NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12401, 24 October 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

There are only 2000 Romas Catholics rtf! Sweden.

There are 175,000 persons employed Hi making cigars in Germany.

Sixteen thousand emigrants left Norway in 1902, against 11,000 the year before. .Since the beginning of the war in Somalir land about 16,000 camels have been used.

Slue© 1603 no member of the Royal family has been Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland/ ) A recent report states that 7,407,863 k;uM garoos have- been killed in Australia sine©-! 1877. All the flowers of the Arctic -regions, of which there are 762 kinds, are either white or yellow. . The wettest place is Greytown, Niear- , agua, where the mean annual rainfall is'260 inches. A storage elevator just completed in Montreal is the largest and best equipped on© in the world. l Oven fortiy-one million pictorial post-' cards were delivered by the Swedish post office last year. * : Recent returns show that out of the 1&£ million inhabitants of Spain nearly 12 mil-, lion cannot read. Sixty-two carved stalls have been presented to Westminster Cathedral by an anonymous donor. Berlin's cabs are all provided with taximeters. The fares are a, mile, and the lowest charge is 6d. Gas was first used as a street illnmiaantin Batlimore, gas lamps being introduced in that city in the year 1816. During the South African war 789 of oue men were killed by accident or by lightning, and 13,250 died of disease. On the early railways, a candle stuck in a station-house window meant stop; its absence was a signal to go on. One hundred and fifty pounds has been refused for an old oak table in Milton's cottage at. Chalfont St. Giles, Bucks. The great opal owned by the Austrian; Emperor weights :i7oz, being nearly six times as heavy as the Koh-i-noor diamond, j Damage estimated at*half a million has; been done by fire to a tobacco factory in! Havana, the property of an American trust. \ The sunniest part of the British Isles is the Channel Islands. There the sun shines four hours out of every ten it is above the horizon. A Lerwick bankrupt, explaining why lie could not draw up a statement of his affairs, said that rats had eaten his caskbook , and receipts. Berwick Old Bridge, the only structure J'.' of its kind e;ver built by Parliament, is to - " i be repaired, several of the arches having become undermined. '■ * Four pounds will be the fare for a. tripup Mont Blanc on the new funicular railway, and the run of eloven miles will take two hours and a-half. The largest electrical pumping plant in the world. is that at. Utah Lake. It raises 5,000,000 gallons of water a day for irrigate ing the Great Salt Lake Valley, Some Japanese fishing vessels have beet seized by the Russian authorities at Kamt. chatka on a charge of illegal trading;. Twenty-eight; officers have beeui detained and 278 men sent back to Japan. : To become efficient each member of thin new Motor Volunteer Corps must attend,' with his car, fov ten days each year, if called upon. An allowance of 30s per dav will be made, in addition to £2 yearly capitation grant. It has been decided thai; the Tower of London is not a suitable sito for the storage of explosives. In future only ammunition! sufficient for a twenty-one gun salute is to be kept at the Tower, and all other ammunition is to be removed. *"•:. v"' Many of the negroes of the Southern Statesof the U.S.A. now inhale cocaine, and thus produce effects similar to those caused :by opium. Its use in the king run generates '. madness, for 25 cents to 50 cents a man ' cm get drunk with coo&ino for a week. One stamp per month is; to be allowed id the" Risbridge , Workhouse inmates by the Mile End Guardians. An allowance of tobacco has also been voted, and if, the! auditor objects to pipes being supplied ons,' of the aldermen has promised to give them. i \ In a fit of passion, so it lis' alleged, Michael" Leahy, of Cahir, threw a. pair of boots ini the fire. While his wife was endeavouring to get them out Leahy*poured some boiling water on his ten-daye'-old child, who is not expected to recover. I'M father is under arrest. ■„. ~. <> '

The executioner of Budapest lias present* ed his bill for a recent, execution, It amounts to £8 5s lOd—namely, erection of the gallows„ £1 Is 8d; executioner's fee, £1 5s Jj his two. assistants, £1 16s -8d; taking down' of the corpse, £1 Os lOd; travelling expenses, £3 Is 3d.

The two-year-old child of a farmer in Osage, lowa, wats throwing sticks and pebbles at a Plymouth. Rock when the bird suddenly flew at this child and drove its spurs deep into the? little one's head/ neck, and bade. The child died before it could be rescued.

Two bedrooms wejfe the only sleeping ac* A commodation for a, family of father, mother, and ten children at Greasenhall, Norfolk, and in one of th© rooms three children were in bed with diphtheria, and the others sleeping in the same apartment. The • erection of an isolation lihed has been or-, dered.

Recently a pigeon was tihot on the deposit floors at the De Beers Mine, Kimberley, and upon examination its crop was found' to contain a collection of small diamonds worth many pounds. Pigeons require sharp* flinty substances to assist them in digesting their food, but there iB no special virtue in! diamonds.

No fewer than* 124,000 immigrants landed] in Canada this year, compared with 67,000 in 1902. TWs 'is a record. Ninety-one thousand settled on the land, of whom 31,000 took up the free homesteads in the North-West. About 41,000 immigrants were from Great Britain, and 46,000 from the United States. , . **.

A 65ft long whales desperately fighting i against a shoal of sharks, was discovered. bv an Italian, torpedo-boat; off Cape Mele.. To end the sufferings of the whale, whose flesh the sharks were tearing out, the boat fired several, shots, drove off the sharks, and then with two more shotis killed the whale.It was taken in tow to Savona.

The greatest clock in the world, the dial of which will be 120 ft in diameter, is being built in Milwaukee. The minute hand will bo 60ft long, and will move sft every minute. The dial will be a bed of flowers. The hour numerals, 15ft in length, will consist of plants. At night the tfmepiec* will be illuminated with 2000 incandescent lights. • ;•:.,.

*Monastir has been the scene of more tak-ings-oil' than one. The Albanian Beys were massacred there after the revolt of 1843. Janina, too, has its associations'with assassination. All Pasha and his two sons, who ought to have known bettec, surrendered there, in 1822, under the mo?;t solemn promises of safety that ever constituted the prelude to a firing-party. Nickel coins, similar to tfhose used in the United States, Germany, /and Belgium, are soon to be introduced in France. The value of the coiu will be twisty-five centimes, equal to about five cent;*. It will weigh sir grammes. The new cr JU i will be of considerable utility, as at, present there is n» intermediate money between the ten-centime piece and the half-fra/nc. A bundle of valwiblu documents relating to the assignment of a patent and other, matters was recer/tly found by a newspaper vendor near the Law Courts. He mentioned his " fteitf' to t* tradesman wh*.telephoned to the firm of city solicitors W whom the papers belonged. A clerk vras sent foi the t japers, and the »ewsp»P*rseller was revVarded with sixpence. a *»», tradesman who himself paid for the us* oi the telephone was not even thanked,- ; t