NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12290, 6 June 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

There are 36.639 Wesleyan; in the Bri« tish army. Burglars at West- Bronrwich made. a. meal of eggs, which they boiled over the gas. It is estimated that the men of GreatBritain spend £250,000 a year on silk hats. Grace Darling's only surviving brother has just died at Scahouses, Northumberland., Alarm is being caused as to St. Sepulchre Church, Ilolborn, by signs of steady , .subsidence. Ladies in Coventry are making swimming and life-saving ihe popular .pastime' there this season. The so-called ironbark tree is a sort of Australian eucalyptus, and weighs 641b to the cubic foot. Carp and pike are the longest-lived fish. They both have been known to live over two centuries. Between eight and nine hundred British towns and villages have namesakes in tlv/ United States. Although the Suez Canal is only 99 miles long it reduces the distance from England to India by sea nearly 4000 miles. Over 363 tons of cigarettes were, smoked last year by Germans, as against 58 tons in 1891. The bridge across the St. Lawrence River, ! spanning 9,144 ft, is the longest in the world. Fully one-third of the laud in GreatBritain is owned by members of the House of Lords. .Juvenile wags have taught the monkeys . in the Jardin des Plam.es, Pan's, to smoke cigarettes,. During 20 years the membership of the i Primrose League has increased from 1000 to 1,500,000. Jurymen for. an inquest may not- be sum- • moncd by telephone, was the decision of a Hull coroner. Suffering from toothache a Keighley tailor has killed himself by thrusting a red-hot poker down his throat. St. Paul's Cathedral is heavily insured. The policies held by 10' different offices* amount to about £95,000. A. steel-like grass from the volcanic slopes oi Oran, Algeria, is so elastic that it can be used instead of springs in the manufactures of furniture. Inhaling petrol vapour, which produces a species of intoxication, is a new diversion.of the street arabs of Philadelphia, U.S.A. On analysis it was found that 40 per cent, of some "dripping" sold for food at Wolverhampton consisted of cotton-seed' oil. \ Sanctioning an increase in the poor rate of 4d in the pound, the Widness magistrates said it was due to the Education Act.

Mr. Theron, president of the Afrikander" Bond, says that that organisation will do everything to make peace in South Africa permanent. Out of 1078 samples examined by the county analyst- of Middlesex last quarter under the Pood and Drugs Act, only 30 were adulterated. - The famine in Kwangsi province, China, is so severe that starving parents are selling their children for small sums of money in order to buy food. - Missing his footing in climbing a high gate, an Edinburgh burglar hung suspended from the iron spikes by his sleeve until released by a constable. : Effort is now to be made to enforce synchronisation with Greenwich on all existing public clocks in the City of London, so that, they shall tell the correct time. Judge Adams, the Countv Court judge at Limerick, has described the - motor-car as " the greatest curse known since the first batch of English who landed in Ireland." The Canadian and American Government are building a galvanised iron wire fence several hundred miles in length on the boundary line between Montana and Canada. Fossil bones of the prehistoric mammoth elephant have been washed by t-hosea from the bed of the cliffs between Ba-ci:on and Mundesley on the east coast of England. During the Indian Mutiny only • 586 Bri- : tish soldiers were either killed in battle or died of wounds, but many thousands of English people were massacred by natives. With reference to the plan for connecting ; Ceylon and Australia " wirelessly," the idea, j has been discussed, but at present it is merely an idea which has not taken practical shape. As a sure protection against- forgeries, si well;kno\\7i London artist. Mi. W. J. Wainwright, has adopted the plan of impressing a thumbprint in the corners of' his pictures. The Sultan of Johore is a glittering curiosity in his State dress. He wears gems worth £2,400,000. They sparkle in his crown, on his epaulettes, in his girdle, and' , in his cuffs. . The average number of baskets of cut! flowers sent from the French Riviera to the Paris market alone during the winter is no fewer than 75.000 each month, or about' 3750 tons of blooms. After yawning without interruption for' three days, Sirs. William Henry Jenner, of : Oshkosh, Wisconsin, has just died. She >, suffered from an obscure lesion of the brain,: which produced the laryngeal spasms. . Tomato plants have recently been grafted on potato plants, giving a crop of tomatoes above ground and of potatoes below. Potatoes grafted on tomatoes have produced flowers and tomatoes and a, few tubers. Moses Tremblay. said to be the strongest man in the United States, has just died an Boston, aged 53. He once lifted a heavy waggon loaded with potatoes from off the body of a man whom it had run down, and' saved his life. Champagne ever,'' twenty minutes was ordered by his doctor, and that made six weeks' illness cost £135, said Mr. W. G. Whittingham, a Wandsworth pitenoforta maker, recently, when examined as to hia bankruptcy. At Lens, in Northern France, one of the officers on duty in connection with the fixing of seals to the houses of a local monastic order withdrew after bringing up his men, and refused to take any orders from the civil authorities. The young ladies of Osgood, Indiana, have pledgee! themselves each to earn 4s a dayto pay for placing electric light in the town church. Some are going to black shoes,,others to bake pies and carry coal, while one is to pump water from a well. A footless race of men is said to have been discovered in New Guinea-. They live in the midst or lakes, moving about on little canoes and possessing a few cabins built- on wood piles. Their feet are so undeveloped as to be practically useless for walking. A retired Civil servant at Marseilles has been anxious to win the Tieart of a fair fellow lodger, and took to serenading her. But a dog belonging to- t-lu lady did not enjoy the music, and barked so loudly that the rest- of the inmates collected at the windows. The wrathful lover threw a. bottle at the dog, but hit the lady, who was seriously injured. There is an exceptional demand for moleskins, said to be due to the fact that the King recently had a waistcoat made of moleskins, and that the soft and silk)' fur of the grass land pest is in request fox mantles and other wearing apparel. Fen molecatchers can get rid of any quantity at present, and of late, they ha\*e been making up to 3d a skin. A skipping-rope ha: been presented by a fond Pittsburg, U.S.A., millionaire, to his six-year-old daughter. The handles are gold, studded with an odd jewel, while the cord, the finest procurable, cost more than a dollar per inch! When the child grows a little older she will be- able fully to appreciate her papa's gift. At present she treats it as if it .were an, ordinary 10-cent-. rope.