FRAGMENTS OF FACT.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1264, 21 May 1896, Page 13

FRAGMENTS OF FACT.

TIT-BITS OF INTERESTING AND USEFUL INFORMATION.

The capital of tho Rothschild firm is now said to exceed .£200,000,000 sterling, and the Vienna branch of tho family is tho richest. The Prince of Wales wears a seven boot, Mr Gladstone, Lord Salisbury and Mr Chamberlain a nine boot, and tho Queen a two boot (?). Every day the Thames scoops out of its banks, 1500 tons of matter, or half a million tons a year. All the rivers of the world are doing a similar work; tho Mississippi at the rato of 300,000,000 tons a year. The Boers are descended from tho Huguenots who loft Prance under tho Revocation of tho Edict of Nantes, and from tho Hollanders who emigrated at various timos in search of civil and religious liberty. Sir Walter Besant wants to establish an Anglo-American Institute in London, a kind of international club, confined to professional men and women of both nations. The idea is meeting with considerable approval in New York. Madame Melba keeps down her weight by taking three cold baths a day. The King of Greece is an excellent swimmer and has a perfect passion for fishing. Paderewski claims that ho has received fifty thousand requests for his photograph and his autograph from his fair admirers. A very singular case of strangulation has been brought to the notice of a Chatham jury. The deceased was a child named Albert Ambrose Scarles, tho two-year-old son of a dockyard fitter. When tho mother placed the child in bed she tied a sash round its waist and attached one end to tho bodstead. Two hours later the child was found hanging by tho side of the bed dead. Tho sash was drawn tightly round its throat and had caused strangulation, tho feet being off tho floor.

Not long since tho butler of a certain well-known lady gave notice of his intention to leave. Being asked for tho reason, ho explained that ho had made -£20,000 by speculating in South African mining shares. An hour later her first footman followed the butler’s example by giving notice on tho ground that he too had won .£I2OO by speculation, and that he had determined to enter tho service of his friend tho ex-butler, to whose “ tips ” and advico he was indebted for his good luck.

Wood pulp is now mixed with colouring matter in tho manufacture of paint for uso on all motallic surfaces. It will easily become insoluble and is impervious alike to heat and moisture. Two Frenchmen have recently utilised thoßontgon cryptographs for the examination of explosive engines. They have found that tho explosives, picric acid and gunpowder, are transparent to tho rays, while forro-cyanido is opaque. From a privatelottor from Menzies (“120 miles behind Coolgardio ”) : —“.

Eggs cost two shillings and half-a-crowu each. Meat is Is per lb ; water, Is per gallon. To keep a ho uso here costs, on an average, j£l per day. Last week potatoes wore Is per lb. This week there are uono to be had. There is no flour, consequently no broad Of tho two, give mo Hell.”*

The Crown Princess Stephanie of Austria wins the love of her more lowly subjects by singing solos to them in tho churches and halls of entertainment. Tho French Duchess d Uzes is said to repair every Friday morning, in mean clothes, to a cancer hospital, where she replaces an infirmary servant till late in tho evening. Lord Salisbury became Premier for tho third time when he was nearly twelve years younger than Mr Gladstone was at tho time of his achieving this distinction.

Two most interesting automatic machines are used by tho Unitod States Government for counting and tying postcards into small packages. These machines will correctly count half a million cards in ten hours, and wrap and tio them in bundlos of twenty-five each. There is a very valuable arm-chair in the possession of tho Earl of Radnor. It originally cost £IIO,OOO, and was presented by the City of Augsburg to Emperor Rudolph 11. of Germany about tho year 1576. It is of steel, and took tho artist about thirty years to make. A magnetic crane is now employed in a well-known London foundry for the purpose of lifting pieces of iron and steel. Three men can thus accomplish m fifteon minutes work that formerly required men engaged for one and a half hours. The South Australian railways have perfected a system for supplying current for lighting their cars by means of a dynamo run from the car axle. Throughout the day this dynamo stores up energy in accumulator cells which is employed at Bight time to illuminate the train,

A woman lias recently applied for a patent for putting glass in tho oven doors of kitcheners and bakers’ furnaces to allow the process of baking in ovens to bo watched without opening the doors. By this “windowed oven ” it is claimed that fuel will be saved, for tho continual opening and shutting of an oven door is always sure to necessitate the piling on of more coal.

The Bank of England note is not of the •ame thickness all through. The paper is Ticker in tho left-hand corner to enable it

to take better and sharper impression of the vignette there, and is also considerably thicker in the dark shadows of the centre letters and under tho figures at the ends. Counterfeit notes are invariably of one thickness.

