GENERAL EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12546, 13 April 1904, Page 1 (Supplement)

GENERAL EXTRACTS.

HOW THE J£PS SMOKE.

The Japanese smoke in a very peculiar manner. Their pipes are very similar to the Chinese opium pipes, having very smalt metal bowls, with bamboo stems and metal mouthpieces, and only hold enough tobacco for three or four whiffs. They use a tobacco which is cut extremely fine, and looks mors like a light blonde hair than anything else. ]tis of a very good quality, however. The Japs take a whiff of smoke and inhale it, letting it pass out through the nostrils. They rarely smoke more than one pipeful at a time. ... THE TSAR'S " SONG OF PEACE." According to a Belgian paper the Tsar is ■ among the composers. It- is stated that at a " ' soiree in the Winter Palace several works from the Imperial pen were performed, among them one entitled " The Song of ■ Peace." This stands in three sections, the first of which depicts the turmoil of battle,, while the second suggests the stricken field, covered with dead and wounded. The third invokes retribution upon those who are responsible for such horrors. Another work is written in honour of the saints of the Orthodox Church, and of those who devote themselves to a cloistered- life, far from' human miseries. This is dedicated to the. Archduke Ccnstaurine, himself a poet and • musician. THE JAPANESE NEW YEAR'S DAY. The old-fashioned Japanese have just been celebrating their New Year's Day, which. falls on our 2nd of February. "Up to 1873, the year in which the European calendar was adopted, the first day of the New Year was officially celebrated on February 2, and the old-fashioned folk still keep the day in the ancient style. Everyone gives and receives presents of fans, more, or less richly 'ornamented, accompanied by a morsel of dried . fish wrapped in paper. The Japanese are ' very fond of holidays, for there are three, in each month, in addition to the seven greats festivals of the year. The three festivals of each month are not of very great importance, but they are nevertheless celebrated with the utmost regularity. COST OF A BIG GUN. ' ' . -Anybody who has ever given the subject » thought- must possess some inkling of the fact' i that the modem, big gun, with its complex and delicate breech mechanism, - automatic sighting ' gear, " electric illuminating sighting apparatus, electric firing gear, and a hundred other refinements, is not a cheap article to construct-. From a recently-pub-lished Blue Book we learn that the expenditure involved in the bare construction of iv 12-in wire gun amounts to £9040, in the case of a 9.2 in wire gun to £5200, and in that of a 6in wire gun to £1600. while a quick-firing 4.Tin' gun costs.£s9l, and a 6iu siege howitzer of '30cwt' : £572. The costs of the automatic sighting gear in all but •• the last-named are respectively £200, £165, £81, and £86. -

X-RAYS AND THE PEARL OYSTER. A new application of the Rontgen Rays • * has been discovered by M. Raphael Dubois, . ~h Professor of Physiology at Lyons. In the • pearl fishery an, enormous destruction of oysters and "incipient-" pearls annually : • takes place. To ascertain the size of the - , pearl (says the Irish Times) it has been necessary hitherto to force open the shell. The death of the oyster naturally follows, and as the "pearl" is frequently too minute to be of commercial value, both the oyster and the growing pearl are lost. Now, however, by the help of the- rays it- will be possible to \ ascertain the size of the pearl without opening, and so killing, the oyster, and should the V. | " precious stone " be so small as to be worthless the oyster will be replaced in his natural ■element to grow both himself and his treasure. . , ;';4 / THE ATERNISING- SLAV. '*, How many Englishmen realise the fact that Manchuria is the size of Germany and France put together? Mr. Beveridge, in his book, " The Russian Advance," describes the vast province as the home of tens of thousands of Russian " railway guards," picked men under 30, who have their wives and' children with them, and who, when their five years' term of enlistment is over, remain to farm the land. The Russian peasant fraternises well with the Asiatic races, and the Russian policy is first to establish Slav authority with a remorseless hand, and then to be indulgent and benevolent to the overruled people. Thus we had first the railway through Manchuria, then the massacre of Blagovestchensk, on the occasion of the Boxer rising, and now the general conciliation of the- Chinese tribes. s TRAINING THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROAD. In recent.years we have done much (says the Manchester Guardian) towards the technical education and training of the rising generation of manufacturers, but the production of an article is only halt' the work; it has still to be sold, either at home 01 abroad, and the man who takes charge of the selling requires nearly as much special training as the producer. In Germany they train, their commercial travellers just as carefully as they do their lawyers, doctors, and soldiers. If an employer sees that any of his assistants is more than usually gifted with business aptitude he loses no time in sending the young man to one of the training schools, where the employer pays for his commercial education, knowing that a thoroughly qualified representative who cam travel abroad is a good investment, and will pay him in the ; long run. Germany's well-equipped commercial travellers have played an invaluable part (second perhaps only to' that of our Merchandise Marks Act) "in the expansion of Germany's direct trade with foreign markets. THE EMPEROR OF COREA'S TOOTH. During the great feast which he gave a short time ago to celebrate the anniversary of Coreau independence, the Emperor of Corea had the misfortune to break U. tooth. The immediate result of the accident was that the chief cook and all his assistants were thrown into prison to await trial for " lese-majeste." But there happened to be a dentist at Seoul who was travelling to see the country, and he managed to stop the resulting toothache without making use of any steel instruments, which would have frightened the Emperor and have made him refuse to submit to the operation. The dentist received 1000 yon, or about £100, for his fee, and then attention was turned to the peccant cooks. The underlings were dismissed with a caution, but the chief cook was sentenced to work for three months without any pity, and the Emperor at once ordered another great feast tc celebrate his recovery from tooth- ' ache. Happily for the cook, ue pre. Imperial'' teeth were broken,. " * - ' ' V■