Facts for Everybody

Facts for Everybody.

The Union Gun.—The last number of the Scientific American gives an account of a monster piece of ordnance. It is a rifled canon, of twelve inch bore, and weighs fifty-two thousand and five pounds. On a trial it carried an elongated shot, weighing four hundred and twenty-three pounds, about three and a half miles in thirty seconds! It requires forty-two pounds of powder to discharge it. A correspondent of the N. Y. Tribune, speaking of the effect produced by its discharge, says: "There is a screech and a scream caused by the shot, a black mass which you can see, in its flight, yelling like an infuriated devil let loose from the infernal regions. As you watch the progress of the shot, which in its circuit attains an elevation of not less than 500 or a 1000 feet, you might easily convince yourself that it was a wild, screaming, roaring monster, dashing through the skies, mad at the sun, or an affrighted spirit from the bowels of the earth, seeking safety in the clouds."

The Massacre in Syria.—The following is the catalogue of the ruin wrought during the late massacre in Syria: Schools destroyed, 28, containing 1,830 scholars; churches torn down, 560; convents burned down, 42; villages destroyed, 360; religious establishments, belonging to Europeans, destroyed, 9. According to a document prepared by the Central Committee of Assistance in London, from information supplied by the Turks themselves, the number of christians who lost their lives is 16,000, including women and children. The number of women and young girls carried off and sold to the Turks is 3,000. The number of christians of all sects reduced to ruin by these events is 70,000.

What the Pope Thinks of his Prospects.—The Ami de la Religion publishes a letter from Rome, which says: "Pius IX appears to consider everything at an end. 'Your noble devotedness,' said his Holiness lately to some volunteers, 'is now useless, for all is finished. I have already said the same to several bishops of France.'" Thus the prediction of Daniel is being fulfilled: "They shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end."

But Oh! Their End.—A loathesome drunkard recently died in San Francisco in the most abject poverty, in a room reeking with filth, with no one but a debauchee to close his eyes. A few years ago he was the editor of a weekly paper, and the author of the famous "Patent Sermons," a series of papers filled with low and vulgar humor and caricatures of serious subjects, which, by their trifling with sacred things, called forth the laughter and ribald wit of the heedless and profane.

The Electric Telegraph.—A recent English author, in commenting on the passage, "Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased," says that there are two Hebrew verbs which differ from each other only in a letter. If one verb is used, the translation will be as we have it; if the other, then it means knowledge shall be flashed like the lightning flame. If this be the correct translation, it would be a striking prediction, fulfilled in the present age.

The Praying Christian Soldier.—On the Sunday morning on which the battle of lake Champlain was fought, the British commodore sent a man to the masthead to see what the Americans were doing on commodore McDonough's ship. The lookout told him that they were gathered about the mainmast, and seemed to be at prayer. "Ah," said commodore Downie, "that looks well for them, but bad for us." And so it proved, for at the very first shot from the American ship, which was a chain shot, the British commodore was cut in two and killed in a moment. Commodore McDonough was a man of prayer, and brave as a lion in battle. He died as he lived, a simple-hearted, earnest christian.

Preparing for War.—The new cast-steel guns, made in France, have been tried and proved a complete success. At a distance of one and two-thirds miles their projectiles will pierce iron plates four and a half inches thick. The gun itself will throw a bullet over seven miles!

Begging to Give to an Idol.—I fear that even the heathen surpass us in this matter of giving. When at the temple of Conjeveram the other day, I learned that a magnificent crown of gold, all set with precious stones, valued at about 30,000 rupees ($15,000), had been presented to the god by a beggar. This man had gone about begging till he obtained this money, and his rule was never to eat till he had got ten rupees ($5); and the final result was this magnificent crown for Vurtharajaloo, the Conchi god.

Early Crime.—"Lord Shaftesbury recently stated, as the result of his personal investigation, that 'of all the adult male criminals in London, not two in a hundred who lived an honest life up to the age of 29, afterward enter upon a course of crime,' and that 'almost all who enter upon such a course, do so between the ages of 8 and 16.' Oh the necessity of family discipline! Oh the blessedness of early religious instruction!"