News in Brief.

Evening Post, Volume XLIX, Issue 134, 8 June 1895, Page 1 (Supplement)

News in Brief.

It is said that a certain SweJish coppermine has been worked without interruption for 800 years, and is estimated to have had a total yield in eight centuries of 1,200,000 tons, worth more than £32,090,000. A. record of its production shows that the output was 1,336 metric tons in 1033, reaching a maximum of 3,456 tons in 1660, and slowly decreasing' since 1690, being 271 tons in 1891. Farmers in lowa, Illinois, and in other parts of the United States are complaining of competition in agricultural products. In Chicago, during the past two years, farmers, as a class, hare been prevented by low prices from buying anything beyond bare necessitiesinclothiiigandhoosehold supplies A farmer's wife in the North of England suggests that eggs, like other provisions, should be sold by weight. She complained that she lately tent 90 fresh-laid eggs to market, averaging 2Joz each, but they fetched only the tamo price as small foreign eggs, auythiug but fresh. The Indians of Bear Hiver use as money discs cut from the very thick shell of a species of Saxidonum. Theso discs are perforated aud strung, and the money thus manufactured is called," ha- wok." The imported reindeer is flourishing in Alaska, as the imported camel is flourishing in Australia. Thousands of camels were taken to Western Australia from India, and the camel-caravan has largely snpplanted the bullock-team. Thsy thrive upon the natural shrubs of the country, such as saltbush, wattle, acacia, and mulga. They breed well, and the nativo are better than the freshly imported. Fish culture, as applied to land-locked salmon, has been very (successful in Maine, U.S. About forty flue lakea and ponds were stocked with these fiah during the past year. It is estimated that the number of horses of all kinds at present at work in the United Kingdom is 2,000,000 As a result of experiments in filtering the waters of tho Merrimac, at Massachusetts, it has been found that 98 per cent, of the germs of typhoid fever and other diseases prebeut in the water are removed by proper filtration. Siuce the introduction of tbe system now in use the deaths from typhoid fever in Lawrence have been reduced 60 per cent. A poor woman picked up a small leather bag on the pavement iv Smithfield recently which was found to contain papers and gold valued at £500. She restored it to the owner, and was rewarded with a penny. Tbe Queen's household expenses on an average amount to something slightly over £85,000 a year. The use of the telephone on Australian sheep ranches is becoming common. It is employed on the Clark ranch in Montana, whero all (he sheep and shepherds are watched and handled telephonioally by means of six stations, all communicating with a contral point, from which come weather-signals, orders, See. Nearly oight hnndred Bri'i-h parVjea have populations of less than fifty souls. The Fronoh law allows prisoners whose parents are dying to pay one visit to them when on their death-beds. The art of papennaking has reached the point where it is possible to cut down a growing tree and convert it into paper suitable for printing purposes within 24 hours. Great 3ritaiu pays £100,000,000 a year for imported foods. The income of tho London Missionary Society for the year 1892-93 was £139,911. There are in the world over 120,000 species of flowering plants. Some Pans insurance companies refuse to insure people who use hair-dye. Under normaljcircumstances, Lord Rosebery rarely sleeps more than five hours out of the twenty-four. Edward Terry, the actor, once belonged to an amateur dramatic society which rated him so low that he was always given servants' parts to play. G. H. Henty, who has thrilled every boy in the land with his accounts of " advoniures," has been through ten wars, chiefly in the capacity of war correspondent. He has written more than twice as many books. The Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia is supposed to be able to eat as much as six ordinary men. t Terra-eotta sleopersareinuse on Japanese Mulroads. The increased cost is compensated for by the greater resistance to decay. ; The internal heat of the earth increases lideg Fahr. for every fifty to seventy feet of vertical depth in various regions, so that from two thousand to three thousand feet in depth is about the limit that a man can work. < Antiseptic telephones have been introduced into German telephone- offices. The mouth of the transmitter is covered with discs of antiseptic paper, and after each conversation one is torn off, leaving a fresh one for the next speaker. There are about 1100 electric tramoars on the Continent of Europe and 500 miles of line, but contracts have been signed for 500 more motor cars and the construction of 350 miles of line. • Every workman in Japan wears on his cap and his back an inscription stating his business and giving his employer's name. The cross mark, instead of a signature, did not originate in ignorance. It was always appended to signatures in mediaeval times as an attestation of good faith. The Turks do not grind their coffee, but pound it iv a mortar with wooden pestles. Srillat Sa-r&rin, the great 3? renok epicure, who tried both pounded and ground coffee, preferred the former. A New York woman who sells newspapers in the streets is reputed to have made £4000 out of her calling in the last twenty years. Great Britain owns in Africa an area of 2,970,000 square miles, almost equal to the area of the United States. Some twenty or thirty years ago licorice was cultivated in market-gardens in the neighbourhood of London, especially about Kow and Isleworth. Seven thousand guns weekly are turned out in the Birmingham arms manufactories Canada is said to be the"only civilised country in the world without a Divorce Court. The gift of fluent speech enjoyed by the' German Emperor does not appear to have descended to the Grown Prince, who in handing a basket of flowers to Prince Bismarck on behalf of his mother, the Empress, said, simply, "From mamma." And ret, if he had spoken for half an hour, he could net have expressed more than he didin those two words. John Morley is the most difficult subject in England to portray in black-and-white. "Madcap Violet,'' which Mr. William Black considers the best novel he has yet. written, was published as far back as 1876, although it still finds many purchasers. Mr. Anthony Ashley Froude, son of the late Professor Fronde, has been elected chairman of the Balcombe Urban District. At Liverpool the other day two stones weighing 61b were discovered in theatomaoh of a fiah'of the ling speoies weighing 151b. The stones hid been used as sinkers for a daep-ses-flshing "line, and the fish did not appear to have suffered any inoonvenience from their presence. At the Russian town of Beni, at the junotion of the Pruth and the Danube, a rioh find was made lately of gold coins of the time of Phillip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. They are in exoellent preservation, and 512 of them have already been seized by the police and sent to St. Petersburg.