Facts And Fancies

in timber, dryness, if can cd to exeess, will produce brittleness. lnteresting experimenta show tliat humming birds will lap up syrup as a dog laps water. The best wrought i ron cannot bear more than one-sixth of itsload without being permanently altered. A turtle 8 feet long and 5 feet broad, weighing 800 peunds, was caught in the Delaware river, below Philadelphia, last week. The consumption of cotfee throughout the world has increased during the past 40 years from 100,000,000 to 850,000,000 pounds. The Jewish Times computes the nuinber of Jews all over the world to lic 8,503,000. In 1853 butter was imported into Boston from Ireland and sold at 24 cents per pound, after paying aduty of four cents a pound. The director of the mint thinks the production of the gold and silve r mines tor the current list-al yttfr will be MKV 000,000 less than last year. Every Russian subject isrequired to take out a passport each year. The prescribed cost of a passport is about .;!, but, in fact it costs twice that. l'orty thousand camela belonging to tlie Eoiglish transport service died during the Afghan war! If they were worth $100 apiepe, dus is onJy a $4,000,000 loss. A telephone has been placed on the pji'acher's Uesk in the Congregational Church, at Mansfield, O., and the wlres convey the sermona to the homes of six aged and sick persons. "Music!" wrote l.onl Boaconiifleld, when he was only "Vivían Grey," "a blast of thy trumpet, and thousands rush forth lodie;a peal .ií thy organ, and mUlions knet-1 to piav." A farmer in Holden, Mc. relates that, being much annoyed with crows pulling up his corn, he placed a large lunbrella in his field to frighten them away. He was a good deal surprised one wet day at tinding a good flock secking shelter luider it from the rain. Theumbrella Isnow used tor another purpose. Thetwo musk deers lately added to the colleclion in the l'hiladelphia Zoological (arden, are diminutive animáis- less than eiglit inches in height - although fully matured. They carne from Java, and are the lust live deer of the kind ever hrought to the United States. Charles Dickens'a belord home - Gads Ilill I'lace, - is now tor sale. He bought it for 8,i)")(), bat iinproved it so much that it will now bnng five times that sum. When he died a reserve price of !S.")0,000 was put on the property, at whieh priee it was secured by the oldest son Charles, who now offers it to the highest bidder.