SCIENTIFIC SCRAPS. At the top of Monnt Blano the boil ing point of water ia 185 degrees Fah renheit When the bod; of a starving man or animal loses two-fifths of its substance it loses life. Jnpiter completes the entire circuit of the star vault in about eleven years and 315 days. The pause following the beat of the heart is the rest of that organ, the time amounting to eight hours in the twenty four. The mineral selenito is the crystal line form of sulphate of lime, and is often found as the remains of fossil shells. Water is 771 times heavier than air at the ordinary pressure of thirty inches, while the temperature of both is thirty two degrees Fahrenheit. Neither cold nor boiling water, alco hol, ether nor ammonia reduoe sponge fiber to a soluble consistence ; oven the strongest acids and alkalies act u|>on it but slowly. The average velocity with which tho particles of hydrogen gas are moving under the ordinary pressnre, and at a temperature of thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, is 1 1-4 miles per second. It seems that there is a poison in lupins which produces in sheep a disease closely resembling janndice. This virns can be centralized, on the author ity of Doctor G. Liobacher and Profes sor Kulin, by resorting to steaming. MaFlcishen has made a comparison t>etween the bark of young oaks grown respectively npon sandy loams, upon peaty soil that bad been once bnrned, and upon a similar soil that had been thrice bnrned, and fonnd the propor tion of tannin highest in the product of peaty soil. Kegging of Mrs. (varfleld- A letter from Cleveland, Ohio, says : Since the death of her husband Mrs Garfield has received more than 1,200 letters, from strangers in all parts of the country, begging for some part of the fund which was sul>scribed through out the United States for her benoflt. Most of these letters have been delivered directly to Mrs Garfield, and many of them have been sent to her cousin, Mrs. Mason, with whom she stayed during the funeral week, and next door to whom sho is now living for the winter. Mother Garfield has also had a great many similar letters, and in one in ■tsnco at least Miss Moliie was appealed to by a correspondent who desired to become her stepfather. Mrs. Garfield has read all of theso letters and then bnrned them. Soon after Mrs. Garfield came here from Mentor to reside she received a letter from a woman asking her for sc v eral thousand dollars to pay ofT hor hus band's debts. She inclosed a photo graph of her insolvent husband, and asked further that Mrs. Garfield solicit President Arthur to give him a clerk ship of some sort under the govern ment. Mrs. Garfield destroyed both the letter and picture. Six weeks later this same woman wrote to say that she and her hnsband had enjoyed a vacation journey of nearly fivo thousand miles, the delights of which had been im paired only by the ever present recol lection of her husbsnd's debts and Mrs. Garfield's bereavement. While by this time the public had for the most part forgotten Mm. Oar fie Id'a sorrow, this disinterested but interesting correspond ent begged to aaanre her that she atfli bore it in mind and shared with the nation's widow the grief of the nation's bereavement. She also inclosed s post age stamp for the return of her former letter and her hnsbaud's picture, in case Mrs. Garftold was not disposed to grant her requests. Several letters were received from church societie* asking for help with Iheir debts. One woman wrote for money to buy a mourning dress tor her self, snd a tombstone for her son, lately dead. Another, who had lost one hus band in the war, had married another husband who was a worth lees and un doeirabb; companion. She wanted money to enable her to leave him. A yonng girl wrote for money for her wedding A Polite People. Tho city of Luckoow, India, ia re nowned tor the politeness of its people, exceeding, it wonld seem, that of the French, who are generally - regarded as the politest people in the world. A correspondent, writing from the spot, gives a ludicroua illustration of the extent to which the natives carry their ideas of courtesy. Two native gentle men, on their way to the railway station, accidentally fell into a ditch. One would suppose that both would have been on their feet in a twinkling; but no, the Ww of politeness interfered, snd one said to the other; " When your honorrisesthonlmaygotup." "No,your honor should get up first," replied the other. "Never; how oould { take prece dence of your honor?" and thus the contest went on for an hour, it Is said, beoause neither gentleman would con sent to \iolatf the laws of good breed ing- TOPICS OF THE DAY. The United Htatas army retired liet is limited to 400. There are at present only seven vacancies, while fifty officers are eligible to retirement. Within (he past seven or oight years there have been twelve defalcations in tho United States, from whioh the ag gregate loss has been $8,320,000. The opinion of a recent biographer is that a country village may, in a few years, produco as many of tho men who make a oountry great as London, with