BREVITIES.

Evening Star, Issue 12926, 14 April 1908, Page 8

BREVITIES.

Hutfc Railway opened 14th April, 1874, O.R.F.U. Committee passed a resolution Inst night ftrongly expressing the opinion that the City Council shoidd make every effort to secure Forbury Park for recreation purposes. Drury residents are petitioning for the release of W. Dixon. The Christcburch City Council last nighc rescinded the motion passed at the previous meeting authorising the .removal of the Godley Statue from its present site in Cathedral square to the cathedral grounds. The retail butchers in WeJlirigtoin are. notified by the companies supplying them that prices will be raised Is per 1001b for beef and i,d\ per lb for mutton, bringing the charges to 20s and 3^d. The Mokoia, which left Auckland for Sydney yesterday, took a full complement of passengers, there being 181 in the steerage. During March 879,270 passengers wore carried over the ChTistchurch tramway system. A sprinkling of bran is a good trap for slugs, which are a great; nuisance in some gardens this wet autumn. Two keepers of temperance hotels and a uestaTurant keeper were fined at Napier yesterday for employing assistants more than the maximum number of hours. The British Annv has at present ne-arlv 5,000 officers. A 50-ton gun costs £IO,OOO, and each shot moans £7O spent. Naval log books eventually find a rest-ing-place in the Record Office. The Jewish population of the United Kingdom is about 250,000. Beachy Head was once a. lofty hill two miles from the sea coast.

The King's cook gets £2,0C0 a year, and he. has to work only about two hours a dav.

The blood of pigeons and turkeys k about lOdeg higher than that of human beings.

In London three gas companies consume between them 4.000,000 tons of coal per annum.

The last Sovereign to abdicate was King Milan of SeTvia. Tip relinquished the. crown iji 1889. The most valuable book in the British Museum is 'Th<» Codex Alexandrinus.'said to be worth £300.000.

Silk is produced by more than 200 insects, although very few of these are of »k:iy practical value to mankind. Probably not one person in a hundred knows which is the second largest city in the British Empire. It is Bombay.

It is stated that £I.BOO has now been promised ;md given for the memorial of the late Sir Wilfrid Lawscn, to be erected at Aspafcria, which is within a short distance, of Brayton* Hall, where he lived.

The Midland Railway engine-driver who recently retired, after forty years' service, and went to live in the country, has indared the company to restore him to his old position on the footplate, as he found life away from his engine unendurable. The inhabitants of Great Britain retain their reputation as the greatest letterwriters in the world. Statistics prepared by tho United States Consul at Lietre show that for the yea.r (1907) the people of the United Kingdom have to their credit seventy-eight letters for each person, the United States being second with sixtyseven.

Professor Armstrong, speaking at a brewers' gathoring, aroused enthusiasm by the statement that " it is not sufficiently realised that beer is the only safe drink at the disposal of the public the world over." Beer, he said, was the only sterilised drink that the public could put into its mouth.

'•There are women." said Father Vaughan, "who would tear the last farthing from a man in order to put a little more decoration on. You have on-lv to see women a.t shop windows in any of our great thoroughfares. They could not spend the time there if they w'aro not fascinated and held by something they love. There are women who would sell their souls for a ribbon."

Two brothers have died under sad circumstances at BoLton (England). One of them, a man named who was employed at the Great Lever Collieries. Bolton, and had just gained his tinder-manager's certificate, -fell "down the pit shaft, and was drowned. His brother, Sydney Bradsha.w, aged nineteen, was so overcome by the occurrence that he died next morn hi g.