The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 17, 1904, Page 32

THE S T/\I FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, APRIL 17, 190 - Gleanings of Science. The new International Sanitary Con- wvention, which was signed in Paris on December 3, 1903, by the representa- tives of the powers, made considerable changes in the regulations previously in force to prevent the invasion and propagation of cholera and plague. For instance, it abridged and even suppressed quarantine, on condition that there be a complete disinfection of every vessel, her passengers, crew and cargo, and a complete destruction of all rats and mice on board. War on rats on board ship, supervision of ves- seis from that special point of view— such s the new orientation of the mar- ftime prophylaxis in regard to plagu® There was a time when the rats ren- dered service; in the days when drains were unknown, and when the roads gerved the double purpose of highways &nd places of deposit for refuse. By de- vouring the refuse the rats, to a certain extent, protected the purity of the at- mosphere and consequently the public health. To-day, when this part of their natural funct s is no longer needed, rate have no longer a “raison d’etre,” should be kept or at any rate they within their native country. It is interesting to know, in fact, that the rat is an immigrant—an in- v and that it comes from the East. The two principal varieties, the black end the brown rat, are of foreign ori- £in and emanate from Asia. The black rat is the older and the smaller. It is distinguished by its tail being longer than its body. The brown rat (in French “Surmulot”) has a large, fat body and e much shorter tail. The black rat is & field rat. The brown rat, which lives n towns, makes a war of extermination upon it; therefore it takes refuge in the country ing no chance of exist- ing except out of the reach of its rival. In the eighteenth century, according to M. H. de Varigny, there was only one epecies of rat—the black rat—which at that period frequented both town and country. The brown rat arrived later. The immigration of the black rat ap- pears to have dated from the fall of the Roman Empire, and it is believed that the Crusades facilitated its dis- eemination in the West. It is described i. the thirteenth century by Albertus Magnus. Once arrived in Europe, it quickly spread to all parts, thanks to commerce and navigation. About 1544 it made its way America, and by the middle of the nineteenth century it had crossed the continent to the Pacific, at the same time spreading north and south, to Texas and Canada. It lived and flourished for a certain time, until the brown rat arrived This variety also came from the East. In an interesting article by M. H. de Varigny, in the Temps, we are told that it made its appearance in Bu- rope in the first half of the eighteenth century. For some unknown reason, hordes of these rats crossed the Volga near Astrakhan. It has been supposed that they were driven West by the fam- ine in India or b3 thquakes in the Casplan regic rats in- vaded Rus Prussia; in 1730 they w England by merchant they took up their Subsequently they invaded the other countries of Burope, passing into Den- mark in 1790 and Switzerland in 1809. In certain parts of Jutland they did not appear until within fifty or sixty years agc “The brown rat,” M. H. de Varigny edys, “being larger, stronger and more voracious, quickly turned out the black rat. It starved its predecessor and de- voured him as well. In the present day the black rat is a rare curio at any rate in cities; in country districts it is still to be found, though in all cases it disappears before the invasion of the brown rat.” The rat 0 brov arters in Paris n every respect a harmful animal; it is an insatiable rodent, to which nothing eatable comes amiss. When hungry it will even attack man; and in certain badly-kept hospitals rate have been known to have finished off sick and feeble inmates. Moreover, the rat is . great traveler. The hold of a ship is to him an earthly paradise. He always finds goods there and various kinds of provisions. Em- barkation has no difficulties for him. He works by night, when no one can place obstacles in his way, and while the whip ie moored to the quay. He enters Ly passing along the ropes, communi- cating freely between the vessel and the dock. Within the past few years another element has complicated the situation. The rat is not only the enemy of goods; it constitutes a serious danger to the public health. As is now fully realized, it i one of the principal ts in the propagation of plague. A victim of the disease which it propagates, it commu- nicates the germs to the fleas from which he received it. The fleas bite other rats or men, and infect them, and thus plague is propagated. It thus hap- | pens that a ship with all the appear- ance of perfect health on board may be contaminated. The passengers may be all right, says M. H. de Varigny, but when the vessel puts into a tainted port a rat enters her along the mooring ropes. The rat @ies, but his fleas contaminate the rats on board, and they in turn contaminate