News and Notes.

Southern Cross, Volume 3, Issue 22, 31 August 1895, Page 7

News and Notes.

Only one person in 15 has perfect eyes.

The normal age of an elephant is 150 years.

The first newspaper advertisement ppeared in 1652. Japan has a written history extending over 2,500 years. France controls a territory of 3,000,000 square miles in Africa.

at is said that there is never an odd number of rows in an ear of corn.

Twenty-five mill-workers in Dundee have struck for increased wages. Iceland has fewer cases of phthisis than any other country on the globe.

The skeleton of an average wbale is said to weigh no less than 50,0001 b The world’s wheat crop is estimated at 232,000,000 bushels below that of 1894.

The first lucifer matches were made "by John Walker, at Stockton, in 1827.

A Newfoundland company has Ibeen organised to gather ice from icebergs. "When meeting a friend, a Chinaxnan shakes his own hand instead of his friend’s.

The organised charities of Great Britain give away every year over £10, 000,000. The Seaham colliery (N.S.W.) is on fire, and 250 men are out of woik in consequence.

Wool experts look for another good rise this year, with an improving market for 1896.

In the domains of the British empire alone some 8,000 individuals vanish every year.

One hundred shops are being opened in London by one firm for the sale of Australian meat.

If the earth were equally divided among its inhabitants, each person ■would get about acres. Hayward's warehouse, Blackfriars, containing grain and sugar, has been burned down. Damage, £250,000.

Steps are being taken to form a cadet volunteer corps in. connection •with the Southland Boys’ High School.

There is a good deal of sickness about Riverton, and at present there are over 20 patients in the Riverton hospital. The first mention that can be traced of coffee in England was made in 1660. A duty of 4d. per gallon was levied on the maker.

Rady Wilde is said to be dying of a broken heart, and her friends in London predict she will never see her son again.

The nearest approach to the North Pole was on May 13, 1892, _ when Lieut. Lockwood stood within 396 miles of that coveted spot. The most important artificial water course in the Imperial Canal of China is 2,100 miles in length. Its construction occupied 600 years. Disease is working great havoc among the French troops in Madagascar. One regiment has been almost entirely lost through fever. "Vesuvius and Etna are never both active at the same time. The period ©f greatest violence with one is that of greatest quiescence of the other.

It is estimated that from 40,000 to 50,000 slaves are yearly carried away captive from Zanzibar and neighbouring ports. The herring family contributes more largely to the food of human beings than any other of the fish families.

A large European wolf has been hilled at Mount Gambier (S.A.) It is not known at present how it got into the country.

The publicans in New York, yielding to the influence of reformed police and municipal management, have apreed to close on Sundays.

If we could penetrate the earth’s surface to a distance of two miles, we should find the place where water could not exist except in a state of steam.

It is said that at present there are more than 100 callings, occupations, and professions open to women, and the list is constantly increasing. A letter containing an explosive was sent to Baron Rothschild. It was opened by his secretary, who was severely injured, and is in a critical state.

The carrier pigeon was in use by the State department of the Ottoman empire as early as the 14th century. Lithgow says that a dispatch was carried from Bagdad to Alepp 30 days journey, on horses, in 48 hours.

Our Mataura correspondent advises that several properties have lately changed hands. Mr C. Town has sold his property in the township to Mrs Bachop at a satisfactory figure, and Mr W. B. Reid’s farm at Ferndale (Tuturau) has been bought by Mr J. Pratt at a good price. A boy named Herbert Perkins has been shot dead at Wellington. He was out shooting, and laid his gun on tho ground. In picking the gun up agair, he caught it near the muzzle, when it exploded. To an elephant the loss of his teeth is a far more serious matter than to a human being with a dentist to repair it. The poor beast cannot chew his food nor digest it; he loses condition and dies.

A labourer named Whitehead, who cut his throat and then was knocked down by an engine on the railway line at Southall, told the doctor he wanted to end his life because ‘ he was very hungry, out of work, and felt very miserable.’ Verdict, suicide.

