One might infer from this that instead of increasing, as would be naturally expected, the human race is dying out: but closer inspection shows that the estimate of the population of China has been reduced about 55,000,000. Accepting this and all the other estimates, there seems to be an increase in other countries of about 33,000,000; part of which is due to the fact that the geographers had the benefit of the census takers in different countries in 1880 and 1881, showing the growth of five to ten years. The total population of the United States in 1880, according to the revised census, is 50,155,783.
DRINKING FROM SKULLS.
Burlington, Iowa.
What is the origin of the expression “A soldier’s drinking cup,” as applied to a human skull?
Wm. A. T.
Answer.—Thomas Middleton was a dramatic writer who flourished in the early part of the seventeenth century. In “The Witch,” one of his most celebrated plays, when “the Duke” takes a bowl and is told that it is a skull, he exclaims:
“Call it a soldier’s cup;
Our Duchess, I know, will pledge us, tho’ the cup
Was once her father’s head, which, as a trophy,