BEIEF MENTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7014, 1 February 1901, Page 3

BEIEF MENTION.

„ . ..v.:;-i-.^.;w^.c:.-i-.-.^:. ■:, - ■- -.. , .... . . - Canada drills 45,000 militia every year. There are 16,000 foxhounds in the British Isles. . There are 7,000,000 cats in the United Kingdom. . The world's population uses 2,500,000 glass eyes a year. . s There are 15,550 doctors in England, 14,500 in, FranceSeven pounds of American! flour equals 81b of English in breadmaking. Mount Carmel, where Elijah slew the prophets of Baal, is 2000 ft high. '. German law compels; all persons over twelve years of ag&.to be re-vaccinated. France uses eacK year 660,000,000ga1s of milk for making .l6o,ooo tons of butter and cheese. .'■", „_ " . Five; ih^oV-ect md" thirty-five thousand ipieii work-in 'BritiMft coalmines, only 44,000 in Russia. " , Vlt is^a^ed thqi>. nearly 1,000,0001 b of fur v f or. •hatters', is produced in the" Unit^^Mr \ '1 .*;.." Sin.c© 187^*% ( Bailmg ship tonnage of the world has gone down from 14,185,000 tons, to 8,690,000 toDs. A Turkish turban of the largest size contains froni ten, to twenty yards of the finest and softest muslin! la the open country there is usually 3-100ths of carbonic acid gas in the air ; in a theatre, 30-100ths. . . The average salary of State school teachers in New Zealand has fallen from £96 10s in 1890 to £95 Is an 1900. : Italy has 2710 criminals in prison, to "every million of her population!: Britaia has only 1220, and Denmark 879. British insurance companies have an income o!f £14,500,000; The properties covered are worth £5^500,000,000. The Britisfh revenue from spirits is a little in excess of £20,000,000 yearly, '.of which £4,000,000 is on imported goods. ; The.gift.to Lord Roberts., from the tto,:men^oip^tandßa."ip. cp^sist of a Star of •the : : '"©r3«tfo^;§V--jPatji^:'"iii diamonds. . : The record, distance to which a wireless .-megs^gehas, b§en..^sent is 43 miles— 7 miles . further^tbjri frjora -tradon to Beading. \ During,' Jtie! present, century 400 human lives',: £25;0p^,0C)0, "and 200 ships have been lost in fruitless efforts to find the North Pole. As many as 111,000,000 bottles of champagne are stored in the vaults of French producers.- They represent a cost price of £10,000,000. . Australia is highest in the list as a meateating nation, with a consumption of 2761 b per inhabitant per year. Great Britain comes next, with 1181 b. , Gout is rarely known, among the working classes of Ireland. Their immunity is thought to be. due to the fact that their food consists largely of potatoes. ' The diatoms, ' single-celled' plants of the seaweed family, are so ; small that 3000 of them laid end to end scarcely suffice to cover an inch of space on the rule. ■ Probably the owner of the largest number of dogs in the world is Gustay Jovanovitch, a "Russian cattle king," who has 35,000 shepherd dogs to look after 1,500,000 sheep. The School Board election at Manchester has resulted in the loss of a seat to the Church party and a gain of one to the Progressives. There are on the Board six Churchmen, three Roman" Catholics, one teacher and five Progressives. If you were to give five minutes only to every daily paper published in the United Kingdom, and to read for eight and a half hours a day, it would take you nearly three years to exhaust them all. With a single day's issue you could carpet Hyde Park four times. Euston Station is the oldest as well as one of the largest in London. . There are thirteen platforms varying from 400 ft to 1000 ft long, in addition to which there are two broad carriage-ways 700 ft and 1000 ft in length. The station covers an area of sixteen acres. The most remarkable year in railway history was undoubtedly 1846, which has since become known as the " Railway Mania and Panic Year." No fewer than 272 Railway Acts were passed, while millions of j money were invested and lost in different companies and schemes. Many birds' sleep while floating upon the water, and .are consequently in danger of drifting to the banlr, and there falling victims to any beast of prey. To prevent this, ducks and others are in the habit of sleeping with one foot tucked under the wing, whale with the other they keep gently paddling, thus /revolving ia a circle. ' ' ' • England's oldest railway station is situr ated at the village of Ruthern, in Cornwall, on a branch of the London and SouthWestern line. The "station" is simply a thatched <two-roomed cottage, the terminus of the line being some twenty yards to the j rear. This cottage was used as a station sixty-three year? ago, when the branch line was known as the Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway. . -The Baptists claim to posses? the oldest" Nonconformist church in England, Hill Cliffe Church, Warrington, giving the date of its formation as 1522. The antiquity of the church is also shown by the tables of stone in the chapel graveyard. The oldest Congregational church is at Horningshaan, and bears the date of 1566. So that the Hill diffe Church leads the way by nearly half a century. , After nearly thirty years of constant effort and the expenditure of nearly £100,000 scientists have succeeded in accurately measuring the earth. They have learned that its diameter through the Equator is 7926 miles ; its height from Pole to Pole 7899 miles. The earth, therefore, is flattened at the Poles; and while this fact has long "been asserted, the actual measurement . has removed the question from the domain of doubt. A very simple method of transmitting money by post 'has been, in force in Germany, Switzerland, anil several other countries for some year* past. Anybody wishing to forward money through the po>t purchases what is known as a Mandat Carte, marked' with, the amount to be remitted", such suni being delivered, .together with ihe pbst-caird, to the payee by the postman.' The system has been brought under the notice of the postal authorities throughout the Commonwealth, and the wisdom of adopting: it in Australia will be discussed at the Postal Conference to be held in -Melbourne in E^bruany. . Straw is put to strange uses in Japan. Most of the horses are shod with straw. Even the clumsiest of cart-horses wear strawshoes. In their case -the shoes are tied round the enkles with straw rope, and are made of the ordinary rice straw, braided so that they form a sole for the foot about half an inch, thick. These soles cost about a halfpenny per pair, and when they are worn' oufcr;]fchej. .are thrown away, iivery cart has i stdck of fresh new shoes tied to the horse or to the front of the cart, and in Japan it was formerly the custom to measure distance largely by the number of horse-shoes *it took to cover it. So many horse-shoes made a day's journey, aiid the averageisboe^lasted for about eight iniies of travel.* - : .- ..-.-. : ' While India was suffering from the greatest famine. it has ever experienced, manna -was fowid 'in the Central Provinces', wheTe the -scarcity had • been most keenly felt. Mr David Hooper, of the Indian Museum, Calcutta, recently called attention to this fact in the "Mirror" of Trinidad. In March last the strange appearance of manna on ; the stems of the bamboo was reported, and notices of the phenomenon were published. The form in which the manna occurred was that of rods about an inch lung, and pleasantly sweet. The bamboo forests of Bhanda consist of bushy plants, from twenty to tthirtyfeet in height, which grow upon the northerly and westerly slopes of Central and Southern India. This is said to be- the first time in $he history of these forests that a sweet; and gummy substance has been known to exude from' the- trees. The gum has exuded in same abundance, and it has been found very palatable to the natives of the neighbourhood, who hiave " consumed it aa food, as did the.lsradiites of old. . .-■... ' ■. •*■• * ■': .'. . :-'"V".' ':'■.■-; ■; -. " ■ ; " *