SCISSORS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 7499, 19 October 1895, Page 6 (Supplement)

SCISSORS.

In the famous cellars of the Hotel de Ville, at Bremen, there are a dozen cases of holy wine, which have been preserved for 250 years. Expert bydrographers say that in its deepest parts the ocean's waters are so dense that a sunken iron-clad would never reach the bottom.

There are more than seventy halls in Paris devoted to fencing, each presided over by the fencing master more or less famous.

The Japanese method of lacquering is said to be at least 2000 years old. Pieces made ten centuries ago are still exhibited.

In the public schools of Germany the bright pupils are separated from the stupid ones. Medical men do the sorting.

Disraeli prophesied in his novels that the workingmen one day would take a great revenge upon capitalist radicalism.

An Antarctic iceberg has been seen that was twenty miles wide, forty miles in length and 4000 feet in height.

Governesses able to cycle will soon be in demand in Paris, such is the rage for cycling among girls.

Almost all the biggest. London and provincial English papers are printed on presses made in New York.

The money has been subscribed for the proposed balloon trip of the Swedish engineer Andree to the North Pole. Tbe balloon will be made in Paris at a cost of £1600.

Yon Gaberecht, an eminent German pencil maker, now dead, has over his grave a gigantic stone representation of half a lead pencil set as a tombstone. It is of red sandstone/with a core of graphite eight inches in diameter. By actual experiments it has been ascertained that the explosive power of a sphere of water only one inch in diameter is sufficient to burst a brass vessel having a resisting power of 27,000 pounds.

Bicycle weddings are increasing in popularity in France. At the close of a wedding ceremony recently the bridal couple started off on their honeymoon on a ' bicycle built for two.'

Lord Salisbury became Premier for the third time at 65. He is eleven and a half years younger than Mr Gladstone was when he achieved the same rare distinction.

H. Rider Haggard is a dog fancier, being especially fond of uglier breeds, such as pugs and bulldogs. Mme. Casimer-Perier, wife of the ex-president of France, is an enthusiastic bicycler. Her husband knows what the turn-of fortune's wheel is.

Miss Burta Grace Boyd is known as the Grace Darling of St Croix. She has charge of the Ledge light about six miles below St. Stephen, N.B. She won her title twelve years ago by saving, alone and unaided, two sailors from certain death, a deed of bravery recognised by the dominion government, which presented a lifeboat and a gold watch to the young woman. It is said that Lady Frere once went to meet her husband at a railway station accompanied by a new servant whom she sent to look for Sir Bartle Frere when the train had arrived. The servant protested that he had never seen him, to which she replied :—' That does not matter ; look for a tall man helping somebody.' The servant went and found Sir Bartle helping an old woman to alight from a carriage.

Somebody has been kind enough to make a list of the eligible English dukes now in the marriage market, with their respective ages : —Richmond, 77; Grafton, 84; Norfolk, 39 ; Marlborough, 74; Roxburghe, 19 ; and Manchester, 18. Grafton seems to be the most desirable ' catch.'

Steinitz, the chess player, sometimes becomes so absorbed in considering a problem that he will stand still in the most crowded thoroughfare. It is related of him that on one occasion he caused such an obstruction that policemen told him to move on. ' Excuse me,' replied the champion, absently, ' but it is your move.'

French daily journals announce the engagement of Mr James Gordon Bennett to the divorced wife of Gen. Annenkoff, who built the trans-Caspian railway. Crime is more common in single life than in married. In the former thirtythree in every 100,000 are guilty, white only eleven married men of the same number have gravely broken the laws. . Each new census of London shows some startling statistics. The latest is that there are fifteen births and eleven deaths each hour. Last year there were more deaths there than in all Scotland.

The largest book ever known is owned by Queen Victoria. It is eighteen inches thick and weighs sixty-three pounds, and contains the addresses of congratulation on the occasion of her jubilee.

A match-cutting machine is quite an automatic curiosity. It cuts 10,000,000 sticks a day, and then arranges them over a vat, where the heads are put on at a surprising rate of speed. In a ballet called ' Venus,' performed at La Scala, in Milan, the principal scene brings in a corps of women bicyclists arrayed in costumes which are less than ' rational.'

The largest mass of pure rock salt in the world lies under the province of Gilicia, Hungary. It is known to be 500 miles long, 20 miles broad, and 250 feet in thickness.

Over 400 diamonds aro known to have been recovered from the ruins of Babylon. Many are uncut, but most are polished on one or two sides only. Goggles are now supplied by the British Admiralty to the officers and sailors serving on fast torpedo boats, as the high speed has been found to be injurious to the eyes. The Pueblo Indians are a moral race. They have resisted all attempts of traders to introduce whisky and playing cards in their midst.

