BRIEF MENTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6901, 15 September 1900, Page 3

BRIEF MENTION.

There are nearly 2000 atitchfis in a pair of hand-sewn boots.- • ■-.'■■ There are 20,000,000 tons of coal brought into London every year; The value of the pictures in the National Gallery is about £1,250,000. • Dogs in : Hamburg are taxed according to size— the bigger the dog, tbe higher the tax. Paderewstd was recently paid £40,000 for a six months' professional tour in America. The annual expenditure dn England and Wales on. funerals probably exceeds£6,ooo,ooo. \ ! .;•'■■ ■ The fountains at the (^ra*al Palace am capable of throwing up 120,000' gallons bi ■water per minute. L ". ' \ A motor-cai journey of 340 miles, from Moscow to Novgorod," --has been ' made in less than twelve ihduw.' . ' '. , The i Post Office' underground' 'telegrtap'h . wjre between London ariit Birmdnghaan. haa. just been completed at a cost of £150,000. The average duration of life in England is' 26 years; in Scotland, the same; in Ireland, 27.5. The average for the civilised world is 27.5. There are two bland beggars in New York who have stood at their respective corners in Fifth Avenue every day for twenty-five years. Dick Turpin's (house at Long Button lias been sold by auction for £30p. The features of the premises were a cellar' reached by a stone staircase and an underground stable. . Ostriches are .not. the only .swift-running animals that can outstrip t&e speed of a. horse. There ds a land crab in Cuba that can rival the ostrich, and go much faster than a horse. . A rubber tube containing wire gauze filter is now being need in Prance as a •übsta-, tute for the little basket- which we 'attach' to the spout of the teapot to prevent stalks - and leaves -from .entering the^cup. - ■■: The Lord' Mayor is Si« only person, be--, sides the Queen, and the chief -constable, who -knows the password fo the, Tower 6f J Lon->---don. Th© password as sent to the Mansion. ■House quarterly, signed- by her Majesty. > Stunted dogs are very much admired by Parisian ladies. demand tfor- them is met by at least forty professional * dog dwarfers," who bring up the pupa ©to an alcoholic diet, which has the effect of stunting iJhem. Debtors in Siam, when #hre« months in arrears, can be seized by tJie creditors and compelled to work out their indebtedfaew. Should a debtor run away, bis father, his wife, or his children may be held in slavery until the debt is cancelled. There are in Fraiflce 45,000,000 hens, which, at an overage price of two francs fifty centimes per head, represent a value of 112,500,000 francs. One-fifth off the stock is annually consumed as food, and. is sold for eibout 22,500,000 francs, w £937,500. It is the opinion of a German oculist that the use of the ■ordanary slates by school children tends to produce short-sightedness. As a substitute he recommends pen and ink, or an artificial white flate, with black pencil. The latter have been introduced in, some of the . German schools. A wife in America left her husband because he would not allow her mother to live with them. She sued her husband for alimony, but the Court held that a man was under no duty to support a wife who would not ■ live with him, and- he was under no . obligation to support his mother-in-law. Cape Town enjoys a certain distinction in respect to the height of its constables. The tallest is a giant 6ft B£in in heigStt. There ore five men ranging from 6ft 3in to 6ft 4in, three men between 6ft 2in and 6ft 3in, twelve men froto 6ft lin to 6ft 2in, and seventeen between 6ft and 6ft lin. Moths fly against the caoudle flame because their eyes can . bear «nly a small amount of light. When, therefore, they come within the Light of the candle their sight is overpowered and their vkuon confused, and as they c&nmot distinguish objects, they pursue the light itself and fly against the flame. The English language, according to a German statistician who has made a study of the comparative wealth of languages, heads the list with the enormous vocabulary of 260,000 words. German comes next, with 80,000 words ; then Italian, with 75,000 ; French, with 30,000 ; Turkish, with 22,500 ; j and Spanish, with 20,000. A novel method of how to escape paying rates was described by Major Skinner to the London School Board recently. Any J person, he said, could form a religious sect I of his own family, call it by amy name j he liked, geb his house registered at a cost of half-a-crown, and he would then be quit of all rates while the sect lasted. • ' Acetylene shells have been invented to light up t(he sea at night to enable naval gunners to quickly locate an enemy. The shell consists 61 a hollow cylinder filled with calcium carbide, and is fired* from a gun like any other projectile. The moment it strikes the water acetylene gas is generated and is .automatically lighted by an electric spark. "" Four separate quarters make up what ds known as the City of Pekin, and the one in which the Imperial palaces are situated is known as " Tue Forbidden "City." It is so named becaused so ordinary foreigner is ever permitted to set foot in it. In the quarter known as the Chinese City there are numerous temples, and beyond the area reserved for these ie the Tartar wall, the famous wall of Pekin, which is twelve miles in circumference. An ingenious address was recently placed on a letter forwarded to England from Pjetenmaritzburg by a private in the East Surrey Regiment. The letter bcre on the envelope the presentment of a wheel tallowed by the letter R. Then the picture of a cottage. Beneath was a roughly-drawn bridge, to which led a road flanked by trees. Finally, there was the head of a young woman. The postman took the letter rightly to Mr Wheeler, of Elder Cottage, Bridge Road, Maidenhead. , The Chinese almanac is the monopoly of the Emperor, none other being allowed witihin 'his dominions. No Chinaman deems his household complete without a copy of this unique document, on account of the wonderful information as to lucky and unlucky days which* it contains. As the estimated population of China is something like 400,000,000 souls, it will be seen that, if ever a monopoly was worth retaining it is that which the puny stripling at Pekin exercises upon the Chinese almanac. A syndicate has just been formed in London for manufacturing * non-poisonous kind of match. The inventors claim thmt the material. of^which the match is composed does not contain any phosphorus or compound of phosphorus, and tlherefore that the manufacture off matches from it solves the difficulty which has 'h&thertto existed of making matches without danger to the healtih off those engaged in the work. The invention is applicable to either wood ( matches or wax vestas. . The natives of Gomei*,, on«>of the Canary Isles, converse .with . one another by whistling on their fingers. It is possible to understand a message a mile off. . Each syllable of a word has its own peculiar sound. Gomera is cut up by a number of, deep glens which are not bridge? over, and as it would otherwise be impossible for the inhabitants on separate sides of a glen to talk with, one another without going a long way round to meet, they have hit upon the whistling device as the best means of communication. It has been estimated that the usual trade horse costs about 3d an inch each, week for food I—that1 — that is, it costs as many shillings a week as it stands hands thigh. The trade horses of London alone are valued at £1,500,000, and their food costs almost £1,000,000 yearly. The Pjckford Company possesses fhe greater number, keeping some 4000 in their stables, while the SoutOi-EaJvten Railway' Company has only 500. The usual pricegiven for a rail-,, way horse, when buying, is £60, ; but the company rarely receives more than £10 or £12 for one of jits sale of tfce-nMr" workers '