News in Brief

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXII, Issue 6702, 20 October 1905, Page 4

News in Brief

•♦ Central America has 90 active volcanoes. Small showers are said to fall every day in the year in Honolulu. Seventy millions of people in Europe, it is said, wGar wooden shoos Tapiocn, used in pudding, is extracted from a deadly poisonous plant Eight-tenths of the soldiers in Russia and Bervia can neither read nor write. Sixteen ounces of gold r.re enough to gild a wire thai; would.encircle the earth. No British Sovereign has vetoed a Parliamentary Bill during tho pa*it 185 years. Ihe bones or tombs of! over 200 giants have been found in various parts of Europe. The oldest violin in the world was found in an Egyptian tomb dating about 3000 B.C. The growth of girls is greatest in their fifteenth year, and that of boys in the seventeenth year. Moscow's orphan asylum, founded by Catherine 11., is supported by a tax on playing cards. France i 3 the only European country which has to-day fewer able-bodied men than it had 30 yaars ago. In Arran, where the maidenhair ferns grow plentifully, some of the inhabitants use it as a substitute for tea. A sponge having a circumference of five feet six inches has been taken from the waters of Biscayne Bay, Florida; The total number of all known varieties of postage stamps issued by all the Governments of the world up to the present is 19,242. A noticeable feature on many of the small farms in the Feilding district this season is that large plots are being devoted to onion cultivation, Some of these early crops present an exceptionally good strike. During the quarter ending September 30 27 bills of sale, 59 mortgages of stock, one bailment of stock and chattels, and four wool securities were filed at the Palmerston ! Court. One hundred and eighty-one searches were made. " I have worked from dx o'clock in the morning till the last thiojr at night to try and meet my creditors," said a debtor before the official assignee at Christohurch, the other day, * and I've paid away £20 a month in interest—£2o a month,' he added wearily. Crows are playing havoc with the sheep • and lambs in the Mudgee district (N S W). Daring the last fortnight a sheep breeder , living about six miles from the town had £100 worth of stud ahoep and lambs destroyed by them. They kill the animals by picking their eyes out. 1 A curious incident ia postal communica* tion came to light recently at Milltown , (Victoria). A post card was posted in Hamilton en February 20, 1577. It bears the Condah postmark of February 21, and Myamyn of February 22, but it only arrived at Milltown a few days ago, or 28 year 3 after it was posted. It takes relatively eight times the strength to go upstairs thac it requires to accomplish the same distance on level ground The medical practitioners of Friedrichsthal, Germany, hwe got up a ' black list' of people who are behind with payment to their doctors. Medical aid will be refused j to them so long as they remain on this 1 list Theatre goers in Spain can purchase a seperate ticket for each act, and often do not stay to sea more than one act at a time. It is quite the usual thing to spend four nights over a four act play, seeing one act i one night, the second act a few nights later on, and so on. Last month 40,980 carcases.of lamb wore shipped from New Zealand as against 37,581. carcases in September of last year. In mutton the position was reversed, the exports from the colony totalling 11i,408 carcases, as compared with 146,346 carcases in the corresponding month of Inst year.