Brief Mention.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5339, 17 August 1895, Page 3

Brief Mention.

Grecian 1 " women had very long feet. In twenty years Canada has had but 116 divorces. The Pope is devoted to the study of astronomy. Kissing a woman's lips is a gross insult in Finland. A woman's brain declines in weight after the ago of thirty. The Canard line of steamers gives employment to 10,000 men. A needle passes through eighty operations before it is perfectly made. One thousand tons of soot settle monthly on the one hundred and ten square mileß of London. In England the hair of criminals is allowed to grow three months before they are discharged. The world's blind are computed to number about one million — about one sightless person to every 1400 inhabitants. Nearly every man, woman, and child in Egypt is a smoker of cigarettes, and a pipe is hardly ever seen in the mouth of a native. Sir Bichard W.b.ter was made a Q.C. when only thirty-six, the earliest age on record at which this honour has been bestowed. A cigarette smoker sends into the air about 4,000,000.000. particles of dust at every pull, according to Dr Atkins investigations. The number of volleys fired over a soldier's grave depends upon the number of companies in the regiment, each company firing one volley. The ink used in printing Bank of England notes was formerly made from grape stone charcoal, now it is manufactured from naphtha smoke. There were 159 railway servants killed in the United Kingdom last year while "Btanding on the line on duty" or crossing the metals in front of trains. The Due de Morny, tbe foremost ain&tear photographer of the day in France, iB reported to have paid something like £12,000 for his photographic equipment. Probably the oldest bicycle rider in the world is a New York woman, who celebrated her ninety-third birthday recently by giving a picnic, to whioh she and her friends rode on bicycles. A young girl in Eaßt- London had a dream that she left her sweetheart and drowned herself at a certain spot. The dream so preyed upon her mind that the following day her dead body was found in the canal at the spot indicated. A blotter is now made whioh will remove* ink spots from paper. The ordinary material is employed, steeped several times in a solution of oxalic acid or oxalate of potassium. This, if employed when the ink is etill moißt, will erase every sign of a blot. Of the £1200 required for the proposed Tennyson Beacon in the Isle of Wight, so far, only £800 has been subscribed in England and £14,4, in America. The beacon is to be a granite monolith lona cross, to take the place of the pile of tarred wood known as the Nodes Beacon. Fish live to a wonderful age. Professor Baird tells ua of a pike in Busßia whose age dates back to the fifteenth century. In the Boyal aquarium of St Petersburg there are fish that have been there for one hundred and forty years. They live on without seeming to arrive at maturity. Two patients having died in a Northampton aßylum, were placed in coffins and sent to wrong destinations. A telegram announcing that a mistake had been made was received aB the burial service was being performed in the presence of mourners over the wrong body at Soulbury, Buckinghamshire. A new electrical hair-cutting and singeing apparatus has been introduced from Amerioa. It consists of a comb, the teeth of which are covered with platinum wire and a simple contrivance by means ot which this wire is raised to a bright heat. The apparatus on being moved through the hair cuts it evenly. Burming sixty miles an hour, a train of 850 tons, with the full breaking weight of the train utilised, and the rails in the most favourable conditions, oould be bronght to a fnll Btop in 900 ft; at eighty miles per hour, in 1600 f t: at ninety miles per hour in 2025 f t; and at one hundred miles per hour in 2500 ft. In South American waters mullet are taken in enormous quantities by boats whioh go out with wire baskets at the bows filled with blazing pitohpine. For the purpose in view, the craft is so loaded as to bring the gunwale on one side down nearly to a level with the water, and the fish, attracted by the light, jump on board by hundreds. The Prince of Wales, always most correot in matters of etiquette, has two sorts of cardß, one reading "Albert Edward," the other " Le Prince de Galles," the French term being more often used in Boyal circles than the other. Frenoh being the universal language of Royalty, all monarch* nave their visiting cards for general use inscribed in the Gallic tongue. The big statue of William Perm whioh surmounts the tower of the Philadelphia City Hall faces the old Perm Treaty Park. This displeases the citizens, who get only a rear or profile view of the Btatue. So, to please everybody, it ia proposed to put the statue on a revolving pedeßtal, which will be turned round once every twenty-four hours by means of clockwork. A transparent mirror glar-is, recently introduced in Germany, reflects light on one aide, from whioh it is practically opaque, while from the other side it is transparent. It ia proposed to use this type of glass for glazing windows in city residences, for, while it will not cut off light or vision from the interior, it will prevent outsiders from seeing into a room. A shop assistant at a draper'- in Eathmines, England, was pronounced by a-doctor to be suffering from small-pox, and she was removed to a hospital. People not caring to frequent the shop, the businoss fell off. It transpired that the young lady was not suffering from small-pcx at all. The draper accordingly brought an aotion against the doctor for damages for loss of business, and was awarded £100. Boer courtships are carried on in this wise : The swain rides up to the house of his chosen fair, dressed in his best clothes and well mounted, and, after having obtained permission from her parents, when the family retires to rest— often in the Bame apartment— Bits up with his inamorata. So long as the candle with whioh he is fnrnished burns, ao long may he his tale of love unfold. When it burns out they must part and retire also. The process is called op-sitting. The digestibility of cheese has been carefully 'tested by a German chemist, who placed the samples in an artificial digestive fluid containing a considerable proportion of fresh gastric juice. Cheshire and Roquefort cheese took fcur hours to digest, Gorgonzola eight hours, Romadour, nine hours, aud Brie, Swiss, and ten other varieties, ten hours. As an ordinary meal is digested in four or five hours, the common belief that cheese aids digestion appeara to be erroneous. The manufacture of transparent leather is now carried on by a new process. After the hair lias been removed from the hide, the latter, tightly stretched upon a suitable frame, is rubbed with a solution of glycerine and numerous acids, and afterwards placed in a room where the rays of the sun do not penetrate ; it is then saturated with a solution of bichromate of potash. When the hide ie dry, an alcoholic solution of tortoishell is applied to its surface, and the transparent effect ia thus obtained. Cows in Norway have been credited with the power of extracting sustenance from the stones, which travellers in that country will havo seen them licking. A moro substantial diet is found for them iv winter in some parts of the country, where provender of all kinds is scarce, in the shape of the heads of cod-fish, which are pounded into a mash. The milk of cows co fed tastes fitrongly of cod-liver oil, and canuob be pleasant to drink, yet with all its unpleasantness it may be very valuable for.conßumptive patients, >