BRIEF MENTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5567, 16 May 1896, Page 3

BRIEF MENTION.

The first almanac was printed in 1460. The first iron steamship was built in 1830. The first railroad in the United States was opened in 1820. The first telegraphic instrument was operated by Morse in 1835. Last year out of 1520 persons inoculated for rabies in the Pasteur Institute only two died. A return shows the total number of Parliamentary voters in the United Kingdom to be 6,415,469. The bananas which find their way to England come almost entirely from Madeira and the Canary Isles. A woihah reported to a London magistrate the disappearance of her lodger, a black man named Svoloo Umyetiquasaughaiighanis. During some excavations at Hooton Roberts Church, the remains of the famous Earl of Strafford were unexpectedly found. Rossini was born on " Leap " day, and his birthday was celebrated by a concert at the Crystal Palace on Saturday, February 29. Another Scotch centenarian, Peggy M' Arthur, has died at Bonawe. To the end she was able to read her Bible without spectacles. , Cecil Rhodes's private fortune is now estimated at about seven millions. He is certainly one of the richest of the SouthAfrican magnates. An island off the coast of Sicily, containing.a volcano, a house, and 500 fig trees, was put iip for auction in London, but failed to find a purchaser. The empress dowager of China has a. long memory, and she is beginning to wreak revenge on all those who opposed her in any way during the stress of the war crisis. A London and North-Western express, with passengers for an American liver, ran from London to Liverpool without stopping, the journey occupying a little over three and a half hours. The French are experimenting with a single-track temporary railway that can be. laid on a country road or across fields. They expect to use it in military operations and in harvesting crops. • The celebration of Hungary's thousandth birthday is to be marked by a six months' holiday, forming one ceaseless round of festivities. Even the schools are to be closed from May to October. The persons of African descent in the United States are classified according to the degrees of coloured blood. There are 6,337,980 blacks, 956,989 mulattoes, 105,135 quadroons, and 69,926 octoroons. The least criminal counties in England and Wales are Westmoreland, Carnarvon, Cardigan and Pembroke, and Wilts, Oxford and the South-eastern counties generally are least addicted to drunkenness. Out of nearly 4,000,000 of voters who polled at the general election, no fewer than 72,940 were illiterates. More than half of these occurred in Ireland, as compared with 28,521 in England and Wales and 4062 in Scotland. It is said that Dr Carl Peters, the African explorer, who was recently elected President of the German Colonial Association, is about to undertake a new exploration of Somaliland in the interests of a number of wealthy Americans. The most expensive parliament in Europe is that of France. The two chambers cost the nation .£300,000 annually. Spain spends .£90,000 on her representation. Italy .£84,000, England .£64,000, Belgium .£38,000, Portugal £30,000 and Germany .£19,000. Professor Rontgen is the hero of the hour in Germany. Honours are showering upon him in his Wurtzburg home, and the university students organised a grand torchlight procession through the town to his house to congratulate the professor on his wonderful discovery. It seems worth recalling the fact that in the spring of 1096, exactly 800 years ago, took place the first Crusade, that magnificent mania of faith and fanaticism which aroused Europe by a great religious impulse to stem the course of the followers of the false prophet Mahomet in the East. King Prempeh's jewels brought to Englandincluded several bags of gold dust; but the intrinsic value of the whole, crown and all, would not exceed .£2OOO. The official -badge of the executioner bore representa.tions of headless human beings. A drum was found to be covered with human skin. In a London county court- the judge refused to make an order for the payment of rent for a small tenement in which diphtheria had raged. He pointed out that by the Housing of the Working Classes Act, a landlord is liable foi % the sanitary state of a house which is let under .£2O a year. Great efforts are to be made by Japan to wrest from Great Britain a share of the carrying trade of the world. The line to Bombay is already arranged, and the P. and O. Company, must expect severe competition. The line to Australia is not yet opened, but in March the Tosa-Maru, a fine steamer of 5000 tons, leaves for •Europe. , A few weeks ago the Pope inherited another^ large fortune, that of the late Commendatore Tongiorgi, the last Minister of Finance under the Papal Government. In Italy, as well as abroadj these inheritances of Leo XIII have increased a great deal in late years, and in the eighteen years of his pontificate the present Pope has perhaps surpassed any of his predecessors. The case of a County Court Judge who is a bankrupt through mortgaging Irish property came before the Court of Appeal. It was shown that to make a receiving order would entail the loss of his appointment, worth £1500 a year but the Court held that it could not have regard to that consideration, the Master of the Rolls observing that even if they did the Lord Chancellor might still say that it was not proper for a person in such a position to remain a County Court Judge. Microbes need not be feared by people who breathe through their noses and keep their digestive organs in good condition, according io The Hospital. From 1500 to 14,000 of the little pests are inhaled into the nose every hour. Once there they are powerless, so far as multiplying their numbers is concerned — which is their only harmful trait— for Nature has provided means to this end in the noses of all. They are then " rapidly swept on by the cilia towards the digestive tract, where they meet their doom." Someone has just pointed out that an early incident in Lord Wolseley's career was characteristic of the spirit of the man. At the end of 1854, in recognition of his services in the Crimean War, he v,-as gazetted captaiu. When it was discovered, however, that Wobeley was little more than twenty-one years old, the captaincy was cancelled. But the young man protested so vigorously against this injustice to youth that, by the direction of some higher authority, the cancellation itself was cancelled and the captaincy restored. Considerable speculation has taken place from time to time as to the nature of the "ancients," traces of whose gold-seeking efforts are scattered up and down Matabeleland. At length it seems possible that a clue to those mysterious early gold miners has been discovered. In one of the shafts sunk by the Matabele Ancient Ruins Comi pany, a skull has been found, which is evidently not that of a native, but resembles somewhat that of the typical modern Arab. The Bulnwayo Chronicle suggests that the skull should be sent to Loudon and examined by experts, and it ia very probable that this course will be adopted. Shanghai is undergoing a rapid metamorphosis. Cotton nulls are springing up so fast that their managers are hard put to it to • find enough women and girl hands even in the teeming native city which swelters beside the foreign settlement, and are obliged to import thousands of them from Tientsin and elsewhere. Huge chimneys grow like mushrooms, the shriek >of steam-whistles makes night hideous, and a pall of smoke will in the near future give a homelike feeling to the exile from Lancashire. The price of land in Shanghai iB rising by leaps and bounds, so that the extension of tie settlement inland iS fast