Under the protecting wing of Uncle Sam and in care of the employees of the mail department, a little white Chester pig, four weeks old, celebrated his birthday recently by visiting Montpelier, Vt., for the first time, arriving on the afternoon mail train by parcel post, in what was probably one of the “softest” journeys ever taken by a “piggie,” at least in that part of the country, at any rate it was the first of the “pig nationality” to ever arrive in that city in this manner.
A very much surprised man was Frank Muzzy, janitor at the C. V. station, who carries the mail to the post office, when a small crate was passed out of the car, containing a little white “grunter,” and as long as a precedent has been established on animals, Frank is wondering whether or not he may get a box of snakes by the same route some day.
Passengers and people waiting at the station flocked around the crate, which was piled high upon the mail bags, showing great interest in the strange parcel, which was at once taken to the post office, and within an hour or so, a government employee had delivered the strange shipment to William I. Brown. The little animal was shipped from Robinson, Vt., by Joseph King.
The postage on the little traveler amounted to 43 cents.
Polonium as Medicine.
Sir William Ramsay, of England, discussing the properties of radium at a meeting of the British Radium Corporation recently, said there were other substances in the radium ores which had not so far been exploited from a therapeutic point of view. He hoped that polonium, which was perhaps the most easily produced, might prove to possess therapeutic qualities for the treatment of diseases which had hitherto not been treated.
Polonium, said Sir William, was somewhat analogous to selenium and tellurium, and also to bismuth, the therapeutic qualities of which had been tested. Those three elements remained in the system for some length of time, and then were excreted, but had practically no therapeutical qualities. Polonium differed from them entirely in that it gave off alpha rays, just the same as radium did, and he could not help believing that the potency of radium for therapeutic purposes depended upon the alpha rays.
Radium could not be administered as medicine to human beings, as it was too expensive, and probably too dangerous, but the three substances he had mentioned were eliminated in about three months, and his impression was that polonium might produce its effects for about that time and then be eliminated.
Bill Dahlen Out.
Bill Dahlen, manager of the Brooklyn National Baseball Club, has been given his unconditional release. Dahlen had held the place for four years. He was famous as a shortstop.