Eugenics Law Slams Cupid.
The State board of health, of Wisconsin, in its annual report shows that since the eugenics law went into effect January 1, 1914, the number of marriages in Wisconsin dropped 3,800. In 1913 there were 21,052 marriages and in 1914 only 17,252.
There were in 1914, however, eighty-seven recorded common-law marriages, just as valid in law as the ceremony kind, but not under eugenic requirements. The State board says many persons went into some other State to be married rather than submit to the medical examination.
Electric Trap Kills Rats.
Employees of a livery barn at Greencastle, Ind., have found a new way of killing rats caught around the barn. They have arranged a trap so that it can be attached to an electrically charged wire. When the current is turned on, the rats in the trap are shocked so severely that they live only a few minutes.
Dying, He Saves Train from Wreck.
Mortally wounded by a pistol shot, Kihara, Japanese section foreman, used the last of his strength to set a torpedo on the tracks of the Salt Lake route near Milford, Utah, to save the east-bound Pacific Limited train from possible wreck.
Kihara was shot by Mexicans who composed his force. They fled, leaving the hand car on the rails. The wounded man tried in vain to remove the car alone, and then dragged himself down the track with a torpedo, which he placed to check the train. The train stopped in response to the signal and brought Kihara to Milford, where he died.
Spoils Tooth on Raw Oyster.
F.J. Ham, of New York, broke a gold tooth crown on a pearl in a raw oyster at the Royal James Inn, at South Norwalk, Conn. Mr. Ham was indignant until a jeweler told him the pearl was worth fifty dollars. He says he is willing to break some more ten-dollar gold crowns on fifty-dollar pearls.