all her intelligence and wealth. Mr. Walter, proprietor of the London Tirnns, who baa recently been in this conntry, says that before the close cf tho next century the United States will have a population of 200,000,000. The escape with life of fivo miners, who by an explosion of a sand blast noar New Chicago, Montana Territory, were thrown two hundred and fifty foot high ami fell into a vein, was almost miraculous. Three hundred cubic yards of rock on which they stood went up with them. This going up with over a thousand tons of rock and not being killed coming down, boats anything in tho lino of modern escapes. A co operative society in Philadel phia has six stores open. This repre sents a steady growth from a very small beginning eight years ago. Tho three groceries and cne meat market yield a handsome profit, besides providing goods for the 980 members at a discount from regular rates ; but the dry goods and tho shoe stores have barely paid ex penses. On tho whole, however, tho enterprise is a sound success. The teathetie craze, which is chiefly s mania for the antique—and therefore a confession, to a certain extent, of the barrenness of modern civilization—has extended from the head to the stomach, and we aro to witness, it seems, a revi val of the cooking recipes, bills of faro, etc., of tho fifteenth ceatnry. The idea originated with some English ma niac. What we arc coming to may be imagined when it is callod to mind that two centuries befo re Qneen Anne they hal wooden bowls and pewter platters, and nsed their fingers at table, having no forks. Telegrnphing in Japan and China is no easy job. There are 44,000 charac ters or hieroglyphic* in the language, and no telegraphic alphabet is equal to the task of representing them. A sys tem has been devised by which only 6,900 characters, divided into 214 classes, need be used, and by the aid of numbers they can be transmitted by wire. But imagine a lightning operator in America trying to send several thou sand words of a newspaper "special" by such a method as that. The operator, the massage and- the telegraph editor wonld all probably be badly " broken up" in the operation. The holy league in Russia was started about three mouths ago to detect Nihi lists snd persons sympathizing with the cause in the ranka of Russian society. The members of the league belong to all classes of society, from thst nearest the throno to the petty shopkeeper. The association is a secret one, and it ia only by certain signs thst members recognise each other. On joining the league a solemn jM>drtaking is demanded from the person desirous of playing the part of a spy in the circle of his intimate friends and acquaintances The salaries of tho agents vary according to the value of their services and the zeal they display in the work of denuncia tion. Among a numerous body of Russian intelligent men this mesne of extirpeting Nihilism is ridlmled sod condemned. The late*t gold dUcorerien have been made along the Deloire river, a tribu tary of the (ireat Mackensie river of the North. The Deloire ia Raid to be navigable for a diatanee of 500 milee, bnt it is fall of dangeroaa oanons, rooks, sharp hcnde nod whirlpools, in which timber of large diameter and fifty feet in length has been seen to dis appear end foremost. Chinamen have made their way there in large nnmbers. They can get along where white men fail, and there are fow places where they make leas than 810 to $2O a day per man out of their rockets. They plant potatoes and eabbages on the banks of the river, and in othor useful ways spend time that white miners would be more likely to spend in drink ing whisky. Trappers say that it gets so cold in in this region that qnioksilver freeze* hard enough to be made into bullets, bnt they experience no ill effects horn the intensity of the oold. To show wboro the products of our forests go we will enumerate a few items: To make shoe pegs enough for American nse consumes annually 100,- 000 cords of timber, and to make onr Inciter matches 800,000 cnbio feet of the best pine ere required every year. Lasts and boot trees teke 600,000 cord* . HWjista. * of birch, beoch and maple, and the han dles of tools 600,000 more. The baking of our bricks consumes 2,000,000 cords of wood, or what would oover with forests about 60,000 acres of land. Telegraph poles already up rep resent 800,000 trees, and their annual repair consumes about 800,000 more. The ties of our railroads consume an nually thirty years' growth of 76,000 acres, and to fence all our rail road u would cost 846,000,000, with a yearly expenditure of $15,000,000 for repairs. Those arc some of the ways in which American forests arc going. There are others. Our packing boxes, for instance, cost in 1874 812,000,000, while the timber used each year in making wagons and agricultural implements is valuod at more than 8100,000,000. The French society for the preven tion of cruelty to animals does not ap pear yet to have extended its opera tions so far south as tho ancient city of Aries and other plaoes in Provenoe, for the prefects of the departments which