the fleas, and the rats and fleas con- veyed with the goods on board carry plague with them. The recent case at Marseilles and others elsewhere con- clusively show how simple is the chain of events. » All these facts have shown the In- ternational Sanitary Commission that it was on the wrong tack when it at- tempted to combat plague by means of quarantine. What it ought to have @Gone was to fight the rats. It is of | tion, course very well to examine the pas. sengers on board ship, but it is indis- pensable to destroy the rats and their parasites. Absolutely none of them | must be allowed to remain aboard, es- pecially on vessels which visit plague- | stricken countries. To avoid the risk | of plague the rats must be got rid of. | The rat question, as may be seen from the above, is neither more nor less | than the plague question, and the In- ternational Convention, to which I have alluded at the beginning of this article, is only carrying out the conclusion | which the Hyglenlc Congress of Brus- sels adopted a few months previously. Bl A | It 18 not an uncommon thing in this age of advancement in industrial and | | engineering matters for the present- day efigineer to assume that he knows much more than his anclent brother, |and while this is true in many things, it frequently happens that an invention or appliance commonly belleved to be- long to modern times is found to have been known and used centuries ago. — Ropes made of various kinds of fiber and leather are of very ancient date. Ropes of palm have been found in Egypt in the tombs of Beni-Hassan (about 3000 B. C.), and on the walls of these tombs is also shown the process of preparing hemp. In a tomb at Thebes of the time of Thothmes III (about 1600 B. C.) is a group represent- ing the process of twisting thongs of leather and the method of cutting the leather into thongs. The Bible tells us that Samson was bound with ropes and that the spies sent by Joshua into Jericho were let down in a basket, pre- sumably by means of a rope. At Nimrod, Assyria, a carved slab showing the slege of a castle was found on which a soldier was repre- | sented in the act of cutting a rope to | which a bucket for drawing water from a well outside the castle walis was at- tached. The wire rope is generally considered a modern invention, a product of mod- | ern skill, and it will surprise many to | learn that its manufacture is really a | rediscovered lost art | Although the Assyrians practiced the | art of wire beating, no evidence has been found to indicate that they used | wige for making rope. The excavations of’ Pompeil have, however, brought to light a plece of bronze wire rope near- 1y fifteen feet long and about one inch in circumference. This rope is now in | the Musio Borbonico at Naples. { It consists of three strande laid spir- | ally together, each strand being made | up of fifteen wires twisted together, | and its construction does not, therefore, | differ greatly from that of wire ropes | made to-day. Pompeii was buried A. | D. 78, over 1500 years ago, but how long | e ropes had then been known it is impossible to tell, though, judging by the knowledge shown in the construc- it may be safely conclud-| ed that they had been known for a considerable time. The uses to which these ropes were put is not definitely known, but further excavations may | shed some light on the subject.—Mines | and Minerals for April | o: & Official control of the oyster trade to | secure immunity from disease germs must at present, as in the case of milk, depend on a test of the product at the market. In both cases the source of supply is usually beyond the jurisdic- | tion of the municipal health officer. It has been thought by many bacteriolog- ists that the presence of the bacillus | coli communis in oysters was a positive indication of pollution by sewage, and in England, until very recently, this test has been applied In determining edibility of shell fish. Recent re- searches have shown it, however, to be of very doubtful value. The fourth re- port of the Royal British Commission on Sewage Disposal, among whose members are h well-known scien- tists as Sir Michael Foster, Sir William Ramsay and Dr. J. B. Russell, contains an account of experiments made to test | this test. Dr. A. G. Houston, who ex- amined over a thousand oysters for the commission, reported that nearly alil of them centained some form of the colon | bacillus. Other observers found that this organism was very widespread, oc- | curring on raw meat, in dust, on fruit, | and even in mew-born infants, where | any outside infection could be entirely | eliminated. In short, the only discov-! ery in any way confirming the diag- nostic ue of bacillus coli was that, usually, cysters which had fed on sew- age contained more bacilli than those from pure water. The commission hence takes the ground that nobody is justified vin condemning oysters on the | result of a bacteriological examination alone. They recommend that the ques- tion of securing a pure oyster supply be placed in the hands of a central “Rivers Board,” having jurisdiction over all the beds in the country. If the beds are protected from sewage a pure product is assured.