Brief Mention.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5227, 6 April 1895, Page 3

Brief Mention.

London has one theatre for every 145,000 people. The allowance of the Lord Mayor of London is £10,000 annually. The average thunder cloud ia estimated to contain about 300 horse-power of electric energy.

The population of London is eaid to be 5,948,300, and increasing at the rate of 105,000 a year.

From the thirteenth to the seventeenth century, a blue coat in England was the sign of a servant.

Among non-alcoholic beverages sodawater ie the least adulterated ; among intoxicants, beer.

If the surface of the earth|were perfectly level, the waters of the ocean would cover t to a depth of 600 ft.

As regards tho right of veto, it has not been exercised since 1707, when Queen Anne vetoed the Scotch Militia Bill.

Eome reached its greatest size during the fourth century ot our era, when its population was estimated at 3,500,000. Tne highest masts of sailing vessels are from 160, to 180 feet high, and spread from 60,000 to 100,000 square feet of canvas.

The British Government derives .£2,220,000 from the Land tax, £4,440,000 from the houae tax, and £9,000,000 from the Income tax.

Ifc is eaid that the year 1894 was the first ia which the great Car of Juggernaut has failed to find devotees enough to drag it over the usnal route.

The fishermen belonging to Hull and Grimsby alono, who porished in the recent gales, numbered about 200. The disaster has created ninety widows in Hall alone.

Spiritualists say that only the lower or earth-bound spirits .appear; that these spirits are little superior to mortals ia knowledge, and perhaps inferior as regarda morality.

A French jury acquitted a forger at Cherbourg, because ho add he wanted the money to send his intended bride to Paria, to undergo a surgical operation on which her life depended.

A Mexican profeaeor of physioa proposes to foretell earthquakes by connecting telephones to the pipes of deep artesian wells, and to metal piateß sunk ia deep mountain crevices. \

The steam railways of the United States now aggregate in length no less than 179,672 mites. Of this mileage 54.400 miles were added in the last ton years, an average of 5430 mileß each year.

A machine has been invented that will paste labels on one hundred thousand cans in a day of ten hours. There is an endless procession of rolling cans on a chute, and each can picks up a label as it passes.

Notwithstanding the depression of trade, the amount standing to the credit of depositors in the savings bank in England at the end of 1894 was £132,000,000, or £9,681,000 more than at the close of the previous year.

Wives are bought and cold in China. Twenty years ago the average price was £5. Now it is .£SO, and parents, realising that there is a fortune ia a family, of daughters, strangle fewer of their female children at birth. * :

Shells were the original trumpets of mankind. The fishermen of Newfoundland blow a huge shell as a foghorn, the Welsh once employed the same as a dinnercall, and the miners o£ the Guernsey granite quarries used it aB a blasting signal.

The colour of one's clothing 1 has considerably to do with one's comfort in summer or winter. When exposed to the sunlight, white, it is said, receives 100 deg. Fabr. ; dark yellow, 140 ; light green, 155 ; dark green, 168 ; blue, 198 ; and black, 208.

The biggest advertisement on record was that giving the signatures to a Conservative address to the King, agreed to at a public meeting in London on Dec. 23, 1834. The words amounted to nearly 6000, and occupied twenty-four columns of the Times,

Like the ancient Egyptians, the Chinese believe that each person is possessed of three souls, one of which, at death, ascends to the immortal gods ; another, whioh remains with the body in the tomb ; and a third, whioh becomes part of the tablet of the deceased which stands on the ancestral alter.

A philanthropic English business man is offering a trip .abroad to a foreign count for four to six months, with expenses paid and .£2OOO remuneration, to the possessor of a title between the ages of thirty and forty-five. A military title is sot "eligible," and the reason for the trip is "important business."

A scientific authority states that by covering a bullet with vaseline, its flight may be easily followed with the eye from the time it leaves the muzzle of the rifle until it strikes the target. The coarse of the bullet is marked by a ring of smoke, caused by the vaseline being ignited on leaving the muzzle of the gun. The managers of a certain English racecourse, fearing that the weather would interfere with a recent, programme, decided to insure the " gate " for JESOO. They foand their insurance company, and for .£3O they effected an insurance for .£SOO to save them from a probable loss. The insurance company gained the whole of the £30. The Queen's favourite riding mare is called "Jessie," and has now attained to the ripe old age of twenty-Bix years. It may surprise Borne to know that as recently as three years ago this mare carried Her Majesty upon her broad back. " Jesßie "is first favourite among the Queen's horses, and whenever Her Majesty is at Windsor is taken up to the castle for inspection.

An extraordinary case has just come, to light at Bolton, Lancashire. A schoolboy had baffled hia teachers by acting as if he were deaf and dumb, and it being impossible to instruct him he was sent to the Manoheater «Dep£ and Dumb Sohool. After being their several months he e waa found to be neither deaf nor dumb/ and has been sent back to Bolton by the Manchester officials.

It is the general impression that no coal is mined in Mexico. This is a mistake; the faot is that Mexico sends coal to the United States. It is not aent in large quantitiea, but a considerable portion of the output of the mines at Sabinas, San Felisae, Hondo, and Alamo is sent to the United States over the Mexican International Eiilroad and enters through the port of Piedras Negras. The formation of .the teeth begins at an early stage of foetal life, and continues until the body is fully matured. Firat is the development of the deciduous or temporary teeth. The first teeth are adapted to the size of the jaw. Aa the child grows and the jaws become larger, theae teeth of frail structure are replaced by larger and stronger ones, which are intonded to last through life.

There is scarcely any artiole of domestic utility concerning which persona will not be surprised when they are informed as to the extent of 'its use. The number of corkscrews is a casein point, the figures of which may appear decidedly antagonistic to the total abstinence cause. One firm made, in one year, 150,000,000 corkscrews from a curious automatic machine, which discharged a finished corkscrew in about thirty Beconds. A novel winter charity festival took place recently in Brussels. A company of Brussels sculptors got up in the public park an exhibition of works of art executed in snow. There were ocenes and groups and single statues in the greatest variety— from portrait statues of well-known persons to the figure of a Bleeping drunkard, from a learned elephant to a fight between a lion and a horse, from a statue of Napoleon I. to the scene of a well-spread table with its attendant cooks and waiters.

The latest idea of French phyeiciana is to cure colds by applying ice to the spine. Just now, when the abrupt changes ia the weather have brought influenza, bronchitis, or some kindred trouble, ono is always glnd to hear of some now remedy for " the cold ;" but few, we imagine, will be daring enough to apply this one. Tet the inflammatory sore throat that a few years ago moat people treated by poultices and warinfch ia now quickly and easily cured by sucking ice and keeping the victim in a low temperature, and, in a really feverish cold, ice might be of genuine uw.