GENERAL NEWS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2360, 3 May 1901, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS.

Korean paper is so strong and dense that it can be used to cover umbrellas.

Barbed wire was first used by the British in Matabele War.

People of melancholy temperament rarely have clear blue eyes.

Organ-grinders in Sydney streets make on an average from fifteen to twenty shillings a day.

The population of England at the time of the Conquest did not exceed 2,000,000 all told.

The siege and capture of Delhi cost the British 1,000 dead and 3,000 wounded.

The khaki uniform was originally recommended by a Colour Committee which was convened in 188.3.

The first book ever printed in Canada was set up by Quebec printers 130 years ago.

The French Government has liberated in Madagascar during the last four years above one million slaves.

In the space of one minute the polypus can change its form a hundred times.

The Czar of Russia's suite consists of 173 persons, of whom 73 are general and 76 extra aides-de-camp.

The loss to the English Mint during the last eight years, occasioned by the wearing out of money, has been about £2OO a day.

Africa has been fatal to three Royal princes Prince Christian Victor, Prince Henry of Battenberg, and the Prince Imperial.

There are three principal religions in China—Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. The latter is almost without forms and ceremonies.

Mount Gambier (S.A.), which was discovered 100 years ago by Lieutenant Grant, has celebrated its first birthday.

Recent calculations of the sun's pace give it at al>out forty miles per second, or nearly 3,000 times faster than an express train.

Ladysmith is the third town of importance in Natal, is IS'J miles north of Durban, has thirteen streets, a town-hall, and a public library.

The latest Chinese papers state that there are at present six smokelesspowder factories in operation in the Chinese Empire.

It was stated in a London police court the other day that nine or ten shillings a day can \>e made on an average by begging. New Zealand ilax industry has re vivrd and nourished exceedingly, owing to the war in the Philippines having shortened the output of Manila fibre.

An American professor contends that human beings would live three times as long as they do at the present if they would reject the "senseless practice of cooking their food."

Lightning will strike twice in the same place, and repeat. A church steeple at Bound Brook has recently l)een hit the fifth time, in as many years.

An Italian electrician has invented an electric cartridge, which he offers

as a substitute for dynamite and smokeless powder in mines, rock blasting, and for heavy ordnance.

Water charged with carbonic-acid gas—in other words, soda-water—is now prescribed as a palliative for hunger, especially for the abnormal sense of hunger due to disease.

Within the last twenty years the number of English and American female physicians in Asiatic countries has increased from twenty to two hundred and twenty.

The Burmese have a curious idea* regarding coins. They prefer those which have female heads on them, believing that male coins are unproductive and do not make money.

Lord Rosebery has decided to sever his connection with the Turf, at all events for a time. His horses in training, twenty in all, have been sold at Newmarket, and averaged less than 500 guineas each.

Anglophobia has got such a hold of Antwerp that a little English girl at school at the Ursulines Convent was punished by the nuns for showing a copy of the " Absent-minded Beggar " to her English school-fellows.

Bombay—named by the Portuguese navigators of the sixteenth century Bom Bahia, the beautiful bay—has been called the finest modern city of Asia, and the noblest model of British enterprise in the world.

In China, twelve and a half miles from the village of Lion Chek, theie is a mountain of alum, which, in addition to being a natural curiosity, is a source of wealth for the inhabitants of the country, who dig from it yearly tons of alum.

Dr. Barnardo and his council have determined to reserve one thousand or more places in their various homes for the free admission of any destitute boys or girls, the children of soldiers, sailors, or civilians who may be left orphans in the present war.

One of the curious matrimonial customs of the Matabele tribes is that when children are born to a couple, the father must buy them of his father-in-law, or, if he fails to do so, the children become the property, so to speak, of the mother's family.