—New York Commercial Advertiser. T TS A French company is manufacturing | a hardened crystal dish, which in ap- | pearance closely resembles fine trans- lucent china of uniform shape and manufacture. The resisting power of this ware is due to a special hardening process and to the quality and nature | of the crystal used. It not only suc- | | cessfully resists the usual wear and | tear, but is almost proof against break- |age. The resistance to shocks and sud- | den changes of temperature of this | | product is remarkable. A hardened | erystal dish can be substituted for a | hammer in driving nafls into wood, | while the same ware can be put into | boiling water at a high degree, then | plunged into ice water repeatedly, | without the least noticeable damage | | to the dish or plate. A Good Story, But— | There has just been discovered in the | Far East a species of the acacia tree which closes its leaves together in coils each day at sunset and curls its twigs | 10 the shape of pigtails. After the tree has settled itself thus for a night's sleep, if touched the whole thing will flutter as if lciutfd or impatient at |being disturbed. 'The oftener the foliage is molested, the more violent | becomes the shaking of the branches, | and at length the tree emits a nauseat- ing odor, which, it inhaled for a few moments, cayses a violent dizzy head- ache. It has been named the “angry tree.”—New York Tribune, T | This is propably true. THE SAN FRANCISGO,.CALL{ JOHN D. SPRECKELS, Proprietor . - « « . - - « . . Address All Communications to JOHN McNAUGHT, Manager | Publication Office MAN AND CIVILIZATION. SUNDAY HE world over there are differences of opinion as T to what constitutes civilization. The Asiatic na- tions have one standard, the European another. The European standard is determined largely by the injunc- tions of Christianity. Whether Christendom is living up to that standard need not be discussed. The Rev. Dr. Abbott, one of the most learned and agreeable of our re- ligious philosophers, is of the iopinion that we are not entirely civilized. He may be right, but his declaration leaves room for a plea in defense. In an address to the students of the University of California Dr. Abbott said: “America, and I speak plainly, is not entirely civilized. A Government that allows some of its postoffice offi- cials to go wrong, a Government that puts into its Leg- islatures men whose sole ambition is to thrust their arms deep into the public treasury, is not wholly civilized.” We may grant the premise and yet make a plea in de- fense. Are we not doing as well as could be expected even from the standpoint of Dr. Abbott’s theology? Ac- cording to the cosmology of our theological teaching the human race started from a special creation and was per- fect. The morals of the original family were put in the safest environment by locating it in a garden. That is still regarded as the ideal condition of the race. Its con- tact with the soil, where it can plant and watch the green things growing, is still believed to be the condition most conducive to virtue. In all ages, since they found song the poets have sung of the green fields, the asphodel meadows, the blades of | grass diamond pointedby the dews of the morning. The first family had all of these and was perfect. But the re- cord of its four members shows that just three-fourths of them fell and the other did not survive but was killed by the club of his brother. He was of preferred virtue, but he had no children. Therefore, the sole member of the primitive stock who could by heredity have transmitted virtue to the race perished childless and only the heredi- ty of the other three was perpetuated. Under these circumstances the expected happened. The race from such a start was a Jukes family from the beginning. It got so bad that there was no doing any- thing with it and the face of the earth was washed clean of the whole set, except one family. This was a second start. It was made under the most disciplinary and ad- monitory circumstances. These differed materially and vitally from the conditions under which the first experi- ment was made. There was no concert by the morning stars; no garden and no idyllic conditions. The family selected for the second peopling of the earth was the wit- ness of an appalling physical calamity and was impressed by the survival of the fittest afloat on the raging waters with the steerage filled by the beasts of the field. The whole experience was admonitory in the highest degree. Yet what happened in spite of these frightful manifes- tations? As soon as this family landed and was alone up- on the earth the father of it planted a vineyard, made wine, got drunk and did unspeakable things which would be indictable now, and one of the three sons was cursed and sent forth an outcast. With that unpromising be- ginning the race took a second start. Granting that a thousand years are as one in the in- scrutable scheme we must insist that it has done as weil as could be expected. All of the families of man aver- age better than either of the two that began the peopling of the