NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8472, 24 January 1891, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

La grippe is making a tour of the Weab Indies.

There are 3064 languages and over 1000 religions ■* One-third of the land surface of the earth is covered with forests. In England about eighty-seven peers are directors of public companies. The German Army is the healthiesb in Europe, the Belgian second and the English third. The present Paris fashions will, it is expected, end in the utter and final roub of the dress improver. It is calculated that a man walking day and night could make a journey round the earth in 428 days. There is in England a society of boys and girls to protect dumb animals that numbers over 80,000 members. A lady suddenly expired at Twickenham while driving alone in a trap, to which a spirited horse was attached. The organ of the Salvation Army in Germany has a circulation of 18,000. The army there is growing rapidly. At Newport (Mon.) William Evans, master of the steamer Rhenbina, was fined £25 for submerging the Plimsoll disc. ' Elderly ladies frequent the gymnasiums of Paris, exercising on the parallel bars. Physicians recommend these exercises. A fish - hook has been unearthed in Egypt, showing that anglers 4000 years ago had tackle that would pass muster to-day. A lake has been discovered in Persia which is said to be the saltesb in the world. Its waters contain nearly 22 per cent, of salt.

The historic old cotton mill at Cromford, where Arkwright first* set up his cottonspinning machinery, has been destroyed by fire. , A young man was charged ab Tipton with attempting to commit suicide. His father said the accused was one of a family of 33 children. It is proposed to erect a statue in Troy, N.Y., to Miss Emma Willard, who was the pioneer in the cause of higher education for women in America. The average duration of life is greater in Norway than in any other European country ; this is attributed to the uniform cool temperature of the climate. At the Eton Union Workhouse, Slough, the death took place of Sarah Lovetb, who was 103 years of age, having been born in the parish of St. Pancras in 1787. The Berlin Tageblatb asserts that the receipts of Peter's Pence are falling off ab a tremendous rate, and that the Papal deficit at the present time amounts to 300,000f. Reports of the export trade in London go to show that it is not affected by the new United States tariff law. The exports of beer, especially of the heavier kinds, have increased. Sir Edwin Arnold has severed his connection with the London Daily Telegraph, and is now on his way to London from Japan. lb is his intention to visit America early in this new year. Gen. Boulanger will spend the winter in Egypt. He returns to the island of Jersey in the spring, to take charge of the management of a daily newspaper which will be published in Paris. An employe of the electric tight company at San Francisco has received a shock which is calculated at fully a thousand volts. The man escaped with his life, bub his hands are burned to the bone. Experts say that the buried city of Pompeii has nob yet yielded up a third of its artistic treasure; that ab the present rate of progress seventy years will elapse before it is thoroughly unearthed. On a recent Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn a runaway horse rushed along with a buggy containing a driver, who retained hold of the lines, although he was lifeless, having suffered a fatal attack of hearb disease. Mr. Gilbert Coleridge says an estimate has lately been made of the amount of money annually spent in rent alone by Americans in the Scottish Highlands, and that it has been found to be no less than £600,000. The Pacific Ocean is nob only the largest of the great bodies of water on the globe, but is the deepest. Its average depth is about three miles. The average depth of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean is about two and a quarter miles. The Manchester Ship Canal is thirby-five miles long, twenty-six feet deep, and has a I minimum breadth at the boobom of 120 feet. | It will accommodate the largest merchantman afloat, and it will be opened for traffic before another year has expired. We have in our language one successful pro3e poem, and it is a translation. lb it, of course, the " Song of Solomon." And in the " Song of Solomon" we happen to find some of the most beautiful sentences in our literature, in structure as well aa sound. England paid £21,000,000 last year to Continental countries for dairy products alone. The butter and margarine imported weighed over three million hundredweight, and the cheese nearly two million. The eggs England imported amounted •to 1,100,000,000. The Duchess of Teck, when recently visiting an ancient family in France„.performed the ceremony of " Blessing the Hunt." She was splendidly mounted, And attired in a three-corner hab with plume and gold laced scarlet hunting coab white buckskin gauntlets. Baron Hirsch recently asked an English lady of rank to sell one of her horses because he had one exactly like it. The lady declined rather curtly, whereupon the Baron sent her his horse, with the message : " Although I am disappointed, I am still desirous that they should go in a pair." Many old Oxford men will learn with regret the intelligence of the death of the Rev. James Stephen Hodson, formerly rector of the Edinburgh Academy, and for a short time headmaster of Bradfield College, Berks, who has just passed away at Saunderstead Rectory, near Croydon, Surrey. At a gathering of Socialists in Parisrthe rite of baptism was administered. to 32 little boys and girls. The children -were dressed in blue jerseys, wore Phrygian caps, and were accompanied by their sponsors. After addresses denouncing Roman Catholicism, the Socialistic and Freethoughb baptism was administered, water being used. A chrysanthemum show has been held at the Crystal Palace. While we have been celebrating the centenary of this flower the secretary of the Royal Botanical Society states thab the chrysanthemum was fashionable in China 3600 years ago, and thab dresses of the Chinese Empress were embroidered with its blossoms as far back as 1795 B.C. A force of police surrounded a thieves' kitchen in Liverpool and captured a gang of three men, who are alleged to have committed numerous burglaries. On going to another house to arrest a fourth man they discovered thab ib was a base coin manufactory. Numbers of counterfeit coins of excellent manufacture were seized, together with the moulds. The Old Testament has 39 books, 929 chapters, 23,214 verses, 592,439 words, and 2,723,800 letters ; the New Testament has 27 books, 260 chapters, 7959 verses, 181,253 words, and 838,380 letters ; the complete Bible has, therefore, 66 books, 1189 chapters, 31,173 verses, 773,692 words, and 3,567,180 letters. There are more people in London than there are letters in the Bible. The fastest mile a single man has travelled by various methods of locomotion is, to date, as follows : —Swimming, 26.52; walking, 6.23; snow shoes, 5.39J ; rowing, 5.01; running, 4.12£; tricycle, '49 2-sth ; bicycle, 2.29 4-sth ; skating, 2.12 3-sth; trotting horse, 2.08J; running horse, 1.35 ; railroad train, 40J seconds ; balloon, pneumatic tube, and electricity records are yet to be made. A dentist in Westminster County Court sought to recover fees for professional attendance. It transpired thab a good deal of the work was done on Sundays. This the defendant, who resisted the claim, contended, brought the dentist within the Sabbath Observance Act. Ib was pointed out that the Act did nob apply to a farmer. The Judge said the defence was a shabby one, and in giving a verdict for the plaintiff laid down that a dentist did nob come within the Act. In broad daylight, on a recent Sunday morning, a desperate encounter occurred at Hatfield railway station, between three constables and three armed burglars, who were suspected of committing a robbery at St. Albans. The police were als» armed, and no fewer than 21 revolver shots were exchanged, bub no one was killed. The men bolted, but one was captured, the other two escaping into the woods adjoining Lord Salisbury's residence, where ; they baffled their pursuers.