NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11538, 24 November 1900, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Tin? hide of a cow yields about 321b of leather. ; Bicycle wedding trips are the rage in France. Strikers were hanged in England less than one hundred years ago. The savings of the enlisted men in th« British Army amount to nearly £400,000. The Mexican flint knives were made s«] sharp that they could be used for trimming hair. The Russian Meteorological Department has stations at 230 different places in the Empire. A young lady attempted to poison hersel! in Battersea Cemetery because she had lost her beauty. An infant weighing 71b at birth will weigh 7£lb on the tenth day and 111b on the thirtieth. There are 1000 vessels which cross the Atlantic Ocean regularly every month, some of them twice a month. • The Queen and the Czar of Russia own. beautiful typewriters of white enamel and gold, with keys of ivory. The Wesley an Century Fund, according to promises, now amounts to 840,000 guh-./as. Over £385,000 has been paid in. In France, for the privilege of wearing men's trousers, the French Government charges women a tax of about £2. In the House of Commons as much it spent in ice to cool the building in the summer as on coal to warm it in the winter. The Admiralty have ordered that six warships at Bantry Bay are to be fitted with the Marconi system of wireless telegraphy. A Yeovil farmer, Mr. Edward Feaver, who* had just returned from his honeymoon, has been found hanging dead in an outhouse on his farm. Paymasters and commissariat officials of the German army receive special training in examining the quality of food supplied to the army. The growth of the motor industry in France is shown in the fact that the new occupation demands the employment of 200,000 hands. In fifteen years Russia has sent 624,000 persons to Siberia, fully ICSOOO relatives of prisoners having accompanied the exiles of their own free will. The thinnest veil or silk handkerchief thrown over the face while riding or walking against the cold wind is a remarkably comfortable protection. Lord Roberts has accepted the invitation of the Ulster Association in London to a banquet in his honour to be given immediately after his return. Gasoline is used. to work a dynamo on the latest street motor-car. It gives a speed of eighteen miles an hour, and threatens to replace steam altogether. The War Office authorities having decided to make Lydd a permanent camping ground, men are working night and day making galvanised huts for the troops*-. A boy at Kettering County Court has beep awarded £1 10s damages for the loss of a tooth caused by falling over a heap of wastepaper in front of a newsagent's shop. An attempt is to be made to acclimatist American fish in Ireland. A vessel has left New York with 700,000 eggs of the shad, which will be deposited in the Shannon. While playing football with a small stick in his hand, Clement Smith, a youth of St. Albans, fell, scratching his face with, the . stick. Lockjaw set in, from which the young man died. A black lioness has been added to the collection of animals in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Lions of this colour are found only in the interior of tfhe Sahara, and are scarce even there. The imports of Australian wines into the United Kingdom for the nine months ending September 30 were 639,715 gallons, as against 553,928 gallons in. the corresponding period of last year. While European Russia will need only 45 years or so, Germany about 65 years, Aus-tria-Hungary 70 years, England 80 years, and Italy 110 years, it will take France over 860 years to double its population. James Fitzharris, otherwise known an " Skin-the-Goat," who was arrested at Liverpool for failing to report himself, has bean liberated after a short detention. He is billed to appear at a local music-hall. The Government are being greatly inconvenienced by the scarcity of office boys. Only 368 candidates competed for 400 appointments as boy copyists, and of these only 171 contrived to pass a very simple examination. According to M. Casimir de Candolle ("Arch. Sci., Phys. et Nat."), grains of wheat which have been immersed in mercury for four years are still capable of germination, and have been found to produce normal plants. An ex-scrgeant of volunteer artillery of Derby has invented a new kind of shell, claimed to be 30 times as destructive as any other. Inside the outer shell . are othera which explode after being distributed by the explosion of the larger shell. The Right Rev. Bishop Barry, in the absence of the Bishop of London, through illness, consecrated the Church of St. Augustine, Fulham, which has been erected as a memorial of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria at a cost of nearly £7000.

The Bishop of Liverpool has issued a newcode of rules for confirmation. He desires that girls should refrain from the use of long pins in the hair, as the presence of such pins frequently results in the bishop's fingers being lacerated during the " laying on of hands." At the Mint excavations are being made for the erection of a new die department. The Mint stands on the site of Eastminster Abbey, which for size rivalled that of Westminster. During the excavations a human skull was discovered under one of the floors. A church has been built in Chicago entirely of chinaware and terracotta. There is not a fragment of wood or a nail in the whole edifice. It is said that the newchurch has acoustic properties far superior to those of the common ecclesiastical structure. A French military journal calls attention to the fact that, owing to the intensity of the electric light used on board men-of-war, the men are frequently affected with eye complaints, which in some cases have led to total blindness. An Alpine glacier is now regularly worked as an ice quarry, the blocks being cut and conveyed over an overhead cableway to a convenient place for shipment by rail to Paris, there to be used in the hotels of th€ metropolis. It is one of the peculiarities of the laws of Denmark that the crown must be worn by a Christian and a Frederick alternately. The system originated with Christian 11., who reigned from 1513 to" 1523, and was succeeded by Frederick I. Whalebone is not bone, neither has it any of the properties of bone. It seems to be a sort of leather or hair in the whale's mouth, which serves the substantial purpose of straining the water which the fish takes up in large mouthfuls. The largest fee received by a physician in, San Francisco in recent years was paid by millionaire Walter Hobart to Dr. C. N. Ellinwood a year ago. An operation was very successful. Three days after the ope- ( ration the patient handed the physician his ' cheque for £6000. Big Ben, of Westminster, has proved itself to lose less than a second per week. It is the largest and most powerful clock in the world. One weight takes five hours to wind up; this is done twice a week, and il will go for eight and a-half days. ' The dial measures 22£ ft in diameter. „. The healthiest spot in the whole world ia Aumone, a French village containing forty, people. Twenty-eight of the inhabitants are over eighty years of age, and three have passed a century. There are no graves ia the local cemetery, and the oldest inhabitant .cannot remember sjsejni & iamsL