now constitute the former province on the shores of the Mediterranean have been obligod to send a communication to tho mayors of overy town and vil lage, enjoining them to put down a brutal pastime known as "13een the custom, Sunday afternoons, to fasten two heavy ro|>es to the horns of an ox and drag him through tho streets, wbilo a mob of men and women belabor him with sticks. The animal is never allowed to escape with his life; and the Jour nal a Mairlaunr. The Indianapolis (Ind.) lltmme of a late date say* : On Thursday afternoon the tirvimtmr called at the offioe of the secretary of state, and looking over the articles of association, found the mar riage benefit business fairly booming. The first one of these associations that filed articles of incorporation was the Royal Marriage Benefit association of Union City, which opened the connu bial prize-package business early in October, and they are now flocking in at the rate of eight or ten a day. The following is a list of the companies or ganized up to Thursday afternoon : [Here follows a list of seventy-one com panies organised in Indiana.] Following this marriage benefit busi ness, which bids fair to have at least half a dozen associations in each county, comes a new scheme, the first of the scries being the Mutual Benefit Birth association of Logans port. The para graph describing the purposes of this manner of association reads thns: "The object of this association shall bo to provide a fund from which each member may draw benefits at the time of the birth of a child to her upon whom the oertifioate is issued or upon the maturity of claims against the asso ciation.'* The following advertisement is clipped from a daily paper of this city: WANTED - 110 TO 115 WITHOUT IN veaiing money or tune. The above amount will be paid to male* or female* who will inform as of the date of their approaching marriage. Ihoae engaged to be married will find it to their interest to call an or eddreea the Matrimonial Brokerage agency. It Virginia avenue (Vance block). M. H. Daniels, Manager. Alt information strictly oonfldeobal. The scheme of this broker is to in d uoe people contemplating marriage to call on him and inform him when tbe wedding is to take place, and for this j information (as strictly confidential as female pills) be pays " from |lO to $5O" for tbe privilege of taking out certifi cates on the candidate for matrimony ,in his (the broker's) own right. The broker psys for the certificate and all tbe asscssmente, and reaps his profit when the marriage takea place. The amount paid for each " certificate "is $3, and the broker can get as many certificate* as he chooses to pay for, sometimes in different companies, plao j iug as many as a hundred certificates on one candidate. The companies | promise to pay at,the rate of aixty cent* a day on each share or cer tificate, from tbe time the insurance is taken until oonjugalixation takes place. Bay that a candidate takes out a hun dred certi 9cm lea, and marries in ninety days For these hundred certificate.* he (or she) pays $?00, which goes into I the breeches of tbe five or seven incor porators who run the benefit; ("benefit" baa the same number of letters in it tbst " policy" has, and though played differently, is not altogether a dissimi lar game,) and, for this investment, is to receive, when married, at the end of ninety days, at the rate of sixty oenta a * day on each oerti fiesta, a total of $5,400. Now that looks pretty on paper. It is mora glowing when exhaled by a silver tongued marriage benefits*. The bottom is sure to tumble out of ' every oae of these institutions, and it ; is safe to predict that there isn't one of i those now organised that will be alive : six months hence. Tbe certificate buy - j era who go into this marriage benefit | scheme go in to win. They will marry jin from thirty to ninety days. These 1 companies are yonng now. Wait until ] the mjrrying gets lively. Say that j there are, ninety days henoe, twenty ; five members in one of thaae com panies, and twenty-four hundred of than marry within that time. As the assessment* on each certificate are one dollar it ia easy to see that some thing will happen when these oon jugal atoms coalesce. But tbe proprietors of th* companies won't lose s nickel. They give security for nothing. They knock down the three dollars on each certificate and get twenty oenta on each one dollar as sessment. Some of the companies are now making money hand over fist. One of the Union Oity associations is said to be $30,000 (ahead. The five incor porators of another oompany are di viding weekly dividends of $1,600, s3oq a head. This system of insurance can but have a most pernicious outcome. It will lead to a great number of unsatis factory marriages. People will marry in haste to repent at leisure, and the divoro* business will b* big enough to make Indiana a byword and a reproach all ova the world. It is about as neat a scheme and will flourish about as long as the woman's deposit swindle of Bos ton. The extent of paper making on this side of th* Atlantic ssems satisfactory- According to rooeat statistic* the num ber of paper mills ia the United States ia set down as 060; in the Unit vl King dom, 650; ia Qsrmaay, $l3; in France, 0,39; in Italy, 006; ia Austria. 