NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10413, 10 April 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Only two Englishwomen in every 100 no* wear earrings. There are not lea than 2,000,000 dogs it the British Isles. The regulation step of the British Army is 120 to the minute. Every seventh person in the United Kingdom is a Londoner. Each year about £10,000 is expended in Tho annual champagne consumption in Great Britain is 21,000,000 bottles. sprinkling the streets of London with sand, to prevent the horses from slipping. Medical experts are of the opinion that shyness is simply a form of insanity. With a sinj;lo blow of his insignificant) tail an elephant can knock down the strongest man. The richest actor in tho world is the French comedian M. Coquelin, who is said to be worth £200,000. • The death has been announced in Belfast of Mr. Hugh Stowart, a well-known Donegal farmer, aged 110 years. Tho most valuable sword in England is the one presented by tho Egyptians tc Lord Wolseley. It is valued at £2000. ' A man applying for outdoor relief at Northampton said his whole family occupied one room; nine sleeping in one bed. The largest encyclopedic work in existence is the Buddhist Tangym. It includes 225 volumes. Only four sets are known tc exist Iron rusts more rapidly .in wet than it dry weather because it has, or seem 3 t< have, a better affinity for oxygen when the latter is combined with hydrogen. The Cox Thermo Electric Company laboratory at St. Albans was destroyed bj fire, including Professor Cox's electric cook ing machines, valued at thousands o pounds. The carpet in the Queen's private rail-way-carriage cost £150. The curtains are hung on silver poles, which cost 10 guineas each. The door-handles cost £150. The whole saloon cost £6000.

A man who has, by disease or injury, lost the faculty of talking is generally also unable to write, and it is only in exceptional cases that one of these functions persist) while the other is in abeyance. A special train on the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad has broken tho long distance railway record, hnving covered the 1026 miles from Chicago to Denver in 18 hours 52 minutes. Edwin Mayall, a member of the firm o! Mayall Brothers, cotton brokers, Liverpool, and son of a cotton manufacturer, shot himself dead at his residence at Lydicate, near Liverpool, a few days ago. Again Croydon stands at the head ol the 33 largest towns of England as the healthiest. It has a lower death-rate thai) Brighton. Tlio figures for the two towns are: Croydon, 142; Brighton, 16 - 1. Mr. Francis, at the South-Western Court recently, said to an application for « summons against a woman for abuse, " You might just as well ask me to stop the Rivar Thames as stop a woman's tongue." Edward Gibbou used a card catalogue foi hie own library, and tho Britisli Museum has purchased this unique relic. What ia remarkable is tliab the great historian used I the backs of playing-cards for the purpose. The old superstition against opals is slowly but surely passing away, and these lovely gems, with their ever-changing colours and opalescent effects, are now in the front rank of popularity among fashion, able women.

In escaping from a fire, creep or crawl along the floor of the room, with your faci as near the floor as possible. As smoke ascends, there i? always a fresh current ol air near tho floor in which you can breathe with greater ease. An attachment for the piano has been invented which will make that instrument resemble the mandolin in tone. By the application of a lever the piano will pas! from its natural tone to that of the mandolin with a perfect effect. In Austria the man who loses both hit hands in an accident can claim the whoU of his life insurance money, on the ground) that he has lost the means of maintaining himself. Loss of the right- hand reduces the claim from 70 to 80 per cent, of the total. A bicycle cannot be described aa a neces' sary of life, and Mr. Commissioner Kerr ij of the saino opinion. It follows that if an " infant" purchases a bicycle he cannot be compelled by law to pay for it—apparently, he cannot even be made to return the article. The Queen's daily income ia £1600. The Emperor of Germany gets £2000 a day. The King of Italy manages to exist on £1600 daily. Austria's Emperor rakes in every day £2500. The Czar of Russia scoops in the snag sura of £6000 every twenty-four hours. The barber of India has no shop, and does nob solicit customers by signs or symbols. He visits certain families regularly every morning early. For his daily services he receivos 3s a month. A single shave coats id, and the charge for haircutting is Id to 2cl. On visiting a menagerie, Tooke was comparing the countenance of a monkoy to that of one of his fellow Members of Parliament. Turning, he saw the gentlemen had overheard hia remarks, so to make matters pleasant, he said, " I do not know which to apologise to—you or the monkey." Aβ many as eleven men, privates and sergeants, whose deaths had been officially announced by the military authorities, were among the batch of prisoners who arrived in Italy from Abyssinia the other day. The families of these men had gont into mourning, and had had masses said foi them. The Croydon Guardians have decided to take proceedings against residents who have neglected to have their children vaccinated. There ia a difference of opinion amongst the members a , a to the enforcement of the compulsory provisions of the Act, and the decision was only arrived at by a majority of one. The annual aggregate circulation of the world's papers is, in round figures, 12,000,000,000 copies. Supposing the average man spends live minutes reading his paper in the day, the people of the •world altogether annually occupy time equivalent to 100,000 years reading the papers. The Belgian Times reports that two fishing smacks belonging to (Mend on arrival there one day each landed a live bullock which had been picked up at sea. The animals, which bad evidently been thrown overboard from some cattle steamer in bad weather, were swimming about in an exhausted state. A Japanese paper states that several prominent German shipbuilding yards, machine-makers, and other industrial firms have combined to obtain from Japan large ordors for military and naval purposes. They have already sent a representative tc Yokohama, where he has entered intc negotiations with the leading firms. A painful tragedy occurred a few dayi ago at Breslau. During an ordinary students' duel, one of the combatants, named Opitz, a young man of nineteen, belonging to Loignitz, was run through the heart by Thiel, his adversary. The incident was entirely accidental, due to the slipping out of place of the victim's breasb bandage. The skin nob only varies in thickness in different individuals, bub also in different parts of the eanie person, being in some places only l-240th of an inch in thickness, whilst in others it is l-25th of an inch. A thick skin is always developed over parts where there is frequent pressure, as on th( hands and feet. The finest skins belong to blondes, and are a usual accompaniment ol auburn or flaxen hair. The Jerusalem corresponded of thi Jewish Chronicle mentions that) a steamer has ab last been put upon the Jordan, which makes the journey from Jericho along the Jordan to Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, in five hours. Recently four J ewish families have settled in Jericho, having rented fot five years from the Sultan a large area ol fruitful land for cultivation and to be irrigated from the Jordan. It is rumoured that the English bishops are contemplating issuing a joinb reply tc the recant Ball of tho Pope on the validitj of Anglican Orders. The manifesto will bi written in Latin and English, and wii! treat in an exhaustive manner of the whole question from the Anglican standpoint. Particular attention will be paid to th( historical aspect of the question, and point! of doctrine will also be fully discussed, •