The Scrap Bag

England has $10.000,000,000 invested abroad. Richmond, Va., now claims to have a popiilalion of 71,000. The ladybird insect destroys tho aphis or green fly on plants. The free schools in Virginia are rapidly closing for want of funds. Coffee and coffee grounds are said to be excellent fertilizera for plants. All but the most hardy apples in Iowa, have been killed by the severe winter. Three-fifths of the 2,200 convicts in the Texas penitentiary are negroos and Mexicana. Portland, Oregon, will be only five iays from Chicago when the Northern Pacific is built. PrincessLouise is a good housekeeper, cook.confectioner, laundress, seamstress and dressmaker. At London. public dinners ït has ceased to be in order to rise to any toast except that of the Queen. The census reports of 1880 shows that there are 3,000 actors and 2,000 acf,resses in the United States. It is said that fully one-third of the Roman Catholics of St. Louis are believers in spiritualism. A granite shaft is to be erected over l.he grave of Thomas Jeffersor, to replace the one destroyed by relie hunters. There are said to be 100 practicing young lawyers in New Haven, Conn., whose income does not average $15 per week. In Japan last year 2,223,214 telegraph messages were dispatehed, ninety eight per cent of which were in the native tongue It is claimed that there are now 191 cotton factories in operation or in course of erection in the Southern States. The hay erop of Massachusetts for a single year was $10,660.268. The 12 next largest crops only aggregated $6,137,240 One billion seven hundred and seventysix million letters, cards and newspapers last year went through the British Post Office. An Ohio man in New York sues for $100,000 for his wife's affections. Upon bis own showing her affections are not worth two cents. San Francisco has a drunkarci wno ís only 15 years oíd. She says it is a disease, and takes hold of her with as much forcé as an agüe chill. On the fence of an oíd graveyard in Pennsylvania appears the following inscription in large white letters: "Use Smith's bottled ale if you would keep out of here." Old-fashioned flint-lock shotguns are sti made at Birmingham, England, for use in remote places where, should the ammunition for patent guns giye out, the hunter would be helpless. Prof. Berthelot maintains that the trne element carbon is as yet unknown; that it must be of a gaseous nature, and that diamond, graphite, &c, are but states of the veritable carbon. Kansas had 11,018,000 acres of land under cultivation in 1880, an increase of 2.47G.000 since 1872, or a territory larger than the states of Massachusetts, Knoue Island and Connecticut, combined. Tho flag which Commodore Perry carried from the St. Lawrenco to the JNiagara, and flew at the time of his victory on Lake Erie, is now in the possession of the Hungerford Collegiate Institute at Adams, New York. A gang of tramps found an unoccupied house in Minnesota vrith eomfortable beds, cooking utensils and a stove. They took lawless possession, and it was not until the end of the week that they found they were in a small-pox pest house. It is related of a citizen of Georgia that he was born in Early County, was raised in Calhoun County, and now lives, at the age of fifty-five, in Clay County, and yet has alvvays lived ia the house he was born in. Theeountieskave"nioved," not he. Female education is advancing in India in a manner which few could have inticipated ten years ago. Two young adies of Bengal have, at the last exainination at the Calcutta University, earried off their B. A. jlegrees with great credit. Bengstran murdered lus wife and buried her in Minnesota, and his story that she had eloped was so implicitly believed that no suspicion of his crime aróse. But after a year of remorse he committed suicide, lèaving afull written confession. An extraordinary case of disputed maternity is reported from Omaha. Two women each claiming to be the widow of the same man, have gone to law to determine which of them is the mother of his two girls aged flfteen and seventeen years. The loss by worn silver coin withdrawn from circulation inGreatBritain during the past year amouijted to not less than L36,000. This sum representa the deficiency in weight caused by wear in circulation, the coins being received at their nominal valué. Prof. Cohn, of Breslau believes that slates lead to shortsightedness, and would substitute pen and ink, or an artificial white slate with black pencil, manufactured in Pilsen. Blauk or whits is proved by experiment to stand out most clearly to the eye. The Zurich School Board forbids slates. They are noisy, and invite dirty habits in erasure A tra veler says that an albatross will keep pace with a ship going nine knots an hour for many hours, without moving his wings, excepting a slïght feathering, varied as he wishes to rise or fall. The writer adds : An albatross cannot rise from anything but a surface of water, which he does by paddling rapidly and extending his wings stiffly at right angles with his body. I doubt whether anyone ever saw an albatross move his wings except to feather, or to reef them in a gale, or to furl them when alighting on the surface of the sea. If man is ever able to navigate the air, he must a scard balloons, and study the rapiddiying, but almost motionless-winged fllbatross. When honesty is sleeping, let the alarm clock of conscience wake it up. Faitii and hope cure more disease