NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13453, 1 June 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

A bee can carry twi«, its own weight |j§ in Ivoiiey. |I'J; In Portugal married women retain their tmaiden names. i\ Japan makes annually 150,000,000 gallons j of saki, or rice beer. \ More herrings .ire used 89 food than any other kind of fish. ■ | • Of British land en- one in about every seven is a woman. i -; Two rare British seaside plants are the yellow violet mid the wild sea-radish. . , '; | A chimney 115 feet in height will, without danger," .'-way ten inches in a wind. Persia is the first Mohammedan country in the world to be granted a Constitution. | ■' Of a million girls born 871.256 are alive at twelve months old ; of hoys, 30,000 -j , fewer survive, ' ;' J j; The cost of the first British ironclad |' , _ was £400.000. or about a quarter that of -| f; the latest typo. -■"'■■ Wealthy people in Japan consider st un- ,\ dignified to travel on horseback at .- faster ; ; pace than a walk. |- There arc 14 provinces! and 10 territories i in the Argentine Republic. The President . <f | has a salary of £6000. '. tVJapan is perhaps the only country in which fashions for ladies have not changed. j . materially for 2500 years. | '"Rum" is the name ot a beverage re- I cently imported into New York. It con- ; siste of rum, ale, and soda. | The heaviest diamond in the world, and | therefore the most valuable, is an heirloom f; in the Portuguese Royal Family. , For foreign coin or bullion the Bank of f; England pays only £3 17s 9d per ounce, t ■■ which is l£d less-"than Mint, price. ' A human being will die fo. want of air |> in five minutes; for want- of water in a f* week : and for want of sleep in ten days. 11 There are iv the world, as nearly as can j i be computed. 1,480 000.000. Of these, \ \ "|j 1421 millions !ivo under the British flag. j j-f I The truffle is perhaps the most wonder- \ ] ft ful vegetable, in the world, lacking, as it - . J'- ; does, "roots, stem, flowers, leaves, Mid I seeds. , ■ J || ! The little " yellow bird" of North Am«ri- . | ; ;ca migrates ' every spring from Central 'America to the Arctic regions, a distance | i i of 3800 miles. - i: J ' '"■«•'' ' """'---1 . ; I While working in the cemetery at Bene, | San Francisco, a gravedigger struck a four- i; ] foot reef of gold.' Assays gave a value of \ ■■{'.' \i j £20 to the ton. ' ,•''.-; |-j Twenty years ago there were in the ;.|: Yt ! United Kingdom 2.362,000 persons m- i j '/ h ! ployed in agriculture. To-day the number "'i! has Jailer to 2,109,000. . ! ]; ,']. • Physicians arc hi great demand ir. , ] \ j ! Brazil. They are well paid, but their life '; j.j : is a hard one, as they often have to ride , | j iall day to reach a. patient, , , ' , i fl I Geese are regarded as emblematic of- en- j' during love in China, a pair of them being ; i jl ! considered an Appropriate present, from a : || ; gentleman to his sweetheart. , j A] The two new Cuuarders are the first ves- i! - - j .] sols to exceed the Great Eastern in beam. ■ ; (i They are 88ft wide, as against the 83ft of \ the 'leviathan of fifty years ago. : ; -I Of the 95,000,000 yards which still re- [ '•. ,|" main to be excavated before the ; Panama i.; -|, Canal is finished. 43,500.000 are concentra- . ] ; j' ted in the famous Culebra cutting... * | Italy and Spain have fewer bouses in ] I proportion to their population than any . | country in the world. The Argentine Re- [■ '■ | public'and Uruguay have the most. j ] .^ ' Tli« larger, fucus ** called the Sea E ■ Whistle in Scotland, tor boys make wliis- • ties out of the larger air vessels. .It- i* . | * ■ used a good .deal in kelp ■.manufacture. " : , \ ;,'. ..': Few., pqople sro aware, that, though ■•••■>!■-, .-- i Austria's population exceeds that of Hun* i f ; gary by "seven: millions, yet of tbe-tw* ' - « \ sister nations, Hungary's area, is much 111* ': j ; larger. .■■■■■■ ■ : ' ■■..•■ i •< ; :■.