BRIEF MENTION.
England recognised the United States in 1783 as a "free, sovereign, and independent power." According to their Scriptures, many stirring events must happen yet before the Jews will settle in the Holy Land. The necessity for Russian Mayors giving the Czar bread and salt on silver salvers created a demand for .£600,000 worth of silver during April. The gold coinage issued in 1895 was less by two millions sterling than the output of the previous year. The silver coinage reached a million sterling. • ; At Elsenthal growing trees were converted into newspapers in less than three hours. In that time the trees were cut down, made into paper, and printed on. . :(j Hundreds of tons of strawberries pour into the London market daily. It requires a hundred pair-horse vans to convey the baskets of fruit from Waterloo Station alone. '••..--. Fownes, the famous glove people, have introduced a real novelty for the benefit of smokers, viz., a striker glove, where the button is specially adapted for striking matches on. A remarkable fact connected with the rice plant is its almost entire immunity from the attacks of insects and from those diseases which infect the cereals and other vegetable growths. An astronomer calculates that if the dia*meter of the sun is daily diminished by 2ft; over 3000 years must elapse ere ttie astronomical instruments now in use could detect the diminution. •■■'=■■' The soil of Siberia at the close of the summer is found still frozen for 56in beneath the surface, and the dead that have lain in their coffins for 150 years have been taken up unchanged in the least. . ' ' ' Umbrella-making is among the most interesting of Birmingham industries. Although not more than 1000 hands are employed, something like 1000 patents have been taken out during the last twenty years. ' Of late years there has been a decrease in first and second class railway traffic and an enormous increase of third-class revenues', Last year 90 per cent of the railway passengers in England and Wales travelled third class. During the recent hot weather in England some large city firms gave their clerks and others permission to wear straw hats. The "chimney-pot" is being discarded arid even the Prince of Wales has appeared in a white Alpine hat. . : Swinburne is said to have a memory almost as wide-reaching as Macaulay had.' Burne- Jones relates that upon one occasion the poet recited verbatim several pages of Milton's prose, which he had read only once, and that twenty years before. It is stated that diamonds become phosphorescent in the dark after exposure to the sunlight or electric light, and when rubbed on wood, cloth, or metal. This is an important property, as it enables the amateur to distinguish between paste and real. Two most interesting automatic machines are used by the United States Government for counting and tying postcards into small packages. These machines will correctly count half a million cards in ten hours and i wrap and tie them in bundles of twentyfive each. The London County Council have purchased a site at Epsom for .£40,000 on which to erect an additional lunatic asylum. The council has decided that fresh legislation will be necessary before streetnoisesand nuisances can be effectually dealt with. A firm of publishers in America has offered Sarah Bernhardt .£40,000 for her autobiography. This beats by .£15,000 the cheque which Messrs Longman's paid Macaulay " for one edition of a book," as Macaulay himself expressed it, the book being- his history. It has been calculated that in Great Britain the outputof books is as follows : — Sermons, one volume a day ; novels, five a day j educational books, two a day ; arfc and science, two of each every week;, histories and biographies, six a week ; and law, one every two weeks.
The last instance of boiling to death took place in Persia in 1890. The offender was guilty of stealing State revenues, and was put into a cauldron of cold' water, which, was slowly heated to the boiling point: His bones were distributed as a warning among the provincial tax collectors.
Bowls, dishes, and pistes are made from the hair of rabbits and other animals in Russia. The articles are felted and afterwards varnished. These utensils hare the appearance of papier-mache or varnished, leather, and possess the properties of being strong, durable, and exceedingly light. The Bermudas depend for their prosperity on the vegetable crop. Onions, potatoes, and tomatoes comprise almost the entire production of the islands, and give employment to the greater portion of the inhabitants, enabling them to live comfortably on their comparatively small portions of ground. A well-known electrician predicts that electrical fireworks which may be repeatedly used will soon be invented. He declares that for a comparatively moderate outlay he could arrange an electrical display which would last for many years. It would comprise rockets, Eoman candles, wheels, and all the modern pyrotechnical effects. A medical case, somewhat resembling that of Kitson v. Playf air, has been decided in America. A doctor attended a single lady, who eventually died from peritonitis; He subsequently made a statement to his wife respecting the patient, and the mother sued for damages in respect of "degradation of the memory of the deceased, " and was awarded £1400. Rider Haggard was originally destined for the Foreign Office, but in 1875 he was ' appointed secretary to Sir Henry Bulwer at Natal, and two years later he filled a ' similar post to Sir Theophilus Shepstone on a special mission to the Transvaal. It was Mr Haggard who hoisted the English flag in the Queen's name when that territory was annexed. The selfsame Union Jack used on that occasion now hangs in Mr Rider Haggard's study. The use of the tides as motive power has often been attempted. One of these attempts was made at Long Island Sound, near New York. The shores of Long Island are irregular and full of odd little waterways, and one of these has been utilised by the building of dams, so that reservoirs are obtained. These dams are so arranged that the inlet and outlet are one, or can be made one by the use of gates which will ensure a flow of the tide in the . same direction whether it goes into the great reservoir or is escaping. Great waterwheels are fixed at this inlet, which run continuously, save at the slack water periods. In 1870, during the siege, the inhabitants of Paris were intent on producing a gun that would throw shells as far as Versailles. Nor did they give the attempt up in despair. Nowadays, an ordinary cannon easily covers the distance. But Herr Krupp, the great German engineer, has turned out a piece of ordnance capable of throwing, at an angle of 45deg., a projectile weighing 5501 b from Prc-Saint-Didier, on the Italian slope of Mont Blanc, to a [height of 19,000 ft i.e., 5600 ft higher than the summit of the mountain, and descending in an immense curve to the village of Chamounix in Savoy. Total distance — 12| miles ! It has always been maintained that the Japanese are the English of the East. They aro now trying their hand at colonisation. The Japanese Government has purchased a large tract of land in the ' State of Chiapas, Mexico, for colonising purposes. Japanese peasants will be sent there to devote themselves to growing tobacco, coffee, and other plants adapted to tho Mexican climate and soil. If tlio Japanese could only export some of their gentle manners into the United States it would be an improvement to that enterprising country. In fact, the soft, gentle manners of those far Easterns or Westerns, whichever they may be, could be followed with benefit by many nations calling themselves more highly civilised. ■:'"..-
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Bibliographic details
Star (Christchurch), Issue 5656, 29 August 1896, Page 3
Word Count
1,290BRIEF MENTION. Star (Christchurch), Issue 5656, 29 August 1896, Page 3
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