Miscellaneous Extracts.

Hastings Standard, Issue 221, 15 January 1897, Page 4

Miscellaneous Extracts.

Turkish soldiers call the bicycle Cheitan Arabassi, or the devil's vehicle. A full-grown elephant is supposed to be capable of carrying a load of about 50001b. The title of ;< majesty " was not introduced until the reign of James the first. A Cashmere shawl weaver in Persia earns by the hardest labor about Is 6d a day. Intoxicating liquors have been made from the sap of the birch, the willow, the poplar, and the sycamore. A bicycle ambulance, which has just been invented in Chicago, has four wheels, and it takes two men to run it. The bed on which the person to be carried is placed is suspended on springs between the two riders. A duel with pistols was fought on a recent Sunday in Paris between the Marquis de Montmort and Mr A. Hutchison, a well - known American resident there. Six balls were exchanged at 25 paces, but with no result. Mrs Brander, of Madras, an English layd, who is probably the first English woman ever appointed as regular inspector of .schools, is now on a year's furlough. Mrs Brander has 22 districts under her control and 500 schools, with a staff of three assistant inspectors and four clerics in her Madras office. Dean Vaughan is the only living Churchman who has refused the Primacy. When Archbishop Tait died it was offered to him, but lie declined it. Dean Church, of St. Paul's, also had the Archbishopic of Canterbury offered to him and refused it. A rash bet often lands a man in an awkward predicament, but nothing could be more ridiculous than the terms of an election bet which a young man of Brooklyn has to fulfil. He wagered that he would ride from New York to San Francisco on a donkey, and to make the position more trying, the following conditions were laid down :--(l) He must wear a frock coat and a silk coat, while (2) both his steed and himself must wear spectacles. A further condition is that he must (3) start within a month after election day and pay a visit both to the victorious and the defeated candidate. According to the New York " Tribune" the unfortunate man has purchased his donkey and made his will, and although he is extremely disgusted at the rare amusement he will afford he intends to carry out his bet. Meanwhile, the hardest cut of all is that " his mother has disowned him and his father declares that it serves him right." Christianity in India is not merely a religion or a belief ; it is a communal tie which binds together its followers into strongly knit associations, each with common interests, a system of mutual aid, and an organised machinery of protection against the mischances of life. The Government of New South Wales has given a large order for Canadian school desks. These desks have been pushed as a specialty by several large concerns, and at all the great international exhibitions in recent years have been given high awards. They are now finding their way all over the world on their merits. Another boy-wonder has burst upon the horizon of the cycling world. This time he is not a thing of speed, but an inventitive genius, from whose brain has developed a bicycle light of surpassing brilliancy. His name is George Woolbury, his age is sixteen, aud his home San Francisco. His light is described as being something altogether new. To the front forks of his bicycle he has attached a couple of tubes filled with oxygen. Another tube filled with ether is fastened to the handle-bars, while between the crossbars the lad has arranged a battery. The oxygen and ether tubes are connected with wires, and when the wheel is put in motion it generates its own light. The only object is that the contrivance, as first used by the young inventor, was too heavy. He says he will make it weigh less, and will then have a light that will show every obstacle in the road ahead of him.