NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9581, 4 August 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

A scientist ; declares that a cubic inch aI .air in the London streets contained 1,640,000 particles. ■ • ' , > " * , , A sturgeon weighing 5001b was captured off the coast of Scotland, and was on view in London recently. v *' ■ All kinds of fish except the cheapest sorts eaten by the poor are taxed for revenue in France. Only 15 per cent, of the workmen employed in the building trades of London, are members of their Trade Unions. '■ : Six years hence' France will inaugurate the twentieth century with an international exhibition, which is to totally eclipse the World's Fair. ' V.:,-" •> L, A play is to be performed in New York shortly and heard in a London theatre, through -• the ; telephone, and seen through the kinetoscope. v s The Queen's shorthorns obtained: two second prizes and the Prince of Wales' one at the Royal Counties Agricultural Show ab Canterbury. a ■: , v \ ,t S It is estmiated that England pays something like £6,000,000 a year for foreign fruit, most of which might have been very well grown at home. //J A tragic incident has occurred at Monaco. A lady-who had lost all her $ money at roulette leaped from a cliff . into the sea. She was rescued, but her recovery is doubtful. - ' A New York telegram states that ib is reported from Bienville parish, Louisiana, that a coloured farmer was taken to the woods by a crowd of whites and beaten tc death. ■ -- e There has been a great falling-off in the emigration from the United Kingdom this year, the number being 77,188, against 145,151 in the same five months of last year. - ' |' '• During last year the number of persona lost by casualties to British vessels all ovex the world and to foreign ships in the neighbourhood of the English coast was 2059; saved, 8412. - . Ontario now produces aboub 90,000,0001b of factory cheese, 3,000,0001b of creamery butter, and about 50,000,0001b of dairy butter per annum. Canadian dairy exports are yearly increasing. A Hungarian chemist has discovered a new chemical compound, the nitrate^. of cobalt, which he says is a most efficacious antidote to poisoning by prusisic acid, and by cyanide and potassium. • ' - . A Leamington tradesman,' who dealt in silver-mounted walking-sticks, was fined for selling silver ' without) a license. The business has been in the family for a century without such a license being asked for. A sad incident is reported from Henbury, near Bristol. Two brothers ot the name of Gosling, engaged on a farm, were Bottling their disputes fighting when one of them fell unconscious to the ground) and died soon after. A logan-stone, larger than the one at. Land's End, has been discovered on tha island of Sb. Mary'n, Scilly. Ib is 21ft» high, 55ft in circumference, and weighsj 313 tons. The stone is so nicely poised that one person easily can put it in motion." The Mother-in-law, a journal for parents with married and marriageable daughters, is to be published in Paris. It will defend the social interests" of mothers-in-law. It also intends to " correct their faults as fax as possible" by friendly bub wholesome criticism. > A gentleman complained to a Lambeth magistrate recently that a cock belonging to a neighbour crowed so persistently in the early morn that he had had hardly any sleep for a week. The magistrate said the complainant's only course was to remove elsewhere. ~ An electric lighb plant -is to be . installed at Cairo, Egypt, the contract for establishing the centrial station having been awarded to a Swiss firm. The Khedive's palace is to have an installation of its own, to be constructed •: by an Austrian company. ' \ *" ' In . Austria a man married p. lady, because a rich relative was known to. have lefl her £100,000 in his will. Becoming annoyed over a practical joke, the uncle cut her off without a shilling,' and the lady is now moving the courts to recover the £100,000. The annual official inspection has been made ab Greenwich Observatory. The record showed 1454 hours of sunshine last year, , and a rainfall of over 4in- below the average. "Big Ben" is regulated from the observatory, and some days is not more than a second in error. , <•/>>: Stockings of paper are now being made in Germany. They are said to be a greab preventive of colds. The material they are formed of is specially prepared paper, impregnated with some substance which apparently sucks up all perspiration a? quickly as ib is formed, keeping the feet warm and dry. A " Baby" Exhibition was opened at Knightsbridge recently—not a show of infants, bub si collection of articles which minister to the wants of the nursery, and embraces every thing from.■ food to, dolls. It remained. open for a month. The programme included lectures by mothers on the care and management of children, i A very sad case was mentioned in the advertisement columns of the Times recently. A gentleman was found wandering in Oxford, who had completely lost his memory, and was,' unable to give any account sof himself, though in other respects he ia sane. The wanderer was well educated, spoke French and read Spanish, and •. was about forty years of age. . Prior to 1730 there was very little mustard used in English households. Ib is said that about the year mentioned a Durham woman of the name of Clements began to grind the seed in a mill' and pass the flour through various processes necessary to free ib from the husks. She kept her secret for many years, during which she sold large quantities of mustard throughout the country. The United States Government recently paid 1,000,000 dollars to the Cherokee Indians for the ' surrender of territory, which was immediately visited . by ' immense crowds of speculators, many of whom hoped to prey upon the Indians, each one of whom receives £53 as his or her share. The territory had formed the huntinggrounds of the "Cherokees for generations. A curious thing happened to a passenger train between Belgrade and Geneva lately. Some cod-liver oil had been spilled on the rails and bad the effect of rendering the engine almost impotent. - The train slid, and it was necessary to pub gravel on the line to counteract the effect of the oil. A contemporary suggests that oiling the enemy's rails will no doubt be*' come a tactic of warfare. The sweetest and most undisturbed sleep is always enjoyed in a -thoroughly darkened room. Lighb acts upon the brain, and . those who sleep with their blinds up will find that in the summec time, when so few hours are really dark, their' sleep is restless and disturbed. This is often placed to the account of heat, bub more often than- nob iit is the lighb which causes wakefulness. ''V ,y " There was a time," says Canon Kelly " when in the universities it was i I common thing for alcohloic stimulants t( |be used, • but now both the dons and young fellows are alike learning to do I without them or to take them only in the strictest moderation. I 1 looked round a } dining-table at a college in Cambridge [ recently, and found thab not many persons ! seated thereat ware taking wine, " while j several were taking toast and water. - , "An official dispatch from Seoul _ (Corea] I mentions a barbarous custom having beer I carried out with regard to the remains ol Kim-Ok-Kuni,\the Coreftn conspirator whc was recently murdered in Shanghai. On arrival 'ab Okwachin the * body was cub into i eight pieces, corresponding to the number of the Corean provinces, and each portion was sent under escort to its destination .to be exhibited as a warning , to future rebels of' the King's authority. The immigration to Siberia is ' increasing to such an extent that the number of persons who passed through the Tobolsk Government in 1892 was nearly 100,000, as against 9680 in 1885; A This number does not represent all, for many immigrants go by way of; Orenburg. The traffic by steamer, on the I Obi and the Irtish was about 40,000 tons in ? 1886, and >in 1892 fib % was 258,000 tons. Steam navigation ?in West Siberia is ; of ancient date. - A steamer began fto ply as far back as 1344, and for ten y««8 »6 was the only on®. * ■* v -