160; in Spain, 68; in P,>rtu;*l, 16; in B igmru, 20} ia Holland, 10: la Denmark, 10; in Mwituriaud, IS; ia Japan, 6; 11 CJreoo - 1; in Kjamsaia, I; ia CuU, I. Ntory of • Poor Artist. In an article on the struggle for x -istonoe maintained by impecunious art ista in Now York, the TVwfA of that city tolls this story: But the hardships of this calling were probably never bet ter illustrated than in the case of • yonrsg Englishman who had oome to this country thinking, as many another European baa thought, that he would find America an El Dorado. He was of the lightning artist school, and im mediately upon his arrival in New York made application to several illustrated papers for work. In every instance he found no opening, and encountered only refusals. Day after day be trudged about to the different offices of the dailie% week lies, monthlies—everything and any thing—his portfolio under his ana, liegging that his work might only bo inspected. But the refusals were as persistent as his coming, and he finally liecame such a nuisance that he was almost literally kicked out of the dlf ' fevent offices. Finally he sold one sketch to the ed itor of a weekly paper. The price was one dollar, and he was told to come the next day and get his money. He went home to his yonng wife, who hed come , all the way from England with him, mi they both rejoiced over his good for tune. The sky looked much brighter the next day when he went for his dot. lar, bnt when he was told to oome again the sunshine lost some of its warmth, j nd be went home to his expectant wife and bread and tea, feeling that somehow I or other fortnne had tricked him. He went again and again for that dol lar, but was put off each time until he Ix-gan to think that work sold was even worse than work to be sold. Finally the editor paid him the paltry sum, and as he took it with a lump swelling np into his th7oai and the tears almost in his eyes, he said: " I—l had to pay forty cents car-fan ! to oollect that dollar, sir I" "Well, what of that; are yon not still sixty cents in V was the philanthro pic answer of this most Samaritan-like | editor. Bnt ill luck was not always in store for ' this plucky young fellow, and one day when he had gone down to Harper's, expecting to be turned awy as usual, : be was surprised that the man to whom he had applied took two of his sketches ■ into an inner room, and after remaining | some time, returned and stated that the work bad been accepted and at onee ' gave the surprised artist an order on the cashier. Almost blinded with the j tears of joy that welled up from hia 1 swelling heart, he presented the order snd received the money withont count ing. When he had gotten into the itreet he counted it aud found 116. He could not credit his fortune, and going lock to the cashier, said: "I think there is some mistake, air P The cashier counted the money and showed him the order for the amount paid. He con Id scarcely get home fast j enough, and when he did arrive he ordered his wife to hold out her apron ind slowly counted the bills into it. 11 r eyes were distended to their utmost as she asked incredulously: "Is it all yours r "I suppose there was mack congrat ulation after thatf odd Truth, to whom the artist had related this story. "No, sir," was the quick reply, "steak I" In all the Bohemian clsaacs of New York there is probably no other which affords so rich or interesting a theme for study as that of the poor artists, men and women, whose personal quali ties certainly merit a better fate than the starving condition ia which most of them suffer. How aa Eating-Hease was Kaleed. There is a wail-known story of the ruin of a London luncheon shop by a spiteful and envious rival The latter hired a boy to enter the suoeeeaful shop j exactly at the time when it was most j crowded, snd to lay on the oouater, before the eyes of all the wondering ■ind horrified guests, a dead oak "That makes nine, ma'am," said the brazen faced urchin, as he deposited his bur den and left the shop. What avail were protestations of innocence from the In dignant president of the oouater? The plot had been carefully laid, and it to talled, as was expected, hi a stampede of the diners, to return no more.—' TrmpU Bar. Two young ladies have dese all the work on the Guadalupe (Oak) TViyrapk. They have been writing the editorial articles and the local reports, preparing the general news mad miscellaneous reading matter, setting the type, making np the forma, lifting them from the ■time to the press, doing the prow*work on a No. 7 Washington hand press, and mailing and distributing the papers. This work usually required on the urn paper a force of three mea The young ladies are esid, moreover, ant to rspre sent the muscular type of their an, but to be gratis aud fair to leek open. Those girls should have a pratsnsß, at least, aud ws can put them oa the track of on* willing io be eaatoaT 13 *Ul4l