FACTS AND FANCIES

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 8, Issue 26, 29 March 1907, Page 8

FACTS AND FANCIES

A farmer, his wife, and four children, residing near Cork, were found to be all raving mad. They had eaten a portion of a sheep which had been bitten by a mad dog. The most important railway system, not 'n the United States alone, but in the whole world, is that known as the Pennsylvania Railway. This wonderful fabric, with some 4,b00 miles of line, had in 1887 a gross income of carried 113! million tons of traffic, and over 74 millions of pas sengers. With its entrance into Belgium, the Salvation Army has now advanced into every one of the thirteen countries of the north-west of Europe. The foreign office of the movement is now directing its opera lions in a south-easterly direction, having under Commissioner Railton got as fai towards Constantinople as Berlin. In the colonies one often rubs shoulder.vith all ranks. A friend of the writer’s was me of a party of three who sat down to dinner in a country hotel in New Zealand 1 hie of the three was the then Governor of Pip; the second, my friend, was a schoolmaster ; and the third (who dined in his shirt-sleeves) was the ostler of the hotel. Ax Quebec the winter markets are very .various. Everything is frozen. Large pigs, ■filled perhaps months before, may be seen standing frozen in the butcher's shop "Vozen masses of beef, mutton, deer, fowl, cod, and haddock, a:id eels, long and stifi like walking stick’s, abound on the stalls, .dilk also is kept frozen and is sold by the pound, in masses which look like lumps 0! white marble. T he most widely separated points between which a telegram can be sent are British Columbia and New Zealand. The telegram would cross North America, Newfoundland, the Atlantic, England, Germany, Russia (European and Asiatic), China, Japan, Java, and Australia. It would make nearly a cir cult of the globe, and would traverse over 20,000 miles in doing so. A strange old contract for a hired house has recently been found in Leipsic. It con tains the following regulations;--!. People who hire this house must not have more than two children. 2. Smoking is not permitted, as it darkens the papers on the walls, 3. Musical people must remain where 'hey are ; I can stand no row in my house i. Dresses and coats must be brushed in the courtyard, so as not to occasion useless dust. 3. Nobody must commit suicide in this house ; whoever intends to do so must stay where he is, In the village of Woppmannsdcrf (Ober pfalz) lives a family consisting of four pairs of twins, eight brothers and eight sisters, whose united ages amount to 620 years None of them have ever in thdr lives drunk coffee, tea, or beer; their food consists ol potatoes, bread, sauerkraut, milk, and milk puddings. They cat meal only once a year, at the village church festival. Doctors and physic are unknown things to them, and with illness they are acquainted only by hearsay. The only medicine they have evei taken is a home-made one of dried black berries. Perhaps one in a thousand readers may not know what beche-de-mer is, the fishery for which has now risen to some importance in Tones Straits and thereabouts. It is a .ea dug of from six to eight inches in length, md about two inches broad. It forms an important article of commerce with China, .vhere from £IOO to /150 is obtained for it per ton, the celestial epicures ranking the beche-de-mer as one of their choicest dishes. .Vhen properly dried and smoked the flavour Is excellent, even to European palates, and :he soup made horn it has been pronounced •qual if not superior to turtle. The Best and Worst Kind of Road Paving.— The Horse Accident Prevention o vri''ty recently, by circular, invited an c .pressiou of opinion on the part of every driver in the employ of the London General Omnibus Company, the London Road Cat dompany, Messrs. Tilling, omnibus and cab • ,-oprietoi’s, and Messrs. Carter, Paterson, mil Co., carriers, as to which, in their ex ■xrience and judgment, was the ( best—that 3, -.he safest—and which the worst or most dangerous kind of road-paving in vogue in the streets of London. From the replies received, it appeal's that 750 drivers declare wood the best, 219 macadam, 197 granite cubes, i'nd 51 asphalte, As to the " worst paving, ’• 122 drivers say it is wood, and 1,046 pronounce asphalte to be the worst and most dangerous paving material used. A Warning to Oyster Lovers.— Lovers of bivalves, especially those who prefer them cooked in their own liquor, may be interested in knowing what the fluid contains. The microscope makes some very unpleasant discoveries of which with the naked eye alone we should remain happily ignorant. A scientific journal says that if, on opening an oyster, the liquor is retained m the lower part or deeper shell, and viewed through the microsope, it will be found to contain multitudes of small oysters, covered with shells, and swimming nimbly about 120 of them extending but one inch, Besides these young oysters, the liquor contains a variety of animalcule, and myriads of three distinct species of worms Sometimes their light represents a bluish star about the centre of the shell, which will be beautifully luminous in a dark room. The World’s MostPovvijrfulTribunal. —The highest Court of the United States holds a unique place in forms of government, and one not found in any other government system. It wields a power greater than is exercised by any other judicial tribunal in the world. In no country ol Europe or the East has any Court authority to make or unmake the supreme law of the land, to limit the prerogatives of the Sovereign, to control the powers of the Legislature, to shape the form of governnent. These functions are exercised by the .’upreme Court of the United States. It tolds a power above that of the chief magis- , rate of the nation, superior to that of Confess, higher than that of any State, and 'quailed only by that which made or can amend the Constitution. It can change the relations between the State and the nation, it can extender restrict either the central power or State sovereignty. In short, it .'•an make or unmake the constitutional law if the country, In a certain country town in Yorkshire here dwelt some years ago a large family ol he name of Card, who were for the most art engaged in the public-house and stage■;>ach line. They were anything but regions, and were a fast-living lot. An heir vas born to them, and a couple of Sundays viler its birth the babe was taken to the 1 mrch to be christened. " What name fiiall I call this child ?” asked the minister. • Pontius Pilate," answered the father promptly. " I will not,” said the clergynan angrily. "No child was ever called nat name since baptism was instituted, and . is atrocious to suggest such a name for an mocent babe." " Well, pa’sou, I’m very . ury," said the father, somewhat shamehcedly, " for 1 have set on callin' that kid bat name. I thought that it would be 5 first-class ’un for ’nn, an' I think it was in Jjurch I heerd it furst. Howsomever, oa'son, if we can’t caal it that name, c ml il • Dump,’ ” and Trump Card that child wa.= christened.