All Sorts

There was an increased aroa 3f no less than 76,988 acres under cultivation in Ireland last year. James S. Wethered, of San Francisco, owns a snuflt box made of the first lot of gold found in California in 1848. Manyof the citizens of Tulare, Cal., have been made seriously ill by the bites of big black spiders, which have appeared in great numbers. The dairymen of Elgin have organized a protective league for the winter. This may indirate a hard winter and trouble ahead with the f rozen pump. The richest man in Philadelphia is said to be Isaiah V. Williamson. Ho started with nothing, and now, at 85, he does not know what to do with his money. Chicago's total elevator capacity is 28,850,000 bushels. On April 20 there was in store the greatest quantity of grain within the city's history- 24,417,611 bushels. John Brennock, a wealthy Chicago packer, owns the oldest and one of the fastest carriage teams in the west. One of the horses is 24 and the other 32 years old, and yet they are able to do a mile under 2:30. The famous Dismal swamp is no longer used as a shelter for runaway negro slaves, of course, bul it is believed to be the hiding place of at least 100 white men, who, for vanous reasons, want to retire to private life for a spell. Frank Purdy and David Sherman, Indian printer boys at the Genoa (Neb.) Indian school, are trying to raise $250 for a small printing outñt with which to issue a paper f rom that school called The Pipe of Peace. Their subscription is indorsed by the superintendent of the school. The newsboys of New York are to have an uptown house. With the growth of the city and the developments of tlie last decade, maiiy newsboys live in the upper districts. The architect of the Chüdren's Aid society has just completed the plans for a newsboys' loaging house and school at Forty-fourth street and Second avenue. Sixty thousand orange trees are on their way to California f rom Japan, where they were sbipped on board of an English bark in the harbor of Yokohama about two weeks ago. With them, also, comes a miscellaneous assortment of over 90,000 trees and shrubs indigenous to Japan, which it is proposed to acclimatize in California. An .Albany watchmaker, to whora a watch that had been dropped overboard on a fisbïng excursión was taken, found that some of the works were so badly rusted that they were useless. "If," said he, "you had dropped your watch in oil as soon as you took it out of the water, or, better yet, had dropped it into alcohol or any kind of strongliquör, it would have cost you nothing but the cleaning." ■Villiam McDiarmid, who claims to be the "oldest living printer and newgpaper writer in the United States," lives in Healdsburg, Sonoma county, Cal. He was bom in Edinburgh in 1TUÍ, was apprentieed to a printing flrm when he was 14 years old, came tö tbis country in 1886, worked on various papers in ttie eastern cities until 1878, when he went to California, wliere, until a year ago, he used to write for the presa. The Stockton, Cal., Mail says: "Old timei-s had their attention attracted today and their memories of the fifties aroused by an ox team which Tvound lts way slowiy through the streets. There were eight head in the team, and two men with goads attended to steering the outfit, The animáis drew two wagons, one of which had solid block wheels. Thé team came down from the mountains with a boiler, which was shipped to San Francisco by boat." William Beek, a man of 62, is in Washington to see the officials of the war department in regard to his wife and ehildren, who are held captive by the Sioux. He says that he and his family were captured by Sitting Buil and his warriors, near Deadwood, in 1875, and that he has not seen his wife and children since that time. He wa in captivity twelve years before he was able to make hi's escape. He finally became a chief and was known as Touch the Clouds. He desires the war department to flnd his family. Daniel Rogers, a miner near Oto, Ariz., had both hands blown off at the wrist by a premature discharge of giant powder recently. He was alone, and he walked two miles to a deserted cabin, where he bound up thestumpsof his wrists af ter a fashion with pieces of a curtain, which he toro with his teeth. He traveled all night, during which time his trowsers became loose and dropped around his feet. He kieked off his shoes ard the trousers, and at 6 o'clock was found lying unconscious near a Mexican cabin. He was taken to hospital and is getting well. Eigut railroads are now either actually beIng built or soon will be, all to meet at a place where a town has not been laid off even. Big Stone Gap Is the name of thla remarkable place. It is a great gap in the range of mountains dividing southwest Virginia and eastern Kentucky, and of neeessity th railroads building in that direetion must cross the mountains at this place. It is one of nature's marvels. Just by the side of the river which has broken its way through this great mouutain range thera is said to bo a most beautiful site of 1,200 acres for a town. Here it is proposed to build an industrial town, and with the unlimited supplies of fine ore and the Elkhorn coking coal and limestone in abundance this place ought to grow very rapidly under judicious management.