earth. Evidence of this exists in the fact that it has not since been found necessary to wipe out all of the race but one household and start over. It will not do to say that-this has been omitted because creative patience was exhausted in the two first attempts and their failure. It will not do to say that man prpved to be such a tough formation that Omnipotence de- spaired of his corrigibiiity. The earth is no bigger nor are the cataclysmal elements less in volume and power than when it was found necessary to cleanse this terres- trial ball with water. If things are not improving the means of correction stiil exist and erring postal officers and legislators who commune with Mazuma and all the guilty by procurement or indifference can be whelmed in a shoreless sea. It will not do to say that this discipline is omitted be- cause of the existence of the rainbow and the covenants. A covenant was made with the first family and it was told positively that Violation meant death. But this cove- nant was not kept though it was violated. Dr. Abbott puts stress into the need of reverence for the law. That first covenant was the only law. There was no other act entitled an act. But reverence for it was lacking and it was broken and then the penalty was not visited upon the transgressors. They were merely turned out of the garden and condemned to eat their bread in the sweat of their faces, forced to exude in less agreeable pursuits. The average respect for the law and the enforcement of its penalties have greatly improved since then. Therefore it is that we are inclined to take a hopeful view of man. His two starts were rather hard sledding and in his behalf it must always be pleaded that he never petitioned to be created at all. If, when he was simply | an amorphous part of chaos, he could have foreseen the | depressing view taken of him by some in these days it is probable that instead of asking to be created he would have filed a protest against it. A school of whales appeared off Vladivostok Wednes- day last, which threw the inhabitants into a fit of shivers in the belief that they were Japanese torpedo- boats. The Russians may be pardoned from a less czuse than whales for “seeing things,” in view of the late occurrences. OUR TOURIST TRAVEL. HE Sacramento Bee says that the reason why Northern California does not share in the heavy tourist travel to this State is the lack of hotels. If Sacramento had an attractive hotel for tourists there seems no reason why it should not attract that travel as well as Southern California points. \ A few vyears ago the Chief of.the Bureau of Good Roads in the Agricultural Department attended a good roads convention in Sacramento. As he sat in the con- vention he looked out !hr‘ough a grove of orange trees, with the fruit ripe and yellow, and as a background rose the far mountains covered with snow, for it was in January. He said that nowhere else wds a more attractive scene and he seemed impressed that the peo- ple of Sacramento did not regard it as specially allufi}lg. Sacramento has in the Sutter Fort a monument of our early history. The Capitol building is attractive and the park in which it stands is an arboretum of the greatest interest. How many Sacramentans know that the outer row of trees in that park are the Roman pine, the pinus pinae, the pine of pines, and that those trees are from the cones of trees that grow over the tomb of Virgil? The next row is composed of deodars, the cedars of the Himalayas, and on the grounds are fine specimens of | the Japanese cryptomeria, a cousin of our sequoia. We doubt whether there is elsewhere in the State flora of | more distinguished lineage than can_be found in the.‘g Capitol park, and we doubt also whether the official gardener knows it. { Sacramento should show herself and put in another | and extensive park, like our Golden Gate, with drives and bridle paths, footways and all the’adjuncts of such a park. The climate of Sacramento will permit a lavish indulgence in the use of flora. Palms and banana plants, flowering trees and shrubs, from a wide ranges of latitude, will flourish there and shodld be used. i We apply to Sacramento the same spirit of apprecia- ] tion and encouragement which we feel toward Oakland ' and other cities. = Sacramento will never have occasion to defend the location of the State capital if she, with a bold and aggressive public spirit, enter upon the use , of her very great natural advantages. Private enter- | prise is not lacking there, as shown in the very large : number of private residences and grounds. An equal public enterprise will easily, and soon, convert that city into a desirabfe resort, which will be a pleasant and . attractive stopping place for winter travel. The Bee sees where the honey is in the flowers that bloom every day and has the power to inspire the display of charms that have been too long unnoticed. ‘Even the “Weary Willies” may swell with pride at the ! prospect of the rebuilding of the Camino Real. Ties are not in it with a King's highway with shade trees and rare exotics for trimmings. U ful to attach to a national flag or the representa- | tion of a