The largest chnmpagno manufactories in Epernay have underground cellars which cover forty-five acres and contain 5,000,000 bottles of wine. There is a whole street in Epernay lined with tine chateaux, the proprietors of which possess many similar establishments. The whole town is honeycombed with these underground galleries for the manufacture and storage of champagne. The city of Bordeaux was deprived of its bells for rebellion ; and, when it was offered to have them restored, the people refused it, after having tasted the ease and convenience of *•’ being freed from the constant din and jangling of bells.” The Cuban rebellion has cost Spain £19,000,000 since last February, and she has to pay £1,200,000 a month now for the support of her army alone. Thu value of property destroyed is not included in this estimate. It would bo money in Spain’s pocket to give Cuba her independence without fighting any more. A great many of the small tin railway trains that are sold for a penny in the streets of London are manufactured by the petty tinsmiths in Whitechapel. Tho patterns aie all cut out of a 11 it sheet of tin, and then heat into shape. Only two or three tools are used, and tho paint consists of about a couple of colours. Convicts in French prisons are paid for their labour, aud earn about Is old a day. Half of this they are allowed to spend for extra food, postage, Ac., and the other half is saved, to give to them when they are

discharged. Mr John Roberts, the billiard champion, is quite an explorer, lie has visited India

eleven times, the Capo twice, Australia three times, New Zealand twice, and America once, and has been down nearly

all the famous mines in the world. Mr Labouchore is a man of the world—keen, unbelieving, hard as nails ; a flaneur of flaneurs —with a sauntering gait, a slow, drawling, and wearied voice, and an eternal cigarette. His laziness is purely physical and superficial; mentally, lie is the most active, persistent, tireless of men. Although Blenheim Palace is practically tho property of the Duke of Marlborough, it is held from tho Crown on a peculiar tenure —namely, tho annual presentation of a French flag to the reigning Monarch. The Dukes of Wellington, likewise, pay the same tribute for Strathfieldsaye, but whereas the Blenheim flag is the Bourbon white, sown with fleur-de-lis, that of Strathfieldsaye is the tricolor. Mr Hiram Maxim has put the tricycle to a new and important use. Ho lms fitted the machine with two Maxim guns, each weighing twenty-five pounds, and capable of firing 600 rounds a minute. Each machine will carry 1000 rounds of ammunition. Mr Maxim is supplying these armed tricycles to somo European Governments,

and tho invention has received tho attention of tho authorities at Home.

A now requirement is demanded of tho English governess, who was formerly sufficiently well equipped with a smattering of the languages and an acquaintance with the piano. Slio must now ride tho wheel, not only that she may instruct her young charges in the art of cycling, but that she may clmporon them in their long trips over tho English country roads. Advertisements for a governess now contain mention of this novel requisite. A “size ” in a coat is lin ; in underwear, 2in; socks, lin ; in collars, tin ; in shoes, l-6in; in trousers, lin ; in gloves, jin; and in hats jin.

The contract for tho now Five per Cent. Chinese Loan of £16,000,000, advanced by the Anglo-German syndicate, iias received final signature at Pekin. The total population of tho earth is estimated at about 1,200,000,000 souls, of whom 35,214,000 die annually, an average of 98,81 s a day, 1020 an hour and 67 a minute.

An Excise olficer named Walsh, living at Witham, Essex, who had been suffering from neuralgia, took a dose of bromide of potassium, and died soon after. 'i'iics number of men and women is veiy nearly equal, the average longevity of both sexes being only thirty-eight years. About one-third of the population dies before the ago of seventeen. Corsets have been worn since the earliest ages. Tho mummy of an Egyptian princess, that had been entombed for 2000 years before tho Christian era, was lately found encased in a laced corset.

Six South Africans own £10,000,000

among them. Mr Barnato’s fortune is estimated at £10,000,000, which is £2,000,000 less than that of Mr Alfred Beit, and double that of Mr Cecil Rhodes.

If all the tobacco smoked in tho British Empire last year were rolled into a rope an inch in diameter, it would form a snakelike roll, which, following the line of the equator, would go thirty times round the earth. Opals, when first taken from the mine, are soft so that they can bo picked to pieces by the finger-nail. To be perfectly proportioned, it is claimed that a man should weigh twentyeight pounds to every foot of his height. Moselle has 9 6 per cent, of alcohol; Rhino wino, 11; champagne, 12; sherry, 19 J maraschino, 3-1 j brandy, 53'4 ; whisky, (H,

It is said that twelve per cent, of the London widowers who embark in matrimony again marry their housekeepers. If the earth were equally divided among its inhabitants, each person would get about twenty-three and a half acres.

The largest room in the world under one roof and unbroken by pillars is at St. Petersburg. It is 620 feet long by 120 in breadth.

