News in Brief.

Evening Post, Volume XLVI, Issue 43, 19 August 1893, Page 1 (Supplement)

News in Brief.

! The clove tux is the principal lonroG of Zanzibar's revonuo. It brings ia raoro than 450,000 rupees a year. The title of Duke of York, which was created by Richard 11. in 1386, has always been confined to the Royal Family, and for a long time seemed in itself & passport to the throne, until the tradition was broken when George I. gave it to his brother Erneit, Prince Bishop of Osnaburg. The rice product of the United States ia alx.uf. 25,000,000 bushels. More than 200,000 families are employed in the forests of Germany. Mr. E. W. Hornung, the Australian novelist, is engaged to be married to a sister of Dr. Conan Doyle. Out of a total of 613 known species of animals in Africa, 472 are to be found in no other country. The Emperor of Gorraany has artistic tastes, and has lately painted a picture of a ship sailing the high seas. It is computed that there are in London some 50,000 families in such a miserable plight that each family has only one room to live in. Ninety-eight patents out of every hundred applied for nover repay the patentee for his trouble. The smoky taste of Scotch whiskey is due to the use of peat in the manufacture. Thirteen millions sterling is the yearly value of potatoes grown in the United Kingdom. During the past twenty years 328,000 divorces have been granted by the Courts of the United States, 90 per cent, of them to women. The average of deaths from excessive drinking in the United Kingdom is 45 in a million. A charter of liberties granted by King John to the barons, and oMor thita ilagua Charter, has just been discovered. It ia supposed to date from 1213. The Glasgow ship Irmadra, which arrived at Portsmouth recently, reports having come into collision with an iceberg ovor a. mile long. No loss a sum than £50,000,000 sterling is supposed to be lying in banks in Scotland in the shape of unclaimed deposits. An effort is being mado to compel bankers to make public the unclaimed money in their possession. London pickpockets dispose of empty purses by dropping them into pillar postboxes. Hero they are found by the postmen who collect the letters. The wife of a labourer in Vienna recently poured a corrosivo liquid, probably sulphuric acid, down the throat of her sleeping child, a girl of six years of age, and afterwards the wretched mother hanged herself. The husband, on comiug home, found mother and daughter both dead. The Homo Seoretary has mado a rule that in future no prisoner shall be put in irons or uuder mechanical restraint as a punishment. There are 2200 church ballringers in the diooeso of Oxford. This is the largest number in any English diocese. Exeter comes second, and Devon third. Mr. G. M'Culloch, of Melbourne, has purchased Sir IF. Leiphton's picture, " The Daphnephoria," for £3000. A new ourang-outang has just been received at the Zoological Gardens. It is a little baby of about a year old, and has bean committed to the care of " Jack," who has been at the Gardens for seme tirno. The two creatures play together in the most friendly way, and it is quite touching to observo the care which the older animal takes of the younger. The route from England to India is strewn with treasure, owing to the many shipping disasters. An industrious statistician reckons that fully eight hundred millions' worth of gold and jewels lies at the bottom of the sea on that frequented way. By a simple rule the length of the day and night, any time of the year, may bo ascertained by simply doubling the time of the sun's rising, which will give the length of the night, and double tho time of setting will give the length of the day. Probably the meanest thief ever caught is Louis Bourgard, of Paris, who recently, while riding in a cab, ripped open the cushions, tied tho horsehair into a parcel, sold it while the cab waited for him, and with the money procured from selling his " plunder " paid the cabman his fare. Workmen, while digging the foundations of a monastery on Mount AvenUne, discovered an earthen vessel containing 100 gold medals bearing date A.D. 164. The men quarrelled about dividing the spoil, and, the discovery having leaked out, they were arrested for appropriating treasure trove. It is a rather curious historical fact that women first voted among the tuglishspeaking race in tho Isle of Man. Banking companies having premises in London number 99. Mr. TV. S. Gilbert's income is £12,000 a year. He is the wealthiest as well as the wittiest writer of the day. There is a long Persian poem extant which does not contain the letter "a." Thoro are 23,000 species of fishes, onetenth of which inhabit fresh water. Lord Coleridge is one of the chattiest and roost companionable men of the British Bench, and at 71 can crack a joke or tell a story aB brightly as when he first joined the Bar. Sir "WilfridLawson.who married in hia3oth year a Cumberland heiress, has a large family, all of whom have adopted their father's faith as regards total abstinence!. It was by way of hereditary succession that Sir Wilfrid himself bocarae attached to the temperance cause, tho first baronet being a strong advocate of it when drunkenness was regarded among all classes as merely «s matter for jests. Modern houses are being fitted np with more luxurious baths than ever our fathers dreamed of. According to Mr. Joseph Hatton, the bath for a man should be spacious — a, plunge— with sprays, douche?, and other appliances; plenty, of room (o slosh about, a kind of glorified soaping room of the ordinary Turkish ,bath, with a retiring-room for coffee and cigarettes and favourite books. i It is no unusual thing for a turtle to lay rs many v 125 eggs, although from 60 to 100 oggi is a more usnal "lay." More than 500,000 lizard felting were shipped to the United States last year from the State of Tobosco, Meiioo. It ia difficult to obtain from an elephant's tusk a perfect slab of ivory more thaa6in. in diameter, as the upper end of the tusk, which, v the thickest, is hollow, and the material is coarser than that in the solid part of the tusk. Every part of the tusk is put to use. Even the onips and sawdust are converted into ivory black by burning. Ireland sends annually 40,000 tons of e ggg some 640,000,000 in round numbers — to England alone. A Bill is to be introduced into the Hpn*e of Commons giving facilitioi for the acquisition by working men of their own houses. It proposes that local authorities shall have power to make advances .not exceeding £150 to workmen for the purpose. In the manufacture of knive* the division of labour has been carried to anoh an extent that 'on* knife in handled by aoventy di|fartntcxttMM, • v