■■* P Bedouin Arabs require very little food.. ! { I Six or seven dates, soaked in -'melted butter. j 1 \ will satisfy a man a whole day, with a ver"* ] i 4 ■ small quantity, of coarse flour or a little Mil ■of boiled rice. I 1 I The Cossacks rarely become merchant*. :,y Though they maintain 60,000 fighting-men. \ ' and can muster 128.000 in an emergency 111 ; there are but a few, hundred of their people j; .1 ' engaged in business. • - ''•-:''{ [ All German soldiers must learn to swim, j ' some being so expert that, with their cloth- ". '-, I [ ing on their heads and: carrying guns and '? , | ' ammunition., they can cross streams (several . , f ,! hundred yards wide. ' ', > I v By a recent edict, the cultivation of .\ -1 opium in China must cease entirely by the : V ft year 1917. The crop is reduced by one- '> j ; I tenth each year, and all those still using ! ; I t opium in 1917 will be banished. ' j l j A strike of domestic servants, the first i | ■ ; of its kind in Italy, has broken out at | s '' Arzignano. The girls, whose organisation j, ;- i 'is perfect, demand higher wages, a ten- ! •*! s hours day, and extra pay for overtime.. i [ Somaliland's dusky warriors when en--1 gaged in warfare, exist entirely on » . ' , species of nut, about twice the size of a ; * !; walnut. Twenty of them, are a day's ra- ' ft [ tions for a warrior, and lie eats them boil- • | ] cd ' t' ' . ' •.' J t A lion or a tiger can for a- short distance ~t , 1 s outrun a. man, and can equal the speed of ! - a fast horse, but- either animal is exhausted < . j t at the end of half a mile at the most. ' | 1 They have but little endurance, and are I . notably weak in lung power. ~[ ' At a. meeting of the St. Austell Urban ; '; r Council two membeiT rose simultaneously - } , J 3 to speak, and the chairman was asked, • ;.| " "Who caught 'the speaker's eye?" The " - !| 3 reply was "Neither," whereupon the coun- • m cillors- tossed, and the winner spoke. ', S When the master of the Ouiton Work- \' \ ' house reported' a profit on the guardian's , ', pigs of £43 for the year, a suggestion was '. : J 3 made that more should be kept. An agria cultural member, however, said that money r could be earned with r few pigs, but would 5; .. ; t be lost with many. : - . .. . -;':.'•' 1 An amusing dispute ha,s arisen, at ; j s Orange, Netv Jersey. On the stone . slab | 1 over the entrance to the 'new fire station- j :; el Mr. Hugh Lamb is described as the "arehe- . !.-, e tect" of the building, and he refuses to ' ' s j pass the contractor's account until his pro- -_ i 1 fes-sion is spelt right. ■;'..'•'' 1 As the result of experiment, it has been learned that, among woods, birch and ' j| poplar decay in three years, willow and - J *"_ 1 horse-cheßuut in four years, maple and ] :- ' j beech in five years, elm and ash in seven -•;, j :: ' years, while the juniper would bo. quite I ; ' uninjured at the expiration of the same ? ! -I period. ] ■ '■ ' ; : .- The Birmingham hall-mark is an anchor ; ' v > that of London a leopard's bead ; Chester's .; is three wheat-sheaves or a dagger: Dubt lin has the figure of Hibemia ; Edinburgh's - . hall mark is a lion and castle; Exeter's, a ' d castle with two wings. Glasgow, New(j castle-on-Tyne, Sheffield, and York allpos- ,;■ 2 jsess their respective hall-marks. . t I; 1- The following verdict ii said to have. ; been returned by a. coroner's jury in Michi--gan: "We.; the jury, find from the phye sician's statement that the deceased came e to his death from heart failure superiur duced by business failure, which was >i caused by speculation failure, which was '- the result of failure to see far enough r i: ahead." 0 The Indians of Ecuador make their bla»- _ j e kets from tho bark of the demajagua tree. ' They cut from a trunk a section of the. p I peculiarly soft, thick bark, mix feet long and • 'five broad, this they dampen and beat '.".till its flexibility is much increased, then .peel off the rough grey exterior.' What : "'is left is a blanket, cream in- colour, warm, '' . 0 and fairly soft. i- In the ancient cathedral of Genoa a vase. it of immense value has been preserved for six _ ; .'.- it centuries. Cut from a single emerald, its 0 principal diameter 'is 12i inches and its i- height 5| inches. It is kept, under several ,v locks, the. keys of which are in different hands. When shown to the public it is susu peuded round the neck of a priest by a cord.' laud no one else is allowed -to touch it. ""■ . : ''".'■■'■'■/.'.'■■' :. !;;;■.Jr'-lt-i'f ■-. ~ i , i ~ "