BRIEF MENTION.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 11980, 31 January 1903, Page 3 (Supplement)

BRIEF MENTION.

In France, 6,300,000 women work' for their living.

There is one titled person to every 100 commoners in Russia.

Want of care does ns more damage than want of knowledge.—Franklin. The most amiable people are those who least wound the self-love of others.— Bruyere.

Yarmouth's, new municipal electric tramways have made a profit of £2125 on their first quarter's working. Oakum-picking by female prisoners in his Majesty's English prisons has now practically ceased; instead they make their own garments, and those of the male prisoners. Some sculptured white marble has been found in Colne Park, Essex. The authorities of the British Museum pronounce it to be a portion of the celebrated frieze of the Parthenon. Temple, Athens, erected in the year 444 B.C.

c-zW™ J£ lculated an engineer that 630,000,000 tons of coal are used annually the world - 0f amount, 148,000,000 are burnt in the United _States; Great Britain comes dn second with an annual consumption of 140,000,000. The Glasgow Royal Reserve Rally, an institution furnished as a temporary home for the use of Reservists and ex-service men, naval and military, was opened recently by Lord Provost Chisholm. The institution is the first of the kind in the British Empire. The French colonies on the west coast of Africa are increasing in importance every year, and are receiving serious attention irom the French Government. The United States exported to these colonies in 1900 £131,453 worth and received therefrom products to the value of £120,233. For the first six months ended Sept 30, during which the whole of the Bradford trams have been taken over by the corporation and run by electricity, the receipts were £89,724, taken in 21,000,000 penny fares. Receipts for the last six months, previous to complete municipalisation, were £65,916.

A person elegantly dressed in male attire walked into the ladies' waiting-room at a New York station, and was promptly ejected. When the police arrived, it was discovered that the intruder was a wellknown lady doctor, who for the preceding three weeks had adopted male attire. She had, from force of habit, walked into the room set apart for ladies.

It is computed that American millionaires have given £77,000,000 to charitable and philanthropic objects during the past nine years. Mr Pierpont Morgan is credited witn having distributed in this way just under £300,000. Mr Carnegie's benefactions, however, exceeded six millions sterling up to the end of last year. Mrs Leland Stanford gave a corresponding amount in one donation last year. Her gifts, with those of her late husband, total f en million pounds.

There is just a round.dozen of men in the United Kingdom who pay tax on incomes exceeding £50,000 —eleven in Great Britain and one in Ireland.- The eleven Britains are assessed .on more than £1,400,000, so some of them must pay income tax on much more than £50,000. Their gross income, equally divided between them, would give them each a nice little income of £127,000 a year, with more than £6OO over to make a private secretary uncommonly happy. Zola knocked, and he knocked in vain, at the doors of the French Academy. In some four years he was rejected fifteen times by that august assembly, and how many times afterwards we cannot count. Why the Academy rejected the aspirant we know not. Even M. Zola's enemies cannot place him lower in the scale than the majority of the forty who rejected him. Nor was there any uncertainty in their rejection. When Zola was lucky, he polled a single vote; but most often he polled none at all.—" Blackwood."

It has probably been forgotten that the electric railway was in the first instance a British invention, for, so far back as 1837, a car was electrically propelled on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway. But the invention cam© before its time, and, like so many others, was destined to be put aside and forgotten, because of temporary imperfections. It was the same with the motorcar, and the same with the automatic pow-er-loom. 'All originated in England; all were forgotten till foreigners re-discovered and perfected them.

What will the newspaper of the future be like? Mr Victor Murdoch, addressing the Kansas Editorial Association, declared that within forty years the daily newspaper in large cities would be issued in a series of editions, each being devoted to one kind of hews. In each city there would be only one paper, and a single corporation would control the papers everywhere. Political information would be given mainly in the form of authentic interviews with public men; but the paper as a whole would have no political bias.—" London Express."

Thanks to the vote of a member old enough to remember the return of Napoleon from Moscow, the Danish. Landsthing rejected at the last moment the proposal to sell the Danish West Indies to the United States. The decision will cause as much annoyance in the States as the reported verdict of the arbitrator in Samoa. A harbour in the neighbourhood of Nicaragua is becoming of great importance to the States, and the cession of these islands, which would have provided it, had been accepted as a matter of course.—" Saturday Review."

It seems incredible, but it is nevertheless a fact, that as late as the year 1814 an old woman named Bessie Millie, of Pomona, in the Orkney Islands, sold favourable winds to seamen at the small price of sixpence a vessel. For many years witches were supposed to sell the wind. The Finlanders and Laplanders made quite a trade by selling winds. The old women, after being well paid by the credulous sailors, used to knit three magical knots; the buyer was told he would have a good gale when he untied the first knot, the second knot would bring a strong wind and the third a severe tempest.

The pike is at his best in winter —that is to say, he is readier in cold weather to take a bait. His merits on the table, in the opinion of the writer of the interesting "' Arcadian Calendar," in the '' Strand," depend entirely upon the stuffing wherewith he shall be stuffed. The pike has fallen from a high estate. In Edward I.'s time he was set above the salmon, and everybody was eager to get him. In H.M. Edward Vll.'s time angling associations set a price upon his head for vermin. There be those who .say that the pike, like the eel, can work his way overland; but the water must fall low indeed before he prefers to get out and walk. The German Emperor has dominion over nearly eight millions of men pledged to fighting for him, of whom half are trained to arms and to absolute obedience to their fifty-two thousand odd officers. O'f these, 609,000 men are actually in uniform in fortress and barracks at the present moment, organised as a standing peace army of 625 battalions of infantry, b*t regiments of cavalry, 583 batteries of horse and field artillery, with 3458 guns, 38 regiments of foot artillery, with 26 different patterns of cannon and howitzers in their charge, and finally 60 battalions of scientific, artificer and transport troops.—"Linesman," in "Blackwood."

M. Grevy, when President of France, on one occasion extricated himself from a predicament with wonderful presence of mind. He was being conducted around the Salon by an eminent artist, when he saw a paint • ing which displeased him. "What a daub!" he exclaimed; "whose is it?" "That picture, M. le President," said hi* cicerone, "it is my own work.' 1 "Ah!" said the President, without any sign of embarrassment at his awkward mistake, "in our country, when we particularly wish to purchase a "thing, we always begin by running it down;" and, true to his part, he purchased the offending painting there and then.