birmingham, Ala., in Doetor back Jones a racoon a yard of a drug store and took a novel method of capturing and it. chloroform. He procured Standing a fishpole, a sponge at a distance he lowered the sponge to the nose of the sleeping animal and held it there fearing until the coon was stupefied. he Then that he might bo bitten, ar¬ ranged a lasso and caught the coon with¬ out difficulty. The Difference. For a man he tries And he toilSand sighs To be very wise And witty; But a dear little dame Has If she enough wins the of fame name Of pretty. —Newark Journal.