INTERESTING ITEMS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVII, Issue 169, 18 July 1903, Page 6 (Supplement)

INTERESTING ITEMS.

Tea in China can bo bought for I£d. per pound.

It costs £11,000,000 every week to run the world's railways.

According to assurance statistics, teetotalers may expect 17 years more life than drinkers. Coal is cheapest in Austria, averaging ss. at the pit's mouth, against 6s. in England and Bs. 2d. in France. The natives of Andaman islands are the smallest people in the world. They average 3ft. l.lin.- in height and 701b in weight. Canada* entire surplus crop of hay and pats in 1901 was sold to the British Government for the use of the array in South Africa. JL. ' . ■ • There ars "five varieties of the garnet known to jewellers. The best come from Ceylon, Bohemia, and Brazil. These are of a violet-purpl« colour. : People are most liable to fever bjg-,. twecn the ages of 10 and 2(^--"out of every l,oop^eaSes~2oo~ are of that age---'-Tnero are only 16 under five and 2 over 55. The prison population of India, large as it is, is only 38 per 100, 000 inhabitants, or less than half the proportion that prevails in Great Britain. The world's births amount to 36,792,000 every year, 100,800 every day, 4,300 every hour, 70 every minute, or one and a fraction every second. Germany's navy was born in 1848. It now consists of 198 vessels, 16 being battleships. 360,000 men enter the German Army by conscription every year. The estimated value of the Falls of | Niagara, if the whole force of the falling water were employed electrically, is £300,000 ft day, or say £108,000,000 sterling a year, The strongest known wood is said to be lanccwood ; its tensile strength per square inch is 23,0001b—that is to say, that weight is requirod to tear asunder a piece of it one inch square. A hundred tons of cat's tails were recently sold in ont iot for ornament ing ladies' wearing apparel. This means that no fewer than 1,792,000 pussies had been killed to supply this one consignment. . , Half a century ngo Belgium was scarcely known. To-day its products and manufactures are in tho markets of every known corrwr of the globe, and it ranks ns the nev•nth industrial country of tho world. A cork sunk 200 ft. deep in tha ocean will not rise again to the surface, owing to the great pressure of tha water. At any less distance from the surface, however, it will gradually work its way to the light once more. Leather for gloves is dyed •ither by being brushed over with dya or being plunged into it. With the former process the inside of the glove remains white, with the latter both Bides are, of course, the same colour. Pennies do not consist of copper c lone, there being in them 2 per cent, of tin and -3 per cent, of zinc to 95 of copper. They cost the Government about Is. 9d. a pound exclusive of stamping, and there are 48 of them to the pound. Tie Czar of Russia's suit consists of 173 persons, of whom 73 are general and 76 extra aids-de-camp. To the suit belong 15 members of the Imperial family, 17 princes of not , Imperial birth, 17 counts, 9 barons, and 111 other noblemen. Servants in Germany have their " character books " duly stamped by , the police, and in these are written j full particulars of their conduct when in service. The employer keeps the book till the servant leaves, j when it is handed over, after an ac- ! count of the servant's behaviour and I tho reason for leaving have been entered. The time required fer a journey round the earth by a man walkingday and night, without resting, would be 428 days ; an express train 40 days ; sound, at a medium temperature, 32i hours ; a cannon-ball, •31f hours ; light, a little over onetenth of a second ; and electricity, passing over a copper wire, a little over the tenth of a second. / A certain Parisian photographer i never says to * lady customer— " Now look pleasant, madam, if you please." He knows « formula infinitely better than that. In the most natural manner in the world ho remarks—" It is unnecessary to ask madam to look pleasant ; she could not look otherwise." Then click goes the camera, and the result is never in doubt. _| It is said that tha Bank of France has an invisible studio in a gallery behind the cashiers, so that at a given signal from one of them, any suspected customer can instantly be photographed without his knowledge. Tho camera has also become very useful in tho detection of frauds, a word or figure, that to the eye seems completely erased being.', clearly reproduced in photographs of the document that had been tampered with.