Untitled

New Zealand Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 3256, 13 October 1897, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Queen-Regent of Spain is a very go-ahead woman, and long before the restrictions on horseless carriages in London were removed, bad ordered a motor carriage to be built for her here. Edison and Tesla, both eminent electricians, are not agreed as to sleep. Edison said recently that “ sleep is a bad habit," further stating that some nights he did not sleep a winkl Tesla says that if a man could sleep eighteen hours a day, he might live to be two hundred years old

Sir Robert Bannatyne Finlay, the Solicitor-General, was formerly known in the House of Commons as •* The Edinburgh Man," on account, it is said, of the frequency with which he used to introduce the name of his native city into bis convernation. Report declares that as a boy he was of an exceedingly combative disposition, and was always ready to prove, in his own fashion, the superiority of Edinburgh boys over foreigners. Among the many treasures owned by the Queen is the wonderful needle that was made for her in Buckinghamshire. The needle is a miniature of the Roman column of Trajan, but instead of the exploits of the Roman emperors, scenes in her Majesty’s life are depicted. One shows the Queen when a girl at Tunbridge Wells, another scene is the coronation at Westminster, while a third shows her marriage. The figures can only be made out by the aid of a magnifying glass. The King of Siam has a passion tor all things English. He reads and speaks English fluently, he is clothed by WestEnd tailors, has made a hearty handshake a compulsory form of greeting at the Siamese Court, and is an ardent devotee of billiards and cricket. His English tastes are shared by bis sons and nephews, soma of whom are at different schools and colleges in England. The Crown Prince, who is reading with a tutor near Eton, is an atbletio boy of seventeen, and a fine horseman, whilst another son is in training at the Royal Naval Academy, Greenwich, and is reputed to be as well acquainted with the use of the “ gloves ” as with the principles of navigation.