Parisian restaurant keepers mix a little honey with their butter. This gives it an agreeable taste and flavour, and makes inferior butter more palatable. A decapitated snail, kept in a moist place, will in a few weeks grow a new head, quite as serviceable and good-looking as that which was taken away. A writer in a German paper says that tho British Infantry must bo considered an excellent, well-armed and efficient force ; be also thinks well of the Artillery.

Switzerland enjoys the unenviable distinction of having a larger percentage of lunatics than any other country. In the canton of Zurich there are 3261 in a population of 339,001).

A Liverpool gentleman has bought a portion of tho Mount of Olives in older to forestall an enterprising firm who considered the land “eligible” for the erection of a large hotel. We wear away two inches of shoe leather in a year. A pair of boots that would “ last a lifetime ” would, consequently, have to ho provided with soles from twelve to thirteen feet thick.

It is now stated that tho world will he over-peopled at the end of 176 years. This brings us to the year 2072, when the population, at the present rate of increase, will be 5991 million people. One hundred tuns of cats’ tails were recently sold at once for the purpose of ornamenting ladies' apparel. 'This moans that, assuming an average cat’s tail to weigh 20z., no few than 1,792,0 DD pussies had to be killed. Henry Dugan, a contractor’s painter, employed in Portsmouth Dockyard, fell from a scaffolding a distance of 40ft, sustaining terrible injuries, which proved fatal. The evidence showed that the deceased lost his balance while moving a scaffold pole. A chemist of Rouen, France, has succeeded in producing from acetylene a distillation of alcohol which can lie sold as low as live cents a gallon. Its exhilarating effect is equal to that of ordinary acohol, and it is used to adulterate cheap wine. R. D Blackmoro is a big, burly man, but very shy, with so much of tho plain westcountry farmer about him still that one can easily understand the genesis of “ Lorna Doone’s ” hero. The ex-Empress Eugenie, who is still engaged on her memoirs, uses a penholder that is sot with diamonds. This was employed by the fourteen representatives in signing tho Treaty of tho Peace of Paris in 1856, and was presented to the ex-Empress as a memento. Is it insubordination for a soldier to refuse to wash his face when ordered to do so by iris commanding officer ? Most people would think so, but a court-martial in Holland, of alljplaces, where tho cleanliness

of the inhabitants is proverbial, has decided otherwise. A soldier in the garrison at Flushing respectfully but firmly declined to wash himself as commanded, and the court-martial before which he was tried for the supposed offence acquitted him. The decision has’ been confirmed by tho High Military Court of tho Dutch Kingdom. Not a little has been said about the professed toleration of the Turks towards other creeds, but to show tho real feeling entertained it is only necessary to eito the Moslem statutes, in which Christians are designated as “ dogs ” and “ pigs.” And in tho burial certificates Christians are not said to be dead, but damned. For example, a burial certificate attested by the British Ambassador certifies to the priest of an Armenian church that the “impure, putrid, stinking carcase of N , this day damned (deceased) may bo concealed under ground.” When tho typewriter was more of a novelty than it is at the present time, the Prince of Wales was sullieiently interested in the invention to learn howto manipulate it with no little dexterity. Tho greater part of the letters and other work dictated to his secretaries is done upon these machines.

Bullets made of precious stones are rarities in warfare. But during the recent fightin;' on the Kashmir frontier, when the British troops defeated the rebellious ilitnzas, the natives used bullets of garnets encased in lead. It is only specially favoured visitors who are allowed to poke their noses into the Quoin’s boudoir at Windsor Castle. Inscribed upon the floor they see; “Every article in tiffs room my deeply-lamented husband selected for me in the twentyfourth year of my reign.” And carefully preserved under a gl iss shade lies the Queen’s bridal wreath by the side of tho withered remains of the first bouquet, presented to Her Majesty by tho Prince Consort.

Franz Stanislaus Ritter von Hrubijoleni,

a son of Maximilian, one time Emperor of Mexico, is now the proprietor of a dingy coal cellar in a New York slum. Ho says

that ho lived with his father until the

latter’s execution. Ho was in prison in Mexico, and after his ichurn from Austria he could not get his claims recognised. Ho is, however, quite contented with his present lot. When a man is tried by court-martial, lie lias not tho same facilities for defending himself as has a prisoner in an ordinary court of law. If a solicitor appears for him, ho does so only as “tho prisoner’s friend,” and tho prisoner has himself to put tho question his solicitor writes out to witnesses. In the Baidar Valley, near Balaclava, in tho Crimea, there stands a walnut-tiee which must be at least 1000 years old. It yields annually from 80,000 to 100,000 nuts, and is the property of five Tartar families, who share its produce equally,