NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12478, 23 January 1904, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Stttt.vvv.t (Germany) has a black list ci undesirable tenants. There are 290 different kind? of mosses id be found m England. Pans consumed 31.790 horses. 485 assee and 49 mules last. year. ' ' Four tons of dry seaweed will produce a ton of charcoal, valued at 12s. Over 6000 allotment gardens are cultivated by working men in Nottingham. Seven hundred and twenty-two waterbailiffs look after British streams. Thirty-nine per cent, of Russia's 12,000 locomotive engines were built abroad. In the parish of Clonaslee (Queen's Countr) a woman has just died at the age of 107. " The average value of a British house half a century ago was £216. It is now £403. One hundred and fifty-four out. of every 10.000 convicts are constantly in hospital. Of 2.650,000 people living in Paris, 1,200,000 are either foreigners or provincials. i be London School Hoard maintains eighteen schools for deaf and eigV- for blind children. j Of the 6.300,000 French women who work for their living, 2,700,000 are employed in agriculture. The Emperor Fountain at Chatsworth is the loftiest in Kngland. The jet rises to a height, of 267 ft. Yakutsk, Russia, is the coldest place in the world. The mercury sometimes falls to 73« eg. below zero. Two Boors, of Rustenbnrg and Vanzyl, have applied ioi admission as law studentat. King's Inn, Dublin. In 1789 the United States postal seme® cost. £1500. Last year its expenditures wen over 26 millions sterling. Local authorities make 6i per cent, or their tramways. Private companies make on an average only -5J per cent. For a policy ot £-10.000 m the life o 3 King Peter of Servia, one German insurance company asks a premium of £-1000. The Bank of England employs about 1000 people, pays a-quarter ot a million yearly in wages, and £35.000 yearly in pensions. The Pope has presented the Kaiser with two volumes containing reproductions of fresco paintings in the catacombs of Rome. _ Of the 5,000.000 farms in the United States, 3.000,000 produce corn. The average, cost of growing an acre of com in America is 235. A medical authority says that in railway collisions the passengers who are asleep escape the bad (.fleet- of .shaking and concussion. At Swansea recently the first, cargo of Welsh steam coal was shipped for Jerusalem, the new market- opened by Welsh coal mer chants. The cheques which puss through the London Clearing House in six weeks are mors than equal in amount to all the coin in the world. The Korean Government has ordered that all Koreans without regard to rank or class, should 1 not wear clothes except of a blue or dark colour. Benin, which only four years ago was the worst centre of fetish worship and human sacrifice in the world, has now a club and a golf ground. A single block of Greek marble, weighing 38 tons, has been sent from the Pentelica-n quarries to Berlin. A statue of Wagner is to be cut from it. The 22-ton bell at the Sacre Cceur Church in Paris is tolled by electricity, A single choir boy can thus do the work which formerly took five men. - , ■ The largest photographic picture in existence is being exhibited in Berlin*. It is about 40ft by sft, and represents a view of the Bay.,of Naples. London has 47 telephones per 10,000 people ; Paris, 71 ; New York, 150 ; San Francisco, (06 ; and Stockholm, 980, or nearly one, to every ten people. Belgium and Holland use Greenwich time. Tn Germany, Austria, Denmark, Italy, Scandinavia, and Switzerland, ore hour before Greenwich time rules. The United States Government still holds 600 million acres of land which may be taken up by fanners. Much of this, however, is useless until irrigated. . The Osage Indians are the richest nation in the world. Each individual man, woman, and child possesses land worth £800, and a cash balance at the bank of £60. Of Jews 35 die before reaching one year old to every 29 Christians dying before that age; but after the age of 60 the life-value of Jews and Christians is almost equal. It is estimated that in some districts quite 50 per cent, of the apples grown by English fruitgrowers are injured by caterpillars of the codlin moth burrowing into the fruits. Wieden, a suburb of Vienna, has the largest dwelling-house to be found anywhere. It) contains 1400 rooms, divided into 400 suites, and affords shelter to 2112 persons. There has just died at Ballvcarry, Co. Antrim, Mrs. Ann Penny, aged. 102 years. Her mother died at the'same age, and a brother, who is still living, is a centenarian. The largest oak tree in Indiana was lately cut down on the fann of Joseph M. Johnson, near Amora. At the base it measured 6ii't in diameter. It yielded 6790 ft of lumber. While a bridal wreath in England is usually composed of orange blossom, Germany uses myrtle, Italv white roses, Spain red roses, Greece vine leaves, and Bohemia rosemary. Portugal digs less coal than any other European country. Her total product of coal is only 22,000 tons a year. New South Wales digs yearly just twice as much coal as all Spain produces. Prize-winning dogs are an expensive luxury nowadays. A fox-terrier named Briar Sportsman has been victorious lately, and it is reported that at Darlington his owner refused £300 for him. A doctor says that persons who attain their thirtieth year without suffering from any serious disease are likely things being equal—to live till they are at least seventy-three years of age. A telegraph cable is to be laid by the French Government from Tunis to "Lake. Tchad. It will be laid in a furrow 30in deep, made by a huge steam plough. The cable will be 1500 miles long. Although the population of the'Chines# Empire, is about 425 millions, yet the enormous areas of Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, and Chiuese Turkestan have between them only 13^'millions ot inhabitants. Nearly a thousand pounds' worth of orchids were used in the decoration of the long table in St.. George's Hall (Windsor), on the occasion of the State banquet held in honour of the visit of Italy's King and Queen. The British Museum originated with a grant- by Parliament, in 1753, of £20,000 to the daughter of Sir Hans Sloane, in payment for his fine library and vast collection of the productions of Nature and Art-. Alcoholic beverages are distilled from bananas. the milk of cocoa-nuts, rice, and peas. The Japanese distil spirit irom plums, peaches, and the iiowor of the motherwort. The Chinese make an alcoholic dnnk from plums. The greatest, distance ever cleared br a | horse, jumping is believed to have been 37ft by Chauder, at Warwick, in March, 1847. lhe greatest height is 7ft 9 Jin, recently Cleared by the famous jumper Hcatherbloom. in the United States. 1 he Royal Military College, Sandhurst, is to be greatly improved and enlarged, at a cost of £350,000. All the conveniences of modern times are to be introduced, and sleeping accommodation for 600 ca<V;s provided—about double the present number. England is not the only country where towns are growing at the expense of country districts. Thirty years ago France bad an urban population of 11J millions. Now it has reached 16 millions. In the same time' Germany's towns have increased by nearly , 16 millions.