INTERESTING ITEMS.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 18, Issue 42, 24 May 1907, Page 7

INTERESTING ITEMS.

Nearly £BOO,OOO worth of articles are pawned in London weekly.

A heavy London fog will cost fur artificial light between £7,000 and £B,OOO.

In Danish cities it is against the law to ride on bicycles faster than the speed of a cab.

There are still 20,000,000 square miles of the earth’s surface that have not been explored.

The badge of dike of the Lord Mayor of London contains diamonds valued at £120,000.

Insurance companies claim that cy cling is more dangerous than travel ling either by railway or by ship.

Quill pens wore used 551? A.D, ; steel pens wore invented by Wise, o' England, 1805, and improved by Gillott, 18212.

The natural food of the horse if grass. There is nothing else upor. which he will grow so largo, keep sc healthy, or live so long.

The first horseless carriage was invented in Paris in 1748 by Vaticanson, and its operation was witnessed by Louis XV. It was moved by 8 large clock spring.

Suicide at one time was very common among tho Brahmins of India who held the body in contempt, regarding it merely as a covering for the soul.

Men are becoming scarcer, year after year. So says a Gorman statistician ; and he predicts that 3,000 years hence there will be only one man to 220 women.

Four railway companies, the Groat Western, the Great Eastern, the South-Western, and the North-West-ern, bring info London about 20,000,000 gallons of milk each every year-.

The chief distinction between the male and female Japanese lies in the hair. The men shave nearly the whole of the head, while the women allow it to grow, and even add to it by art when required.

Excessive tea-drinking is assigned as the chief cause of the high rate of insanity in some parts of Ireland, and (he theory would seem to be strengthened by the fact that there are three female lunatics to one male in the.se places.

A useful charity, called the London Spectacle Mission, provides spectacles for needlewomen and other deserving persons dependent upon their eyesight for their living. Last year nearly a thousand applicants were provided with spectacles.

Circus rings arc always uniform in size. Circus horses arc trained to perform in a standard ring forty-two feet in diameter, in a larger or a smaller ring their pace becomes uneven, irregular and unreliable, and the riders, in turning somersaults, are liable to miscalculate the curve and miss their footing.

The modern shark is deteriorating. In ages gone by there were ferocious sharks, such as would make a mouthful of you without blinking, 70ft. in length. Plenty of their teeth have oeen found which are Bin. in length whereas the biggest of the teeth belonging to the sharks that exist at the present day are I Jim long.

One of the curiosities at Chatsworth is a weeping willow made of copper and so dexterously fashioned that at a distance it resembles a real tree. It is actually a showerbath for, by pressing a secret tap, a tiny spray of water can be made to burst forth from every branch and twig of the tree, to the discomfort of any who mav be under iU 1033.