VARIETIES.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume VI, Issue 61, 29 July 1897, Page 3

VARIETIES.

A toothpick factory which flourishes at Harbour Springs turns out 7,500,000 toothpicks every day. In Finland the women consider a kiss on the lipa as the greatest insult, even from their own husbands. In Australia they don't think kissing an inault, not by a long way. The average life of women in France for the last thirty-two years has been thirty-eight years, and of men thirly-six years. The idea that alcohol keeps out the cold is wrong, as mountaineers have found by repeated experience that the opposite of thiß holds true. Montevideo ia aaid to be the greatest gambling place in the world. Children there bet as soon as they can talk, and long before they can read. In a Western (United States)restaurant much frequented by cowboys, the proprietor has put up a notice, " You are requested not to lassoo the waiters." It is hard to lose a friend—to see them slipping from you one by one—but it ia harder still to find a towel with your eyes full of soap. A chain was made at Troy, Now York, in 1883, for the United States Government which was a little over six miles in length. It was made of iron bars two and a half inches in diameter.

It is said that diamonds—especially the class known aB "rose diamonds"— are likely to explode if subjected only to what would seem a very ordinary degree of heat, bucli as strong rays from the sun. An electric motor driven by tread-mill power is the latest idea. Certain of the London prisons are to be lighted by electricity, and it is proposed to erect a special description of tread-mill to Bupply the motive power. " Ah,"Bhenaid, enthusiastically, "how Ido love to watch the cyclists. See that sweet man on the maroon wheel. How beautifully his bloomers match his saddle. And—Oh, look at those two people on the tandem. How well they keep step.'' Present-day scientists ascribe the origin of the moon to the fact that, at a very remote period, when the earth waa in a atate of molten heat, a portion broke off by centrifugal action, and gradually receding from the earth, became what we call the moon.

The burglar who breakß into Madame Patti's castle at Craig-y-noa will have a warm reception. All the windowß have been fitted with electric attachments, which start at the slightest touch, cause a gun to be fired, and liberate in the grounds a large number of fierce doga. The glass most used for making the paste of which false precious stones are manufactured is called strasa (German, stras), named after the man who first discovered it. It can be coloured with oxides of metals so perfectly, it ia aaid, that the falae stonea can scarcely be told from the real ones.

It i 8 said that engravers in Germany harden their tools in Bealing-wax. The tool is heated to whiteness, and plunged into the wax, withdrawn after an instant, and plunged in again, the procesa being repeated until the ateel is too cold to enter the wax. The steel ia said to become after this proceas almoat as hard as the diamond.

The proprietor of a popular music-hall in Paris has taken action against one of the young ladies performing at the establishment because she has declined to appear before the public in very light and airy attire. Tho star in question maintains that she is perfectly justified in her refusal. She argues, as the role imposed on her was to undress herself on the stage, that her personal dignity would have suffered.