NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 10908, 12 November 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

A peer cannot resign his peerage. A ton of dirty rags is worth about £10 to a rag-dealer. There are nearly 3000 stitches in a pair of hand-sewn boots. £6,000,000 worth of ready-made clothing is produced in Paris yearly. Five feet is the minimum height of tho Russian and French conscript. A Victoria Cross was announced for sale by auction in London, but was withdrawn. It took seven years to make a handkerchief for which the Empress of Russia paid £1000. One of our most eminent scientists has lately succeeded in taking no fewer than 2000 photographs entirely in darkness. As a rule, six months' cruise decreases tho speed of a ship 15 knots in every 100. This is caused by the barnacles which form on a ship's hull. It is said tlhat British farmers and dairymen are to-day milking ever 4,000.000 cows and producing in their dairies £32,000,00u worth of milk and butter and cheese. When a Polish Jewess is married it is usual for her hair to be cut off and replaced by a wig, for the purpose, it is said, of lessening her attraction in the eyes of men other than her husband. More than 200 kinds of extinct life, including insects, reptiles, plants, shell, fruit, etc., have been found in amber. In one collection, which is valued at £100,000, is a perfect lizard, eight inches long. In Gothic sculpture and tracery angels are sometimes portrayed practising on the bagpipes. The pipes were occasionally used ill churches before tlie introduction of the organ, early in the fifteenth century.

The Into Mr. James Payn's library wag sold lately by auction by Messrs. Phillips. There were) ill all 133 lots, which wera knocked down at extremely low prices, only three lots realising more than £1 each. Japan is going to send to the Paris Exhibition a huge house, hexagonal in shape, and composed entirely of porcelain. It measures several yards in circumference, and its weight will not bo less than 70 tons.

Tho sun has threte motions—a rotation about its axis; a motion about the centra of gravity of the whole solar system, which points always within the sun's volume; and a motion round some bigger fixed star.

The ordinary outdoor hat in Corea is a curious looking thing, having a brim a foot and a-half wide, and being made of a kind of stiff gossamer, of silk or horsehair, dexterously worked in with finely-split bamboos.

Tho mushroom's life is measured by hours, but it flourishes long enough for an insect to hang its egg on the edge of the " umbrella" and for the egg to become an insect ready to colonise tho next mushroom that springs up. A broken-winded horso is rarely seen in Norway. The fact is accounted for by the statement that a bucket of water is always placed within reach of the horse when he is feeding, and the animal alternately takes a mouthful of hay and a sip of water. The walking advertisement known as a " sandwich man" is by no means a modern idea. In 1346 a procession of men dressed to represent straw-covered wine-bottles used to parade the streets of Florenco, Italy, being hired by the wine-merchants there. Mr. Ayre, an American philatelist, is said to have invested £12,000 in collecting. stamps. His album is the most splendid private one in the world. The Duke of York and the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha are ardent collectors too. The fact that skeleton remnants of elephants, are so rarely found in any part ci Africa is explained by an explorer, who states that as soon as the bones have become brittle from climatic influences they are eaten in place of salt by various ruminant animals. The nails of the Chinese nobility sometimes attain the length of 18in, and the Siamese belles wear long silver cases at the end of their fingers to protect the nails if they are long enough to need it, or to make people believe that they are there even if they are not. The otter is the fastest swimming quadruped known. In the water it exhibits an astonishing agility, swimming in a nearly horizontal position with the greatest ease, diving and darting along beneath the surface with a speed equal, if not superior, to that of many fishes. An interesting calculation has been made which shows that the energy produced by a pound of good coal equals the work of one man for one day. One square mile of a seam of coal only four feet deep could therefore be made to exceed the work of 1,000,000 men for twenty years.

In Havana there is a device for protect* ing passengers from the extortion of cabmen which might profitably be imitated in other countries. The lamp-posts are painted in various colours—red for the central district, blue for the second circle, green for tliq third, etc. —and thus the " fare" knows immediately when he has passed the legal boundary, and pays accordingly.

One of the most beautiful sights in the world is the annual migration of butterflies across the Isthmus of Panama. Toward the end of June a lew scattered specimens aw discovered flitting out to sea, and as tho days go by the number increases, until about July 14 or 15 the sky is occasionally almost obscured by myriads of these frail insects.

A farmer was charged at Woodstock with brutality to his wife. After brandishing a knife and threatening to cut her throat, he cut the whole of the hair off her head with a blunt pocket knife. He was sentenced to six months' trard labour, the wife was granted a separation order, the husband to allow her £2 weekly for tho maintenance of herself and four children.

Society now eschews kisses. Kisses are filled with microbes. Now ? substitute for the kiss has been found, and a genial warmth is once more noted when greetings are exchanged. Two pretty girls meet. There is a faint murmur from both, a, slight inclination of the body, two rosy cheeks are pressed against each other for an instant, and there you have the new kiss.

At an inquest on a young lady shop assistant in Bradford the mother stated that her daughter complained of Leing compelled to stand. The coroner remarked that- in some shops in Bradford the assistants had to stand all day. If people would pay as much attention to that kind of cruelty as was paid to cruelty to animals some good might be done.

Peter Schemm, a brewer from Philadelphia, who recently sold his brewery tc an English syndicate, committed suicide at Niagara lately. He made his way to Goat Island, which is situated on the brink of the fall, and having stood for a moment on the edge of the island, shouted " Good-bye," and leapt into the water. A number of persons saw him swept over the falls and hurled down the river. Rev. C. P. Edwards, a popular curate in Southwark, on leaving for the vicarage of West Mersey, was presented with i silver tea-service by the local police, in recognition of the manner in which he had often rendered assistance when constables were attacked by ruffians. He was known as the "fighting parson," and made nothing of pulling off bis coat and soundly thrashing a ruffian who was terrorising over the people. At Hayward's Heath petty session;, the chairman, Colonel Campion, referred to the victory in the Soudan, which pi/ an end to a 13 years' reign of cruel tyranny, adding that he felt strongly on the subject, as he had a son engaged in the fight. He thought it would not be out of place to offer thanks to the Almighty for the great victory.' Asking the Court to rise, he engaged in prayer, at the conclusion of which the ordinary business jvfts proceeded with.