national flag any words, marks or ad-; vertisements exploiting the merits of merchandise or in | any way advancing the business interests of an individual | or corporation a case was recently tried in that State, | which resulted in the imposing of an unfavorable con- struction upon this eminently commendable law. The court decided that the enforcement of this statute was in violation of the legitimate exercise of the policé power | and that it made an unfair discrimination agaznest mer- chants, in that jewelers, seal-makers and stationery em- bossers were exempt from its operations as the law now stands. | It has been said by biting critics from across the water ! that Americans have no sense of reverence and very lit- | tle conception of the eternal fitness of things. Our Old World friends are prone to aver that the faursuit of the almighty dollar will lead the average American where | angels fear to tread and they take great glee in pointing | out as instance the fearful and wonderful spirit which | moves the freak advertising methods of some of our merchants. “Pale Pellets” painted on the craggy scarp of | the Niagara; “La Mort Cigarettes” flashed upon the ' clouds by a stereopticon; “Aunt Hannah's Twin Babies Desiccated Dessert” hung in the air by a string of kites— these afe things which appeal to the uncommercial and highly Ruskinized sensibilities of our European cousins ! with something of a shock. When they see, as the limit, little children raise their hands in the daily salute to the | flag and then, within the same hour mayhap, bring home 1 to their mothers a can of beans or a rasher of bacon with | the stars and stripes gleaming effulgently from the gaudy ! wrapper thereof, they must indeed be pardoned for | thinking a few things about the intricacies in the Ameri- can character. | If the State law in New York has proven ineffectual | in stopping the practice of adapting.our national banner | to the exigencies of trade it lies within the power of | Congress to make a ruling which shall be binding the§ country over. The Government has power to regulate ! the use of the very emblem of its existence. By restrict- ‘ ing the functional qualities of the flag to those proper ! ones of patriotic expression and the exemplification of the majesty of the Government Congress could bring: about a far healthier respect for the emblem of our na- I tion and save it from becoming cheapened in our eyes by association with canned tomatoes or ladies’ hosiery. | l | SACREDNESS OF THE FLAG. ! NDER a New York statute which makes it unlaw- | Saturday’s papers contained a fitting illustration for the “Tale of Two Cities.” A number of citizens of Oak- land voluntarily gave deeds to that city to enable the Lake Merritt boulevard to be extended along four blocks | cn Harrison street. In this city the Supervisors granted | the petition of the Sutro heirs, enabling them to take | back the Dewey boulevard, which was thus taken off the map. O THE CIVIL SERVICE. N the same day Senator Bailey of Texas was de- nouncing the civil service law in the Senate and Civil Service Commissioner Cooley was uphold- ing it with the applause of the students of the University | Estimates of recent wars, including the of California. Senator Bailey boldly declared himself a | spoilsman. When a political party captures the na- tional administration he thinks it should make a clean sweep and capture every place down to the charwoman as party patronage. He takes the view of the average politician, who wants the chance to advance himself by billeting upon the public service those who work for his advancement to the exclusion of others, even in his own party, who has not guessed the winner in a nominating convention. It will be seen that the Senator wants each member of Congress to be a sort of Civil Service Commissioner, who shall have the power to put men into service, excluding others, and not testing the fitness of his appointees, but making their fealty to him the test of their eligibility. The country tried that plan until the passage of the Pendle- ton bill, and since then the law has pretty well extermt- nated the spails system for which Senator Bailey pants as the hart panteth for the water brook. Any one familiar with the departmental service in Washington must notice the vast change wrought in it since it was sheltered from the spoils system. Formerly the department clerk was an impermanent quantity. His commercial credit was low and the uncertainty of his tenure made him financially irresponsible. The trades- people in Washington suffered great losses in money and the service in reputation. . ;s ] Now q:e clerk is a fixture. His credit-is good because he must keep it so, and the character of the service has been immensely improved. We are inclined to think that the applause of university students indicates that the spoils system is gone to stay gone, and that the coun- l try will take no backward steps even to please Texas. - X | beautiful thing I ever saw. | was one of the “Solid Nine, | values necessarily is lowered. * Bencath the Waves. “You may talk about the beautles of the Yosemite, Niagara Falls, the