Brie! Mention.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5357, 7 September 1895, Page 2

Brie! Mention.

The King of Greece speaks twelve languages. London mannfaoturei .£2,500,000 worth of umbrellas each year. Many years ago, in Scotland, capital punishment was by drowning* The coldest plaoe in the ice-box ia underneath the ice, not on top of it. Neatly all the glais eyes used in the world are made in T huringia, Germany. More than half the entire cultivated area of Great Britain ia sow occupied by permanent pasture. The eightieth anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo was celebrated by ft lnnchtoa on the field of battle. The most common name for a plitce in England is Newton, which occurs no fewer than seventy-two times. • - No picture is hnng on the walls of the Louvre, in Paris, until the artiste shall have been dead ten years. The average weight of the egg of the ostrioh is three pounds. Its contents are equal to about twenty-four hen eggs. When at -a very low temperature snow will absorb moisture, and Arctic travellers make use of it for drying their clothes. The pupils of the Chicago Manual Training school, have completed a tower clook, the market value of which ia said to be jeiooo. London has 10,000 professional mueioians. The popularity of precious stoneß now is : the pearl first, ruby second, and the diamond third. A, telephone wire is carried a mile and a half without support over Lake Walleh, between Qulnten and Mure, in danton of St Gallen, Switzerland. In Prance, if a structural defect ia a bicycle causes an injury to the person ÜBing it, the manufacturer is legally accountable for damages. The word «• flirtation," according to Lord Cheßterfield, wu manufactured by Lady Frances Shirley, who wed it in the exact sense attached to it to-day. Dr Martin V. Stevens, a man said to be at least 70 years old, is a law student in the Kansas State University, where he expects to graduate this year. It is computed that all the houses in London and New York could be built of the lava thrown but by Vesuvius since the first recorded eruption in a.s. 7d. The French have devised a method of preserving fruits by means of alcoholic vapour. The fruit is placed in a room containing open vessels of alcohol. The Life guards and Oxford Blues Begiments, of the English Army, were formed in 1661. The Coldstream Foot Guards in 1660. The Fusiliers were raised in 1678. A French surgeon has supplied a female patient with a new lip, in place of one which was destroyed. . The loss was made good with a piece of flesh out from the patient's arm. We wear away two inches of shoeleather in a year. A pair of boots that would "last a lifetime" would, consequently, have to be provided with soles from eight to nine feet thiok. Lord Dufferin is the only British subject, outside the Boyal circle, who is a Knight Grand Cross of the four " Servioe Orders" of the Bath, the Star of India, the Michael and George, and the Indian Empire. Lord Balcarres is the youngest member of the House of Commons. He was born on Oct. 10, 1871, and therefore has the advantage of a year over Mr T. B. Curran, the Anti-Parnellite member for Kilkenny, who until recently enjoyed that distinction. Thirty years ago MrW. A. Clarke, the Montana mine-owner, arrived in that pirfc of the world with a pick over his shoulder and not so much as a dollar in hiß pocket. At the present time hia fortune is estimated at from £4,000,000 to 48,000,000. The / longest unbroken stretch of telegraphic cable in the world is the one which connects the Bod Sea with India. The weight of iron employed in its construction was not less than 61,126,7 14 Aba, while the copper weighed 547,4041b5 ; 3590 knota was the total length of cable used. ,Maiwatchin, on the borders of Russia and China, is the only city in the world peopled by men only. The Chinese women are not only forbidden to live in this territory, but even to pass the great wall of Kalkan and enter into Mongolia. All , the Chinese of this border are exclusively traders. Mu^ic relieves muscular fatigue in man, says Professor Tarchanof, of St Petersburg, who has been experimenting in the subjeofc from a purely physiological standpoint. It helps to drive out carbonic acid in dogs and increases their consumption of oxygen ; it also makes them perspire. He thinks it may be regarded as a serious therapautio agent. A resident ia St John's Wood, London, obtained nn injunction restraining a neighbour from creating a noise by giving muaio leesono. The music - maiter, under the lease taken over by a former tenant, was bound not to carry on any bueinets on the prcmisefi, or do anything which mitjbt cause annoyance or dieoomfort to ihe other residents on the estate. A wedding was recently celebrated at Hungisrford Parish Church, England, of a remarkable character. The bridegroom wao Mr James Thring Coxe, of Nawtown Lodge, Hungrerford, formerly Master of the Craven Hunt, who is vetgiug upon eighty. The bride was a girl named Rftdbourne, aged eighteen, who had been in bis service a week. Mr Coxe'a lato wife died six months ago. It is now computed that on a gonoral average no fewer than 8000 parsons disappear yearly in various parts of the British Empire, and are never seen or heard of again. This makes no allowance for the class whose disappearance passes unnoticed because they have no friends ; it deals only with people who vanish from their homes and are sought after more or hat diligently, yet concerning whom neither a footprint:, nor an echo, nor a conjecture is ewr fonnd. During his voyage round the world Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria had a day's hunting between Delhi and Bhurtpore in a railway train which had been plaoed at his disposal. The train advanced or went baok at a signal from the Archduke as the game was sighted, until all the officials oonnected with the train— engine-driver and guards alike— were seized with a kind of hunting frenzy* and even the locomotive showed a disposition to run a tiger down. On Whit-Monday the Crystal Palaoehad been open just forty-one years. The Queen and the Prince Consort opened it on Whit-Monday, 1854, with great ceremony. It took about two years to build, and was constructed chiefly from the materials of the building of the Great Exhibition of 1851, and under the superintendence of Sir Joseph Paxton. Its cost was almost £1,600,000. The park and gardens oooupy nearly 200 acres. There was a fire in the north wing on Dec 80, 1866, which did damage to the amount of £160,000. A New York man haß been testing the honesty of the people of that . city, by dropping purses in their way and seeing how many of them were returned. He purchased six ladies' purses, and pnt in each of them forty-two cents, a key, some certificates, and a card with his name and address thereon. The purses were dropped at various places on the side-walkß and on the floors of the big dry goods stores. In less than twenty-four hours five of the purses had been returned to him, and according to the last advices he was con* fidently expeoting the return of the sixth. Ezekiel'e reed was nearly eleven feet} ft cubit was nearly twenty-two inches ; a hands breadth is equal to three and fiveeighth inches ; a finger's breadth is equal | to a little less than one inoh ; a shekel of silver was about two shillings and eightpence ; a shekel of gold was two pounds j ft talent of silver was four hundred pounds i a talent of gold was nearly six thousand pounds ; a piece of silver, or a penny, was eightpencs halfpenny j a farthing was equal to a halfpenny) a mite was less than ft farthing; a gerah was three halfpsnoe ; an ephah, or bath, contained four gallons and five pints; a hin was three quarts and three pints j an omer WM six fifatlf ft Mb was five pint*.