It is'said that a church in Topeka has employed a woman whistler to whistle sacred music every Sunday.

The eleven cables now in operation across the Atlantic have cost upward of £70,000,000.

Dijon, France, has a poplar tree with a record that can be traced to 722 A.D. It is 122 feet high and 45 feet in circumference at the base.

Leaves of the talipat palm in Ceylon sometimes attain the length of twenty feet. The natives sometimes use them in making tents.

There are two solid silver tea tables at Windsor castle.

It is not generally known that, size for size, a thread of spider silk is decidedly tougher than a bar of steel. An ordinary thread will bear a weight of three grains. This is just about 50 per cent stronger than a steel thread of the same thickness.

The longest bridge in the world is the Lion bridge, near Saugang, China. It extends five and one-fourth miles over an arm of the Yellow Sea, and is supported by 300 huge stone arches. The roadway is seventy feet above the water and is enclosed in an iron network.

While mending a road in King George county, Virginia, lately, workmen dug up the skeleton of a man enclosed in a cage of iron bars, in a fairly good state of preservation. The remains are evidently those of some, malefactor hung in chains in colonial days.

According to the French professor, the rabbit is able to bear the greatest cold. He shut, a rabbit up all night in a block of ice and the next morning the animal seemed to be very comfortable and not to know that anything unusual had been going on.

Mr David H. Wyckoff recently wrote that a million horse power could not produce the effect that a single flash of lightning has been known to accomplish. He believed that we have yet hardly begun to utilize the forces of nature.

When S. R. Crockett was a poor young college student he became the private tutor of a rich American youth, and travelled with his charge all over England and as far away as Siberia and Nova Zembla. He made copious notes of the trip and expects to use them in a forthcoming book.

According to Aristotle women in some Grecian cities owned a great deal of real estate, voted, held office and enlisted in tha army. The " new woman " was so unpopular in Athens that a play was written satirizing her desire to control the city.

Firemen's clothes in England are in the future to be made of asbestos or mineral wood. The efficiency o£ suits composed of this material depends on three facts. It is non-combustible, a non-conductor of heat, and in no way injured by water.

Ralph Iron (Olive Schreiner) is described as a small, lively womsyi, with nothing of the sadness of her stories. Two years ago Miss Schreiner married Mr Cronwright, a member of the colonial Parliament. It is said that, instead of her taking his name, he gave up his name for hers.

The heart of King Louis XVII. of France, which has been for years in the possession of M Edouard Dumont, of Neuilly, France, was recently delivered with impressive ceremonies into the hands of the Count I'rbain de Maille, representing the Duke of Madrid.

As the wife of the Premier, the Marchioness of Salisbury ranks first among the British Cabinet ladies, but superior to her in social power, influence, and brilliance is the Duchess of Devonshire, who for more than forty years has been one of the queens of London society. She is a German by birth and a thorough Parisienne in all that concerns elegance and toilet. Her .first husband was the seventh Duke of Mancheslßr, and her second marriage was the culmination of a rqajantic attachment thafr-existjeiior-srahy yeai*_between herself and her present husband, then Lord Hartington. There is no hostess more perfect or gracious in all London than the Duchess of Devonshire, and while, perhaps, her three-score years have impaired the beauty and the elegance which a couple of decades ago were celebrated throughout .the length and breadth of Europe, yet she has gained in stateliness and grandeur of what she has lost by the touch of time's ruthless hand.

Nicolas de Pierola, who has been elected president of Peru, was born in 1839, and has had a lively career. This will not be his first term as president. One pleasant afternoon in October, 1870, General Prado, who had been ruling Peru after a fashion for some time, went on board the Pacific Navigation Steamship Co.'s steamer Islay, bound for Panama. As soon as Prado's departure was announced, the presidential campaign in Peru began. Notices were posted in the streets announcing that- Nicholas de Pierola would take charge of the country. Pretty soon a few companies of the army of Peru declared for Pierola, a barricade was erected and Pierola appeared on horseback. The loyal troops attacked the barricade and were whipped. Three days after Pierola was declared dictator of Peru. Then came the Chilians and fairly wiped the earth with the Peruvians and Pierola wa3 swept out of the country and into exile; Some years later he came back from somewhere with an army and was again elected chief executive. He did not last long this time and was started on another tour of b.\nishment. Now in 1895 he comes back with another army, gets the better of another bandit named Caceres and is reported as head of affairs Peruvian headed as 'El Napoleon del bud Americano,' the * Napoleon of South America.'