Brief Mention.

Star (Christchurch), 30 September 1893, Page 3

Brief Mention.

America h&s 9,144,690 men available for military duty. __ Broken limbs are more frequent in winter than in summer. Tfae mercantile and armed navies of the world have 1,693,000 seamen. In every country consumption kills more victims than any other one disease. . Nejison says that for every death during the year two persons are constantly ill. . Great Britain has 1,951,000 domestic ! servants, earning _2 68,500,000 per annum. j Three-fourths of the total population! of Bussia are engaged in . cultivating the floU. . | According to Andrew Lang, Great has one hundred thousand I novelist)?. ' The firat English gold Coins were minted I in. 1257," in the forty » second year of Heary 111. F<edor VfossilefF, of Moscow, in 1872, was pensioned by the Czar. He had eightythree fthildr'en living. Lord Salisbury ie said to be the only Prime Minister ainoa the time of Elizabeth who has\wor^ia beard. Times __re hard iv Londou. More persons of greater or less importance have given up keeping carriages during the past year than during any previous one. . The thea .pea and other places of entertainment iii Londou are large enough to provide sitings at one time for aU the Inhabitants of Edinburgh, and even then there would be 20,000 sittings to spare. The countries having the largest ratios of children are Greece and Bpain ; this is explained in both countries by the Bhort span of life, the proportion of persons passing the sixtieth year being very small. Ab the result of long experienoe, it is stated that the effect? of imprisonment are far severer, bodily and mentally, on women than men, bo that equality of sentence does not necessarily ( carry with it equality of punishment. A telephone for use on the field of battle 13 one of the latest war appliances. The wire, a mile long, is wound in a kind of breastplate, worn by^a .soldier, and to ■the head-gear ia atflp-ched the : simple receiving and transmitting apparatus. I France is soon to adopt an interesting innovation in the poatal^pard Bystem. The cards will be issued in the form .of checkbooks, with stubs. Thi. sender of the - postal-card can make memoranda of its contents on the stub, and cau bave. this stamped at the post-offioe, fief ore the card is detached, bo that a verified record of the correspondence can be kept.