IN A NUTSHELL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6120, 5 March 1898, Page 5

IN A NUTSHELL.

Dr Arne, the composer, died on Mafth 5, 1778. Church parade of E Battery at Samner to-morrow. Miss Amy Sherwin will appear at the Choral Hall on Monday evening. Annual meeting of the Society of Arts at four o'clock on Monday afternoon. The finest shops in a Chinese city are those which are devoted to the sale of coffins. Between the ticks of a watch a ray of light could move eight times around the globe. In the island of St Helena there are two men who were born in 1798 and 1802 respectively. Mr Bland Holt will open a dramatic ceason at the Theatre Eoyal on Monday nierht with the Qotton King. The relative size of the earth as compared with the sun is, approximately, that of a grain of sand to an orange. The inflation of bicycle tyres with gas has proved a great success in Paris. Being much more buoyant than ordinary air, it renders the machine considerably lighter. For the first time in its existence the University of Durham has conferred an honorary degree upon a lady. The recipient is Miss Harrison, an interpreter of Greek art. At Bexley Heath two inmates of an asylum for the aged were married, the bridegroom being eighty and the bride sixty-five. An elderly widow acted as bridesmaid. The United Kingdom consumes 600,0001b, or about 4,000,000 gallons, of tea every day, which is as much as is used by the rest of Europe, North and South America, Africa, and Australia combined. A clergyman who is totally blind has been appointed to the incumbency of Belgrave Chapel, Pimlico. He is the Eev Herbert John Randall Marston, M.A., late Fellow of Durham University. The world needs its Quixotes. In fact, it would be a sorry world without them ; and some one, in addressing the immortal Don, says well : — Tet would to-day, when courtesy grows chill, And life's fine loyalties are turned to jest, Some fire of thine might glow within us still ! Ah ! would but one might lay his lance in rest, And charge in earnest— were it but a mill. When completed, the tunnel which is being cut through Pike's Peak, Colorado, will be the longest in the world. The main bore will be twenty miles long, and connecting with this are subsidiary tunnels, with a total length of thirty miles. So, in reality, the task that has been put under way is that of digging fifty miles of tunnels, and every foot of this vast system will be under Pike's Peak and the mountains that tower on each side.