Brief Mention.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5427, 30 November 1895, Page 2

Brief Mention.

It ia gaid that Lord Eosebery looks ten yarn younger, now that he is ont ot officp.

A light railway is heing constructed which will enable travellers to visit the top of Vesuvius.

Mr Gladstone's work on Bishop Butler. upon whioh he is busily engaged, will ex* tend to three volumes.

For the first time women are now being employed in the loading and unloading of vosaele in the London docks.

The Spalding Guardians have accepted a tender for the supply of bread made from best seconds flour at 2|d per 41b loaf.

A blind man, who had heen sixty-twc timeß convicted, was sent to gaol io Edinburgh for being drank and die* orderly.

It is suggested that a Bill should bt introduced in the House of Commons next session with v view to check the output* ol "penny dreadfuls."

The largest black diamond in the world, and valued at 200,000 francs, has bees exhibited in Paris. It is as large as a big pear, and was found in Brazil.

A young man and his wife committed suicide in Guyon beoause thoy could not be separated for a month while the husband underwent the usual month's military training. The historic ruins of Kirkstall Abbey and grounds having been purohaaed by Colonel North for £11,000, and presented to the town of Leeds, have been opened to the public.

A man-carrying kite has been success* fully tried by the military at Ipswich. Five hexagonal kites, flying at varying distances apart on a continnous line, raised a man 50ft into the air.

At the end of 1894 there waa dne tc depositors in the United Kingdom Post* offioe Savings Bank, including interest) £98,259x997, an increase of nearly nint millions in the twelve months.

Probably the largest number of men ever employed in building a single ship are now at work on the British battle-shir Magnificent in the Chatham DookyaxA There are 2000 mechanics on the pay-roll.

The two sides of the human face an never alike. In two ont of five the eyei are out of line; one eyeiis stronger than the other in seven cases ont of ten, and the right ear is generally higher than thf left.

King Humbert owns nearly 200 horses, and the greater number of them are English bred. The donble row of ataUl forms a regular street, and eaoh animal's name is printed in large white letters above the manger.

Miss Kingsley, niece o! the late Canon Kingsley, is travelling in Africa, having explored regions never visited by a white man, much less by a white woman. Her expedition is for the purpose of studying natural science.

Light single railroads, on which large wheelbarrows run, are beginning to be used on Frenoh farms. The rails an fastened to small iron croBS pieces, the ends joined by. fish plates, and oan be easily put in place and removed.

The Eußsianß have a singular method of extorting disclosures from prisoners. In their food ia mixed a drug whioh has. the effect of rendering them delirious, and in this state they are watched and interrogated, when secrets are divulged.

It is estimated that a man weighing 150 pounds, riding a bicycle at the rate of seven milea an hour, has a momentum ol 1500 pounds, leaving out of tho account the weight of the wheel. This is sufficient to upset a pedestrian with terrible force. A Welsh farmer named Jones has been celebrating his 101 st birthday. He walks without a stick, and reads without glasses. He has never entered a railway carriage in his life. Should he survive another five years he will have lived in three oenturies.

One of the moßt singular peculiarities of the floral world is the evening primrose, which opens about 6 o'olook p.m. with an explosion, not very londnor formidable, but still quite peroeptible to anyone who is watching the bud. It remains open aU night.

Dr John Hall, the well-known Presbyterian minister of New York, is generally reputed to be by far the wealthiest clergyman in the world. His congregation is largely made up of millionaires and wealthy city men, and it has been said that he receives altogether as muoh aslCO.OOOdol a year.

The oldest member of the present British parliament, and probably the oldest legislator in the world, is Bight Hon Charles Felham Yilliers. He wai born Jan. 3, 1802, and iB therefore over ninety-three yeara of age, having seen in his time some of the greatest things in ihe history of civilization. The families of Japanese who fell in the late campaign againßt China are most anxious to possess some remains of their dead relatives, however mutilated. In one village the friends of a- deceased soldier solemnly brought back a paper man fastened to a real leg— the only portion which could he found after the owner was killed by a shell,

One of the sights at Auburn, New York State, is a prison for women, managed almoat wholly by women, thero being but one man about the place— a sort of figure, head—who is termed a warden, a guardian of very mature years. All the keepers are women nnder the direction of a matron. It is a remarkably well-managed prison, of which, consequently, the world hears very little, and it is an economically-managed establishment, for the convictß do all the work.

The number of English words whioh have no rhyme in the language is very largo; five or six thousand at least aro without rhymes, and consequently can be employed at tho end of the Terse only by transposing the accent, coup, ling them with an imperfeot con* sonance.or constructing an artificial rhyme out of two words. Among other words to which there are no rhymes may ba mentioned month, Bilver, liquid, spirit, chimney, warmth/ gulf, sylph, music, breadth, width, depth, honour, iron, echo.

The loss incurred by the wearing of coins in circulation has been made tho anbjeot of a number of precise experiments, from which it was ascertained that .£IOO worth of sovereigns lost £3 9s 4d of their value in a hundred yeara; similarly, .£IOO worth ot half-crowns lost .£l3 11b 8d; £100 worth of shillings, £36 14s ld ; and 100 worth oS sixpences lost JSSO 18s 8d in value, or mom than one-half, vn the hundred years. It will be noted, with regard to the silver coins, that the lobs their value the greater the amount of wear. Theße lesser coins are, of course, moat used; and ao, in tho case of a sixpence, a century's wear reduces it to lobb than halt its original value.

Cheese, the supposed-to-be edible milk curd of commerce, ia the beat soil in the world for microbes and bacteria, and on ita surface flourish millions upon millions of infinitesimal parasitic plant growth. A microßcopio examination of a single grain of fresh cheese, suoh as is usually cold at the grocer's, proves that it contained nos lees than 90,000 eeparate and distinot specimens of bacteria. After seven daya this same Bection of cheese waß examined and found to contain 80,000 separate and individual bacteria. Professor De Kahn says that a cheese properly sliced and exposed will, within a week, be implanted with a bacterial growth containing more separate opecimens than there are trees upon the earth's surface.

! The death is announced, under Bid cir* i cumatances, at the ago of eight-four, of Jos. Bell, the veteran engine-driver. He wae the firßt railway engine-driver in England, hit first engine being the old Booket, which is now on view in the South Kensington Museum. He Was, for twentythree years, driver of the South-Eastern Dover mail, and for seventeen yeara engaged by the District Bailway Company. Some weeks ago, whilst walking along the North End Eoad, Pulham, he fell down the unprotected trap of a public-house, and sustained a fracture of the right hip. extensive bruising, and a severe scalp wound. He was taken to the Queen's Jubilee Hospital, and death ensued from shook consequent a* tha hriurlaa.