Alps, or any place on the top of the earth,” said a well-known gunnmer in the United States navy a few nights ago at 'the Grand Hotel; “they are not to be compared with the beauties of old ocean, particularly such as can be seen from a diver’s helmet.” “You're right there,” said another gunner. “The lubbers do not knaw what they have missed. I remember once when I was a gunner’s-mate sitting for more than an hour on the fluke of an | anchor I had been sent down to recover | and gazing with awe on a beautiful coral bank. It was really the“most Every color in the rainbow was there and cside from that there was enough variety in the strangeness of the formation in the coral to keep one busy several hours, cogitating on the wonderful things na- ture had seen fit to hide beneath the waves. I would probably have remain- ed for several hours, gazing with rap- ture on the bank, and was really think- ing that down there in the depths, away from the noisé and strife of moth- er earth, would suit me for the rest of 'my days when a ‘soup-and-bully’ tin thrown over the side of the ship drop- ped béneath me and the coral bank. My dream was over. It was a case of quick transition from thegsublime to the ridiculous and I immediately gave the signal to be hauled up.” Not So Foolish. Several Democratic politicians were discussing old times the other day and a good story was told about “Jim” O'Brien. Ex-Supervisor Barry, who " was anx- ious to run again for office, but as he did not get the Democratic nomination he decided to run as an Independent candidate. Every one that entered his saloon, which he was then conducting on Market street, was asked to sign the necessary petition. One night O’Brien, accompanied by “Blinker” Murphy and two others, call- ed at Barry's saloon, and Barry prompt- ly asked O'Brien to sign the petition. e complied and ordered drinks for the crowd. Then he ordered another round of drinks and poured hot air all the time at Barry. ‘When they left the saloon O'Brien sald, “What a blamed fool Barry is to think for a minute that he could be elected again. He hasn’t the ghost of a chance.” “Oh, I don't know,” retorted “Blink- er.” “It seems to me he's not the only fool around. He got you to sign his pe- tition and spend 50 cents for drinks.”” O'Brien did not pursue the subject further. War and the Markets. The reason why an international war should have a far-reaching effect on financial values deserves explanation, because it is very imperfectly grasped by the community at large. To most people the matter seems simple enough. In ordinary comment in such events, there will be found a prevalent infer- ence that the securities of a given state. in time of war, rise or rall according as that state is victorious or unsuc- cessful, because success In the contest will make for national prosperity and defeat for national adversity. There is a grain of truth in the theory thus out- lined, but it is not a compiete explana- tion. It does not, for example, explain why public securities of both bellige- rents should decline on the outbreak of a war, even when, as in our Spanish war, the result of the conflict is not in doubt. It does nct expiain why the | state victorious in the Transvaal war should have suffered more heavily in its markets than the defeated power in the war of 1898. It cannot account for the fact that, during our Revolutionary war, British Government securities used® to decline all the more rapidly when news of a British victory was received in London. This last incident points to the funda- mental truth, which is, that security values are affected simply and solely because of the enormous expense of war, which leads to sale of new securi- ties, whereby the general level of In the case of England, during our Revolu- tionary war, the London market held the opinion that, if the Americans were successful in a few engagements, the war would be brought to a close, but that, if the English were to gain the advantage the struggle would be pro- tracted without the probability of bringing it to a close. The underlying principle of war markets is that the enormous co-tliness of war, particular- ly in modern times, makes absolutely necessary very large borrowing opera- tions by the contending governments. Japanese war with China in 1894 and England’s war in the Transvaal be- tween 1899 and 1902, indicate that even a small war of that character can- not be fought to a finish except by an average expenditure of fully a million dollars daily. French statisticians have lately reckoned that a conflict in Europe betwgen two first-class conti- nental pow: would cost each of them in the neighborhood of $5,000,000 a day. These estimates may or may not be exaggerated, but they show what fin- ancial requirements may be involved in such a confifet. Now no Government possesses a fund of money sufficient to wage such a war for any long period, nor is it possible for any Government to introduce new taxes such as would raise from its peo- ple the sum required. Hence it must have recourse to the accumulated capi- tal of the world’s money market. In the case of the Japanese war of 1894 with China, which