MISCELLANEOUS FACTS AND FIGURES. 



639 



Paper Table for Printers' and Pub- 

 lishers' Use. Showing the quantity of 

 paper required for printing 1,000 copies (in- 

 cluding 56 extra copies to allow for wastage) , 

 of any usual size book, from 8vo down to 

 32mo. If the quantity required is not found 

 in the table, double or treble some suitable 

 number of pages or quantity of paper. 



Carrier Pigeons. That pigeons have 

 been used for a great many years for the 

 transmission of messages is well known, but 

 with what nation the custom originated it is 

 impossible to discover. The Romans used the 

 birds for this purpose, they were in use among 

 the Asiatics, and we have the assertion of the 

 poet Tasso for believing that they were em- 

 ployed during the siege of Jerusalem in 1099 ; 

 and it is a historical fact that they were used 

 during the crusade of St. Louis, in 1250. 

 Their most remarkable use in modern times 

 was during the siege of Paris, in 1870. In 

 Turkey they have been more generally used 

 than in any other country, and it is said that 

 there the art of training them is carried to its 

 highest perfection. Pigeons intended for this 

 use are taken, when they have acquired full 

 strength of wing, in a covered basket to a dis- 

 tance of about half a mile from their home, 

 and then set at liberty and thrown into the 



air. If they return home they are then taken 

 to greater distances, progressively increased 

 from forty to fifty miles. When the bird is 

 able to accomplish this flight he may be trusted 

 to fly any distance, overland, within the limits 

 of physical power. It is the general plan to 

 keep the birds in a dark room for some hours 

 before they are used. They are then fed spar- 

 ingly, but are given all the water they can 

 drink. The paper on which the message is 

 written is tied around the upper part of the 

 bird's leg, or to one of the large feathers of 

 the tail, so as not to impede its flight. The 

 feet are washed in vinegar to keep them from 

 getting too dry, so that the bird will not be 

 tempted to descend to water and thus possibly 

 ruin the message. The rate of flight is from 

 twenty to thirty miles an hour, though the 

 bird has been known to pass over great distances 

 much more rapidly. When thrown up in the 

 air, the pigeon at first flies round and round, 

 as though for the purpose of sighting some 

 landmark that it knows. When this is dis- 

 covered, it flies toward it, and thence onward 

 to its home. 



Emancipation in Great Britain. 

 The system of slavery was abolished through- 

 out all the British Colonies by act of Parlia- 

 ment in 1833, when a bill was passed which 

 gave freedom to all classes and indemnified 

 their owners with an award of 20,000,000. 

 According to this act, slavery was to cease on 

 August 1, 1834, but the slaves were to con- 

 tinue with their former owners as apprentices 

 for a certain period. This apprenticeship, 

 however, did not work satisfactorily to either 

 side, and complete emancipation took place in 

 1838. In 1787 the subject of the suppression 

 of the slave trade was agitated in London and 

 received the support of Mr. Pitt, the Prime 

 Minister, and William Wilberforce, a member 

 of Parliament, and in 1791 a bill forbidding 

 the further importation of slaves was offered 

 by Wilberforce in Parliament, but was not 

 passed. The conquest of the Dutch colonies 

 in America by the British led to such an in- 

 crease in the British slave-trade that in 1805 

 the traffic was forbidden in the conquered colo- 

 nies ; and in 1806 the friends of emancipation 

 gained still another step by the passage of an 

 act forbidding British subjects to engage in the 

 trade, and the following year a general aboli 

 tion bill making all slave-trade illegal afte,' 

 January 1, 1808, was adopted by Parliament. 

 This, however, did not have the desired effect, 

 as British subjects still continued the trade 

 under the flags of other nations. So, in 1811, 

 it was made a felony, punishable with im- 

 prisonment at hard labor or transportation ; 

 and subsequent laws made it piracy, to be 



