MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume V, Issue 538, 1 September 1897, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

The male mosquitos do not bite, but live upon the juices of flowers and plants.

The foundation stone of a new promenade for Scarborough, which is to cost £BO,OOO, was laid recently. The famous vine in the gardens of Hampton Court Palace is bearing upwards of 1200 bunches of grapes. Baroness Ilirsch has given 2,000,000 francs to be invested for thi benefit of ladies in reduced circumstances.

Professor Riva, of the University of Paiinu, claims that he lias found the microbe of articular rheumatism.

During last year, in the city of London alone, 588 persons were killed by falling from buildings or out of windows.

An uloctrieal machine for cutting doth ha 3 been invented which is capable of cutting out from 200 to 800 suits a day. An eight year old boy named Portsmouth was drowned at Slough while on his way to see the Queen's State Reception. During the funeral of a resident of Bishop’s Stortford one of the sons of the deceased suddenly fell dead on the path.

All the fish deserted the Spithead waters during the Naval Review, on account of the number of boats pre-.-ent and the firing of the guns. The maintenance of graveyards in tho Transvaal costs the British Government £2l a year, and cemeteries at Suukim, in Egypt, £7.

The willow is one of the most adaptable of plants. A willow switch stuck in the wet ground will almost invariably take root and become a tree.

The Viceroy telegraphs to the India Office that ordinary monsoon conditions now prevail. There are still nearly 1,000,000 of people on relief.

The champion sheep-shearer is an Australian. He has broken the record by shearing 88,823 sheep in twelve mouths, his earnings being £338.

In the seventh century the average* duration of life was only 13 years ; in the eighteenth, 20 ; in this century it is 80. What will it be in the twentieth ?