PIECES OF INFORMATION.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume V, Issue 577, 1 December 1897, Page 4

PIECES OF INFORMATION.

There aru just 1,000,000 blind people ui the world.

The real Anarchist prefers to work single-handed. A tax on walking-sticks was once levied in Marseilles. Excessive coffee-drinking, it is said, impairs the sight. The German Emperor’s wardrobe is valued at £IOO,OOO. The number of species of birds now known is about 11,000. The foreign Anarchists in London number about 600. The majority are Italians. A small boy, who had several big sisters, recently described a kiss as “ a long noise.” Sixteen to eighteen miles an hour is the average speed of the trains in the Transvaal. A piece of genuine Japanese lacquer costs the native artist almost a lifetime to perfect. A new kind of cloth is being mado in Lyons from the down of hens, ducks, and geese. On an average a man increases five pounds in weight for every inch in height beyond 02 inches. England sent 850,000,000 messages by telephone last year, 87,000,000 more than the year before. A green turban, throughout all Islam, is a sign that the wearer is a descendant of the Prophet. The snuff used by the Pope is made in America. It is the highest priced snuff in tho world. The Burmese cheroot is hardly ever out of the mouths of men, women and children in Buunah. Tho average duration of the reigns of English sovereigns has been twenty-three years and a half. France has set up about 800 monuments to more or less distinguished Frenchmen during the last 25 years. The green ants of Australia make nests by bending leaves together and uniting them with a kind of natural glue. The oldest piece of wire that we have any knowledge of is a specimen made by the Ninevites some 80 years B.C. The Rev* Jacob Primmer calls the returning of his book about Rome by Her Majesty’s private secretary “ a good piece of impudence.” The regular diet of Cornaro, a Venetian, who lived to be over 100, was bread, meat, the yolk of an egg, milk, and soup, with a little wine. Servants are armed with “ characters,” mistresses have none. This is manifestly unfair, says a co.respondent of a London paper. Russia has the most rapidly increasing population of any countryin the world. The growth during the last 100 years has been a fraction less than 1,000,000 annually. Waterproof materials are likely to be superseded by a fabric of pleasing appearance, the surface of which ha) a dressing of powdered glass. The result is to produce a surface of a soft, silky, and luminous description.