lasted only seven months, all the money was raised at [home throush loans or through in- creased taxes. But in the Boer war, England had to borrow $800,000,000; and the strain of these loans, with that of lthe increased taxes which accompanied them, was such as fairly to exhaust the resources of English capital. At least two of the British war loans were placed, in large measure, on other mar- kets, such as Paris and New York; and even where this qvedhlu‘_m not fol- lowed, the English money, taken from the open market and invested in the new bonds; had to be on that open market by French American | ¢apital. But since the vesources of the world’s capital have some limit, it fol- lows that such sudden and enormous demands will necessitate withdrawal of invested capital from its previous location.—The Forum. ‘A Snake Story.' A New York paper prints the follow. ing capital yarn, which is well qualified to take rank with Mark Twain’s classic about the buffalo who “climb” & tree. Here it is: “Many creatures of the tropic zone arrived yesterday aboard the Atlantic transport liner Marquette from Lon- don, and a few of them of antagonistic temperaments got into scraps on the way across. “A monkey and a porcupine had a dispute and the porcupine wrote its monogram on the monkey. But the greatest sport to the animal keepers was a duel between a crocodile and a python. “The crocodile is a pet of Mrs. Szar- vasi of the Sells-Forepaugh show and is called Sappho. The python, so the classic press agent who gave out the story said, s named Phaon. “Three nights ago the python, said to be about twenty feet long, escaped from its box and discovered the pet crocodile, and made an effort to squeeze its life out. But the scaly armor of the saurian was unbendable and could not be cracked even by the rigorous pres- sure of a forty-foot python's coil. The crocodile lashed it stail in an ineffec- tual effort to reach the python, whose eighty feet were wound around the crocodile, chiefly amidships. “The animal men discovered the com- batants about an hour after they had been in conflict, and tried to uncoil the 160 feet of python. It was an impossi- ble task, as the coils had become as rigid as steel. “Then the men decided to uncork the coil by pulling out the crocodile with the help of @ steam winch and a hawser. ~“The python presented a somewhat remarkable appearance after the sepa- ration. It simply could not uncoil itseif and the animal men rolled it, as they might a ‘long barrel, back to its box. They then drove it, tail first, into an opening, as if it had been a corkcsrew. It had relaxed yesterday and looked just like any other python 320 feet long.” Where It Is Cold. The coldest city in the world Is Yae kutsk, Eastern Siberia, in the empire of the Czar and the Russians. It is the great commercial emporium of East Siberia and the capital of the-province of Yakutsk, which, in mest of {ts area of 1,517,063 square miles, is a bare desert, the soil of which is frozen to a great depth. Yakutsk consists of about 400 houses of European structure, standing apart. The intervening spaces are occunied by winter yoorts, or huts of the northern nomads, with earthen roofs, doors covered with hairy hides and windows of ice. Caravans with Chinese and European goods collect the produce of the whole line of coast on the Polar Sea between the parallels of 70 and 74 degrees, from the mouth of the River Lena to the farthest point inhabited by the Chookchees. Last year a colporteur of the British and Foreign Bible Society made a tour of eleven weeks down the Lena, a river 3000 miles long, visiting Yakutsk and selling gospels in their own language to the Yakuts in the villages along the banks.—Leslie’s Weekly. Answers to Queries. CANAL IN NEVADA—R. S, Niles, Cal. For information relative to wa- ter to be obtained from the canal now being built in the State of Nevada ad- dress L. N. Taylor, Geological Survey, Carson City, Nev. CHICKEN LICE—Subscriter, Dixon, Cal. To rid chickens and hen house of chicken lice, make the roosts per- fectly clean with hot soap suds. Af- terward apply spirits of turpentine or kerosene; also strew sprigs and branches on the floor of the hen house and remove such frequently. Then keep the hen house perfectly clean. NATURALIZATION—W. S. City. If you secured your first papers to be- come a citizen of the United States more than; two years ago and desire to secure your second papers in this State, you will have to be a resident of the State one year before your sec- ond papers can be granted, provided you have resided in the United States five years consecutively prior to the application for second papers. JOINING A !flmmm City. This correspo; ““Would it be wrong for a father of a young son to join a on the quiet, without telling his anything about it. even after he came a member?” If the lodge was one that has protective or beneficial features he should have no hesitancy in telling his wife; if not a proper in- stitution he should not join. A hus- wife. ol e Lo — Rl . ‘Townsend's California Glace fruits ‘boxes. hed " candies, 1n Sre-stolea 15 Harkot sireet above Call buttaae’s Special informas