FRAGMENTS OF FACT.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 717, 29 March 1900, Page 4

FRAGMENTS OF FACT.

— Tapioca is extracted from a deadly poisonous plant. Some of the stars move with a velocity of fifty miles a 'second. The length of life of a tradesman is only two thirds that of a farmer. In the United States only one mnrdoror in fifty is condemned to death. The regulation stop of the British army is 120 to the minute. Altogether there are 1,000,000 mummies in Egypt. Telegraph wire made of paper is the latest American invention. On an average, there are more daughters born to royalty than sons. A part of a Gorman soldier's equipment is a four ounce religious book. Blotting-paper is made of cotton rags boiled with soda. The average life of a ship is about twenty-six years. Each British soldier costs his country £80 every year. The most common name for a place in Eugland is Newton, which occurs no fewer than seventy-two times. There are 70,927 people in Iceland and they are so free from crime that but one policeman is kept According to an eminent doctor, the excessive use of salt tends to paralyse the sense of taste. A manufacturer of artistic furniture in Paris has just completed a chair the forelegs of which are of gold. It is valued at £7,000. Medical men now regard typhoid fever as . a disease so preventable that as one of them declares, ' for every case of tyjahoid fever somebody ought to be hanged.' The newest cradles and rockingchairs are to ho fitted with pneumatic and cushion pads on the bottom of the rockers, to make them noiseless and and comfortable. Sweden is building a new navy. Its sixth ship of the new type, the ' JNiord,' is receiving its guns and final equipment. It is a coast defence vessel of 3500 tons. Sharks were almost unknown in the Adriatic until the Suez Canal was opened. Now the harbors of Fiume and Pola are so infested with them that residents dare no longer bathe in the open sea. The right leg is far more subject to accidents than the left. It has been found that the ratio is about thirteen serious accidents to the right leg to three of the left. Professor Axenfeld, of Peruvia, has discovered that three fifths of all men of distinction are firot-born children ; the other two-fiffchs are either second or third children, or else the youngest of very large families. Every quart of milk yields about one ounce of butter. The proportion of '

cream to milk from the average coy ranges from one-twentieth to one tenth, but in the case of the famous Alderney cows it averages from threi to four-tenths. Oysters grow on the trees in Cap( Breton, Nova Scotia. It is not unus ual for a tree-branch which dips into a lake to have oyster spat deposited upor it, and in time the branch becomes covered with fat oysters. Eeal jewels, scientists now assert; possess organic life. It has long been known that- opals any pearls grow dull when worn by invalids, and latterly rubies and the turquoise are found tc share the same sensibility. Pearls are more indicative of the condition of the wearer than any other gem. Though this delicate stone lives longer than a flower, it seems to have a form of life which, like that of the flower, loses color and brilliancy, and actually dies. The Germans have produced a new feeding bottle for babies. As the infant imbibes the contents, the action causes some music to play and the child is doubly comforted. The latest in building is a covering of plaited metal strip for walls and ceiling in the place of plaster. It is claimed that these metalic coverings not only serve as a protection in the event of fire, but that they do not show damp stains, and are ornamental in themselves, thus doing away with paper or other form of decoration. A new form of bicycle bell is attached to one of the pedals instead of to the handle-bar. By pressing the foot upon a lever, somewhat after the style of the omnibus brake, the attached mechanism is set in motion, and the bell will ring as long as the pressure is applied to the lever. It is claimed that this form of bell is more easy to manipulate, and at the same time both hands are left free. Africa has nearly seven hundred dialects. The life of an editor in Servia is not a delightful one. Within the last two years a weekly paper has had sixteen editors. Fifteen of them are in gaol for too keenly commenting upon Government affairs ; and the sixteenth has just been hustled off to join them for the same offence. Torpedo destroyers discharge their missiles from a deck tube. The weapon is first laid in a shoot and then passed into the tube, from which it is expelled by compressed air. After the tube has been trained in the direction in which the torpedo is to bo fired, tho gunner gets astride it, takes a sight, pulls buck a lover and out jumps the torpedo, which dives he.id foremost into the water and speeds off towards the target.