NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10425, 24 April 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The parchment used on the best) banjos! is made from wolfskins. There is only one sudden death among women to eight among men. Pens made of an aluminium alloy are claimed to write easily and not to rust. Salt fish are most quickly and best freshened by soaling them in sour milk. \ Archbishop Walsh has sent Mr. Harrington, M.P.,a subscription of £20 towards the Parnell Family Fund. Water-colour drawings will, ib is said, last four hundred years if they are protected from direct sunlight. It is officially notified that fifteen battalions of militia will be mobilised at Aldershot in August for manceuvres. The people of the United States read and support as many newspapers as England, France, and Germany combined. There are twenty-two allusions in the Bible to the east wind, nineteen of them boing of a disparaging character. The 'attractiveness and great success ol the Parliamentary Golf Club has led to th« formation of a Parliamentary Cycle Club. As far as calculation can decide, the temperature of comets is believed to be | 2000 times fiercec than that of rod hot iron.

The new tobacco warehouse at the Meraej Docks, estimated to cost £170,000, will be increased in size, at a total cost of £250,000. The position of a break in a submarine cable is located by measuring the electricity needed to charge the remaining unbroken part. Mr. Churton Collins now expresses & strong belief fchau " Rule Britannia" was writton, not by Mallet, but by Thomson, the poet. The newest thing in letter-boxes is a box with an electrical attachment, which will ring a bell in the kitchen when a letter is dropped in. A golden eagle appeared in East York, and was, of courso, shot. The same fate befell two specimens of the little auk, a ran Arctic bird.

An extraordinary scene was witnessed the other day in the church of the "Catecuraini" at Koine, when Cardinal Parrochi christened nineteen converted Jews.

At a sale in London a Moldavian stamp, which originally cost about Bs, realised £95; three Queensland 2d blue fetching £78; a Tuscany three-lire yellow going foi £60.

Detectives detailed to look after professional shoplifters always look to see if their suspects are wearing gloves. A "professional," it is declared, never works with hit gloves on. A " bicycle wedding" occurred in London " on a recent Sunday. The bride and bridegroom, both Italians, rode to and from the church on a " sociable," and were followed by fifty guests on safeties. In many cases where artificial respiration is employed a man apparently killed bj electricity or lightning can be resuscitated. A man struck by lightning should be treated like one apparently drowned. The London Inverness-shire Association v has decided to award prizes in encouragement of education in sixty of the elementary schools in lnverness-shire in celebration o! Her Majesty's sixty years' reign. A man, after walking across America, 4000 miles, earning bis living by lecturing at Mb stopping-places,, he having started without a penny, has arrived in Liverpool to make a similar tour through England. Very properly the fact .that the overseers of Manchester have collected the whole of the poor rates levied, amounting to £413,000, with the exception of £9, is regarded as proof of Manchester's prosperity. Mrs. Annie Armstrong, aged 116, lives al Milltown Malbay, in West Clare. &he distinctly remembers the rebellion of 1798. John Connolly, aged 108, died in Worcester Workhouse. Mrs. Marion Wood Garland, aged 103, died at Bath. A woman has been sentenced in Germany to one month's hard labour for criticising the appearance of the Empress., The woman merely said the Empress was somewhat coarse in appearance, which did not appear in her portraits. A corked lemonade bottle was found in ' the stomach of a cod at Buckie. The bottle contained the following message, evidently hastily written :— " Schooner iJlucio, foundered eighty-six miles off Dunnet Head. God help us.J. dunes, Ghent, Lerwick." Pellets for producing "Pharaoh's serpents" when ignited were sold as sweets by a London confectioner. Each contained a grain of mercurial poison. A child who bought and ate a number of them was ill eleven weeks, and the parents recovered £50 damages from the seller. ■ Mr. John Goolden, Mayor of Newcastle, intends to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee by giving three garden parties—one . to 4000 of the inhabitants, the second to 4000 poor adults, and the third to about 4000 poor children. Each of the poor people would receive a souvenir.

The organ of sight is more highly developed in birds than in any other animal. British naturalists declare that the kestrel is possessed of such wonderful powers ol sight that it is able to see a mouse when if is itself at such a height in the air that it it invisible to the naked human eye. Grey, golden, and auburn hair are, says a lady's paper, the most valuable colours | but the value also increases rapidly in proportion to the length. Thus, while Bin sells at about Is an ounce, hair 36in long realise? as much as 30$ an ounce, and all lengths beyond this command fancy prices. In the Egyptian department of the Bribislj Museum is a wooden doll which was found ' in the sarcophagus of a little Royal princes! who died three centuries before Christ, Her baby fingers still clasped it when the mummy wrappings were unfolded. This 1! probably the oldest doll in existence. In the human voice, though generally bub of nine perfect tones, there are actually no less than 17,592,186 different] sounds. These effects are produced by fourteen direct muscles, which give about 16,383 v different sounds, and thirty indirecb muscles, which produce 17,575,803 sounds. The air we breathe needs washing the same as everything else. After rain has been falling for some time the impurities in the air are found to diminish, and the satis-, taction with which we breathe in the washed air after a good rainfall is an evidence that our senses bear testimony to its purification. The proprietor of a dog's infirmary in London recovered £25 for board and lodging of certain prize dogs. The animals had medical treatment, and were fed on meat essence, eggs, milk, arrowroot, and port wine. They had medicated baths, and were occasionally taken into the country for a change. Colonel Saunderson, M.P., has just completed a model of his yacht Afreet for the German Emperor, at His Majesty's request. The yacht beat two others which were designed and built by Mr. Watson, the constructor of the Kaiser's Meteor, and this explains the interest taken in her by His Imperial Majesty. A novel postal service will soon be wtablished between the Farallone Islands and . San Francisco. The Farallones lie some forty miles west of the city, and all oat-' going and incoming vessels pass close by, lb is proposed to employ carrier pigeons, and maintain hourly service, if necessary, between the islands and the mainland.

An earthquake occurring in any portion of the earth could be recorded in any other part by means of suitable instruments. II has been suggested that there should b( placed on the earth's surface at intervals oi from 1000 to 2000 miles instruments foi picking up the unielt earthquake motion. The cost of these installations would I* about £50 each, and twenty of them would be sufficient.

The little town of Nasso, in Sweden, has a feminine department, 150 strong, in its fire brigade. The water supply of the village consists simply of four great tubs, and it is the duty of the women " firemen" to keep these full in case of fire. They stand in two continuous lines from the tubs to the lake, about three streets away, one line passing the full buckets and the other* sending them.back. The state of the weather can be foretold by putting a leech into a glass half filled, with water, its egress being prevented by a piece of muslin fastened over the top, after the fashion of the cover of a pot of jam. •If fine weather is to be expected, the occupant of the glass lies at the bottom of the water motionless, and curled in a spiral form. -'If rainisab hand, it will creep to the top ol the glass,-, and remain there until - the weather is settled. 'V. < -