We are having a spell of fine weather at last, and gardening is now the order of the day. The Cottage Gardeners’ Association has been the means of causing a goodly amount of competition amongst the amateur class of gardeners, and the next show they hold will be worth seeing, as the entries will be very numerous, and given a fine season the exhibits will be hard to better anywhere. —Riverton correspondent.

In reply to a question in the House of Commons, Mr Chamberlain, Secretary for the Colonies, said the Government were considering whether, if the British prohibited the importation of liquor into West Africa, the French and Germans would not step in to supply it, thus depriving the British of the general trade, which had now reached a value equal to that of some European countries. Out of 253,177 recruits for the German army last year only 617, about 24 in 10,000, were unable to read and write ; out of 343,651 Frenchmen in the same peri0d,22,095 that is 643 in 10,000 illiterate.

Twenty - five thousand pilgrims have arrived at Lourdes, France, to drink of the waters from a spring there in the hope that they will be cured of their diseases. Scores have died on the journey. Messrs A. and R. Gray, of Wallacetown, obtained per lb for their crossbred wool in England this season. They reckon this is about 2d per lb more than they could have got if they had sold locally. After all (writes our Riverton correspondent) the main part of the business in connection with Wilson River goldfields in the Warden’s Court is to be transferred to Invercargill. The hearing of unopposed applications, etc., or secondary part, is still to be conducted at Riverton. Thank goodness, we have this much left, but it is being thankful for very small fish indeed.

What would that doughty old monarch, Henry VIII, say to this era of women’s clubs ? In 1547 he issued an edict commanding that * women should not meet together to babble and talk, and that men should keep their wives in their houses.’

The Invercargill Chamber of Commerce has passed resolutions against the Vancouver mail. service and the Debt Recovery Limitations Bill. One speaker described the measure as the most immoral proposal that had ever emanated from any Government.

An eminent astronomer estimates that if the so-called canals in the planet of Mars are artificial, they must have demanded the labours of 200,000,000 men through 1,000 years, There has been one total eclipse of the,sun visible at London since the year 1140, that of 1715, and, according to a leading scientist, there will not be another until after the beginning of the 21st century. A Venetian glass manufacturer is said to be making and selling bonnets by the thousand. The glass cloth of which they are made has the same shimmer and brilliancy of colour as silk, and is impervious to water.

In the manufactures of Great Britain alone the power which steam exerts is estimated to be equal to the manual labour of four billions of men or more than double the number of males supposed to inhabit the globe. To keep stamps from stickgin to gether put a piece of paraffined paper —such as a grocer uses to cover lard and butter —against the gummed side. Then they can be carried about or posted with impunity, and, when the paper is removed, the stamps are still gummed. At Northampton Assizes, Albert Heberts, 32, shoe-finisher, was charged with the manslaughter of Mark Edwards, shoe hand, at Northampton on May 4. The pair quarrelled while playing cards in a public house, and during the fight Edwards fell. He was picked up unconscious, and died within a few minutes. Jury found accused not guilty, and he was discharged.

In a ton of Dead sea water there are 187 pounds of salt; Red sea, 93 pounds ; Mediterranean, 85 pounds ; Atlantic, 81 pounds ; English Channel, 72 pounds ; Baltic, 16 pounds ; Black sea, 26 pounds, and Caspian sea, 11 pounds.

An Austrian scientist has been attacking the European nose, says the Philadelphia Record. He says it is a miserable, degraded organ and a disgrace to civilization. He admires the large, full nostrils of the negro, and says that is the sort of nose to have That is the nose that can smell. The nose of Europe cannot smell; our olfactory sense is gone. The London nose could never snuff the London atmosphere; nor, he might have added, the much more complicated odors of Cologne. He attributes this degeneration to cigarette smoking, and life in crowds, and has such a poor opinion of the organ which now obtains that he does not think it worth the while to interfere, otherwise science might take us by the nose, he considers, with great advantage.