GENERAL INFORMATION.

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 38, 7 May 1907, Page 6

GENERAL INFORMATION.

Convicts earn from £2 to £3 30s yearly. Four-fifths of the hailstorms occui in the day-time. * The National Anthem was first sung in public in 3 740. *!. There are four millionairs in Eng land to one in France. * Compulsory education has been ir. vogue for ages in China. One-seventh of the territory o) France is composed of forests. »{* An elephant can scent a human being at a distance of I,ooo'yard*. + In 1820 forty-six persons were hanged for forging flank of England notes. * A patent authority says that not more than one invention on 110 is of any practical use. -—+ For every widower who marries widow, there are eleven who espouse maidens.

New York, Paris, and Berlin together have not sq large an area as London.

Only six persons in every 1,000 live to be seventy-five years old, and only one reaches the century.

The longest recorded hair on a female head was 8 feet. The longest recorded beard was 12 feet.

Atlanta (U.S.A.) has a law prohibiting vehicles from passing place.: of worship at a rapid rate of speed on Sundays.

The population of Japan has increased at the rate of twenty-seven per cent, in the last twenty-four years.

Men in charge of the pans in saltworks are never known to have cholera, smallpox, scarlet lever, or influenza.

The best coal in France is found near Pouchamps. It is so valuable that it pays t 6 mine it at the great' depth of 3,313 feet.

Cats can smell even during u'sbl. a piece of meat be placed immediately in front of a sleeping cat’s nose, the nostrils will begin to work as ths. scent is received, and an instant later, cat wUI wak, IW, 11*0. J

Re-count of Votes Ordered. ADELAIDE. Monday. A mount of the vote* for the Senate ban been ordered, notwithstanding the destruction of the ballot paper*. The Adelaide Shipping * Disaster. * Another Steamer Damaged. # ADELAIDE, May 4. The steamer Port Chalmers, bound for Hull, England, when entering the port struck the wrecks of the barque Norma (which was sunk recently by the Arden1* cTaig) and the steamer Jessie Darling (which also collided with the wreckage and sank). The Port Chalmers is making water in the forehold, but the extent of the damage is unknown. May tn The pilot launch went out to warn the Port Chalmers, but the signals were either unnoticed or disregarded until it was too late. The steamer,s plates were rent for ten feet from the stern below the waterline. The steamer’s forepeak is full of water.

Fire on a Steamer.

• BRISBANE, May 4. Tto fire on the German-Australian Company’s steamer Bielefeld,at Brisbane, is still burning. The plates on the port "T side of the steamer were red hot this * morning. A hole has lieen cut through the plates of the hull to enable water to be poured on the burning cargo: The steamer is settling down by the stem.