BRIEF MENTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7293, 4 January 1902, Page 3

BRIEF MENTION.

t London has 227 aldermen. c Greater London 'has forty-two corpora--0 tions. '* In 1801 coal soldi in London fort £2 ISs c a ton. , Out of 20 blind people 11 are men, 9 * women. t Blacking for British iboots costs £600,000 1 a year. r China's silk crop is 21 million pounds, of r winch two-fifths is exported. I Scotland has only 1800 acres of orchard, 6500 of market gardens, and) 1400 of nuri series. s In t)he factories of Baden, Germany, 28.26 1 of the workers are women and girls over sixteen. | The carrying power of British shipping » is now 30,300,000 tons, against 3,400,000 . in 1830. . Of 200 known species of scorpions 13 live t in Europe. Scorpions live principally on •, spiders. i t Thirty-one per 1000 of men married in ; Britain cannot sign their names, and thirty- '■ T . six women. . I 1 -In 1800 the United States ■ exported 120,000 bales of cotton. In 1900 she sold o 9,436,000 "bales. , | 0 The extra stationery . used by the War s Office for war purposes since 1899 has cost * £105,000 up to date. ® London has 90 different Trade Guilds,, of .. j which the oldest is the Porters', founded a r little over 700 years ago. The silkworm's thread is one five-thou-sandth of an inch in diameter, that of the * spider one thirty-thousandth, f Between 1823-1837 Hudson^ Bay was f closed each winter for am average of 184 f days. This average has now fallen to "» 179. ' ' i Tie freedom of the City of Glasgow has I * been conferred On Lord Balfouir, Secretary of State for Scotland, and Mr Andrew j 1 Carnegie. '■ . ; The Empress of China is said to carry with her 3000 dresses when she travels. * These fill 600 boxes, 'and are taken care of j j by 1200 coolies. . ' i. The dandelion produces 12,000 seeds per r plant, shepherds' pulse 37,000, 'Ehistle . 65,600, chamomife J. 6,000, burdock 43,000, » and. the common plantain 44,000. | r A- painstaking meteorologist has been measuring rain-drops. He finds that the j largest are about one-sixth of an inch, ! the smallest one 500 th of an inch, in diai meter. ; The Spanish are among the most chari- > table people on earth. Without a poor- * box Spanish communities of 50,000 self-^ supporters feed a pauper population of r 5000 or more. . ' t In the French navy, not more than from 1 Bto 10 per cent of the men chew tobacco. * The smokers number 50 per cent, so not T less than 40 per cent must be total' abi stainers from the "weed." 9 It ■ has been estimated -Chat for every i 1000 head of eaibtle in Great Britaiin sixty- * seven tons of beef or veaLare annually sent g to maxket, and for every 1000 head of sheep } and lambs' twelve and a half tons of snut--1 ton or lamb. : , 1 The wearing of hats in Parliament by the - members may be traced 1 back to the time ' wihen those who were suonmoned to legis--1 late, or rather to authorise the King to E make levies, came in wearing helmets, wihioh j were nofc easily removed. I It is interesting to note that no less than 1 £100,000 worth of the unpopular four-shil-f ling pieces was withdrawn from .circulation fc last year. Fourpenny-pieoes to the value r of £235 were also recaptured by the Mint, k and the little coin is now a rarity. I England has an Act of Parliament by which every man or youth between the ages 1 of eighteen and thirty can be forced to join [ the Militia. It is known as the Ballot Act of 1860, and "although it has been suspended i year after year by the Army Act, it -can at v any time be put in force by the authorities. Half a million shade trees ore reported to have been, planted in Paris within the past decade, and £20,000 a year is spent to keep them in order and 1 to plant new | ones. Every street of aioertain width is ; entitled to a row of threes on either side, while every street, of a certain greater width gets a double row. The German. Army has adopted the ! " lance boat " of Herr Adolf Bey for crossing rivers. With twelve or sixteen cavalry . lances six men can build a boat in five < minutes, and take it to pieces again in two minutes. The framework of lances is, of course, covered with waterproof canvas. * The oars are lances with canvas blades. i Paris leads the world in dressmaking. * It is estimated, that there are 75,000 i»er- ' sons employed in the dressmaking estab- [ lishments . of the city, and if one includes i the workers who design and make the ma- > terials used by the dressmakers, ■ about ' 1,400,000 persons are engaged in the struggle to satisfy woman's love of chifs fons. .■ m . b A very curious custom m Seoul, Corea, is - the law which makes it obligatory for every * man to retire to his home When the huge J bronze bell of the city has .^proclaimed it to £ be the hour of sunset and the time for closing the gates. No man is allowed in the r streets after that hour under pain of flogging, but the women are allowed to go about and visit their friends. » It has often puzzled the uninitiated to' f give a reason why musicians tune their instruments in public and not before they [ enter the orchestra. If they tune their ■ instruments before entering the theatre or > concert-room, the temperature is very apt | to be different in the place of performance, t and therefore the instruments would not be in tune. A piano that is in a cold ropm would get out of tune if the room were sudf denly heated. 5 Austria is the one civilised country in \ the., world which never puts a woman.- in [ prison. Instead of giving a female criminal » so many months in gaol, she is sent, no I matter how terrible her record, to one' or I other of the convents devoted for the pur- - pose, and kept there during the time for - which she is sentenced. The convent is * not a mere prison in disguise, for its court- j yard stands open all day long, the poly . bar to egress being a man who acts as port er, just as in other convents. 3 The salvage of the Paris, after she had I ibeen exposed to the full fury of the AtlanT tic on the Mamacles for several months is . perhaps ttihe most remarkaible feat of the f kind on recordi. Nearly, the entire bottom i of the ship ibad 'been destroyed, but she is 3 now better equipped, faster, and a finer c ship all round) than* she ever was before: I Her horse-power ihas been increased from [ 18,000 to 20,000, and she is fully expected , • to cover 600 statute miles per day during hen future trips across the Atlantic. r The highest point to which? a man has j » so far climbed is 23,393 feet. This is the > -height of Aconcagua,' the loftiest summit | of the main cordillera of the Andes. This point was reached by the guide Mattias | , Zurdriggen and Mr Vines, two members ; " of the expedition that went out in 1897 t under Mr E. A. Fitzgerald. Before this, I the record was held by Sir William Mar-' » tin Conway's expedition, which in 1892 climbed a mountain, in the Karakoram ; Himalayas jusfc on 22,600 feet high. ! A double golden wedding in the same E family on the same day is an. unusual oeJ currence. On Sept. 24, 1850, two sisters I named Young were married in Oxfordshire, L the one to aMr Stockings, of Stony Strat- : ford, and the other to aMr Dee. The two husbands and wives are still living, and duly celebrated their golden weddings recently. ' Mrs Stockings is the subject of a. quaint » alliterative coincidence. Her Christian * names are Sarah Sophie, she lives at Stony 1 Stratford., and she was seventy-seven on [ the seventh of September. .' [ A large Dublin manufacturer Ihas a room ; entirely (furnished with Irish ipealb. The I carpets on fhe floors, <t?he curtains at the II \rkdows, and: the paper on *he wall are made from this substance. For years lie '■, has experimented' with the material, which ' is now very laigely exported as fuel, and; 1 'he has discovered that firom it it is possible 1 to produce almost any 'kind of faibric. The ; process is simple — iihe fibres, Which are strong and tough, being extracted and! , woven like cotton or 'silk. The fabrics have > the toughness of ULnen and the -warmth of ' 1 wool. Blankets made of them are found 1 j ;. to excel in waarmtih and lightness anything i yet discovered-. j