BRIEF MENTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5460, 11 January 1896, Page 3

BRIEF MENTION.

The total area of Great Britain is 5,330,664 square miles. The length of tho Severn Tunnel is four and one-third miles.

The supply of schoolmasters in Prance is falling on every year. Syria- and North- Western Africa are tue countries in which the donkey is most esteemed.

If the earth were equally divided among its inhabitants, each person would get about 23£ acres. The Crown jewels exhibited in the Tower of London are the originals, and are worth about £3,000,000. New York has a clergyman, who, it is stated, has married 12,000 couples, and received over ,£12,000 in wedding fees. The oldest golf club in the world is the 'Royal Blackheath, founded by James the Sixth of Scotland and First of England in 160 S.

The average distance travelled by British engine-drivers is from 30,000 to 50,000 miles every year. There are about 20,000 drivers in the United Kingdom. People perceive an odour because small particles of matter are detached 1 from the odorous body and conveyed by the air to the nerves of the nose.

The chief firm of British blacking manufacturers ttirns out 300,000,000 cakes of blacking ,a year, or one for every five individuals in the world !

The process of toasting is said to induce a peculiar chemical change in the bread, giving it a more appetising flavour, as well as certain valuable properties.

An enthusiast in cycling has invented a tricycle lawn-niower. The back wheel is the driver, the two front wheel? steer and have the rotary mowing blades between them. A North Sea codman carries an outfit of lines which extends eight miles in length, and has usually fixed upon it the amazing number of 4680 hoots, every one of which must be baited.

A medical authority on the virtues of various kinds of food declares that the herring gives the muscles elasticity, the body strength, and the brain vigour, and is not fiesh-forming. Of English graveyards, the moEt crowded is that of Queenborough, in Sheppey. It is about half an acre in extent, and the church records prove that over 17,000 people have been buried in it.

The sudden changes of climate encountered by soldiers when troops are moved from ono quarter of the world to another are estimated as increasing the annual mortality of Europe by 50,000 men. The colours of the chameleon do not rihnncra instantaneously, but require a considerable length of time. The change is a provision of nature for the protection of a helpless animal from innumerable enemies. Experience shows that accidents are far more liable to occur with the right leg and arm than with the left. Makers of artificial limbs supply many more appendages to the right side of the body than to the other.

Sir Charle3 Halle, who was born in Hagen, Westphalia, in April, 1819, leaves one Bon, Mr C. E. Halle, the artist and assistant director of the Grosvenor Gallery, recently in the colonies, and one daughter, who is a rising sculptor. A great photographic camera, for taking full-length life-size portraits, has been made and used with much success by a Dublin firm. The camera takes a plate 7ft high and sft wide. It is said that nearly all red»headed people have rather short upper lips, rising in the centre, displaying the front teeth, and they are singularly susceptible to flattery, and exhibit a great desire for approbation. The well-known expression, " The three R's," was ushered into existence by William Curtis, an illiterate alderman of the City of London, who, when called upon to propose a toast at a public dinner, electrified the entire company by giving " The three Bs: Beading, 'Biting, and 'Bithnietic." Gelsoline, the new fibre from the bark of the mulberry tree, is treated like flax, and purified with soap and, water to prepare it for. the weaving shed. The cloth, as now made in Italy, is ton times stronger than cotton, and only one-tenth the price of flax.

The best briar root from which pipes are made comes from the borders of Italy and France. In the mountainous districts of these countries roots are dug out that have grown for ages, and are sometimes larger than a man's body, weighing hundreds of pounds. Evidently the Hottentots do not consider that marriage is a failure, for even widows are willing to marry again, although tße penalty for so doing is heavy. It is a rule among these people that before remarrying the widow must c\it off the joint of a finger and present it to her new husband on the wedding day. It is stated that owing to the expiring of certain investments and the accumulation of funds from other sources, one of the richest English dukes has recently had no less than £3,000,000 sterling waiting for investment. His Grace's financial agent has been greatly concerned how to profitably invest this enormous balance. To see whether boiled water is not' healthier than unboiled for drinking purposes in India, an experiment is being tried in the larger jails of the Punjaub. Part of the prisoners are given boiled, and an equal part unboiled w£ter to drink. If it should turn out that boiled water reduces the death-rate among them, it will be afterwards supplied to all. A recent traveller in Japan asked in different classes of a Tokio school for written answers to the question : " What is your dearest wish?" Twenty per cent wished to gain glory by dying for the Emperor. Others stated a supilAr wish in less definite language. Patriotism is, in Japan, devotion to the ruler personally rather than to the country. A lady, after living a life of penury, died in Ireland, when it was discovered that she possessed J517,000. She was thought to be intestate, and the money was disposed of accordingly. Some time after an old servant discovered the lady's will in a family Bible which had fallen into her possession. The money, being willed to the Irish Churoh, has led to a lawsuit in Dublin.

The St Peter's Penoe collected from Sept. 16 to 25 last yielded the following puns :— Prom Rome, I^,ooo lire ; a}l ItaljT, 160,000; France, 230,000; Austria, 200,00$; Spain, 100,000; Belgium, 70,000; from Austrian bishops, 100,000; the Primate of Hungary, 50,000 ; a large sum not mentioned from the Austrian ardndukes, another sum from Spain and, 50,000 from the Duke of Norfolk.

The far-famed sewers and sewage farms of the French capital are now being extended at a cost of over 13,000,000 f. The work involved includes the making of thousands upon thousands of house connections, lateral sewers, trunk sewers of all sizes, a great outfall sewer to the new sewage farm, immense pumping stations, and the preparation of a large tract of land for irrigation and crop raising. The history of the silk sails of the American yacht the Defender,- appears in the Drapery World. The material was .grown in India, treated in England, and conveyed to Ireland, where it was spun. From Ireland the material was sent to Scotland, and sold to an American agent, who forwarded it to Massachusetts, where it underwontthe process of weaving. Then it was conveyed to Ehode Island, where the sails were cut.

A terrible tragedy has been enacted between gipsies in a Bohemian forest near Pllsen. Two men fought for p, woman, who watched the fight with a keen eye, but without interfering or trying to separate them. When after awhile the stronger of the- two stabbed the other in the heart, and he fell dead at the woman's feet, she drew a revolver from her dress, and shot the survivor in the head. She allowed herself to bo arrested near the two corpses.

Manchester is the centre of a district that ib more thickly populated and turns out a larger quantity of commercial products than any other region of like area in the oivilised world. The density of population is thirteen timeß as great as that of Belgium, which is said to hare more inhabitants to the square mile than any other country in Europe. The Manchester district conMbatQi Wp-thirds of tfaefat#-^e^fstftyb eipom