One Thing and Another.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 933, 17 January 1890, Page 6

One Thing and Another.

It is estimated that there are 36,000 sightless beggars in France. A well-informed writer estimates the cost of the Forth Bridge at about three millions sterling. . Watermelon seeds were found in an Egyptian tomb that was 3000 years old. There is a spot in Siberia about thirty miles square where the ground has not thawed out for the last hundred years and where it is frozen to a depth of sixty feet. No chess contest, properly played, should ever end. It should always be a draw. If it is not it is because one of the players ha 3 played badly. . ’ . , The English language is spreading. Most of the large cities of Europe and many small ones now' have their English newspapers. A woman’s hair may grow to th,e length of six "feet.' Mine. Hess of Paris refused 5G06 franc.s for her ‘crown of glory/ which was abp.ut that length. When petroleum was first discovered in the United States it was hotted aud sold for medicinal purposes under the name of fOSk oil. It was good for rheumatism. There, has been ft marked deo»A—“ ■ of ths Frauoii _„nce in the dQriP afc, '~’ at Montreal o *aßt ten years. Formerly it was the prevalent tongue, but now the English predominates. A magnificent English tree, known as the * Winfarthing oak,’ which measured 38 feet 7 inches in girth in 1744 ? h»3 just been re*

measured and found to have grown just 17 inches in the interval, 130 years. If the dam at Cuba, N. Y., behind which is accumulated the water used for flooding canals; should give way, as is threatened, the 50,000,000 tons of water would make a Becond_ Johnstown disaster in less than fifteen minutes. The French are now able to put in the field seven armies of a total strength of 1,300,000 men, equipped for a prolonged oampaign, and supported by an ample reserve. This is five times the force that Napoleon 111. could muster in 1870. The date palm is to have a wide trial throughout ludia. Application for it having been received from Jeypur, Kangra, Kotah, Madras, Bikanir, Coorg, Lahore and Adj. mere among other places, shcots and seeds will be imported from Egypt and distributed. In Madagascar you can keep house, live well and havethree servants for about7o cents aweek. A hired girl would beparalyzed with astonishment if paid over 6 oents per week, and the washerwoman thinks she has got a soft snap at 3 cents per day. At the Paris Hippodrome the chief attraction for the season has been the spectacle of a lion taking equestrian exercise—the animal really mounting on the back of a horse and being carried several times round an enclosure. The receipts accruing from this novel performance are stated to amount up to the present to more thau 500,000d015.