BRIEF MENTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7678, 11 April 1903, Page 3

BRIEF MENTION.

A gallon of w_i l .er weighs ten pounds,

Glasgow public parks. The actual cost ai making the Suez Canal was £24,150^000. The world uses- about £3,400,000 worth of buttons yearly:. / There is now ting- that costs less than civility. — Cervantes. The eight mv.tscles of the human jaw exert a force of al lout 5001b. Adversity bor. rows its sharpest sting from our impatience.- -Bishop Home. The invention of the typewriter has given employment to 'half a million women. Friendship rises but with fortune and sets when men, jo downward. — Aaron Hill. Of the 1200 locomotives- now in use in Japan about 3C 0 are of American manufacture. The Belgian; i are the greatest potatoeaters in tho u-orld, and the Irish come

second. It is more di Jficult for a man to behave well in prospta Sty than adversitv. — Rochefoucauld.

Hong Kong is to be presented with the first statue raj s«-d in honour of the Prince of Wales. An eight-ho: ir working day is to be adopted in all the Fj?>»ch Government docKytu'd.. Thirty-one it tillion bricks were used in building the To r/or Bridge, and 19,500 tons of cement. Maidstone (E. inland) sent ovor 300Volunteers to the froi _:> during the South African campaign. Mr Marconi c 1 declares that lie is now able tn send 40 W( cds a minute by wireless telpjriupliy.

There is not i n nature a thing that -makes a man ko defon. led as intemperate anger. — John Webster.

Great and go »d are the actions done by many whose a', itiona aro never known. — Hans Andersen.

We cannot co: itrol the tongues of others, but a good lii fe enables us to despise calumnies. — Cat ►.

There have bt x n 2100 explosions in coalmines in the 1; st fifty year__ involving a loss of 8800 live v.

Tho total n Ember of police for the United Kingdom I is 60,946, and their cost £6,662,651 a ye ar.

Marine insurai tee is first mentioned in 43 A.D. The Ron jan Emperor Claudius insured one of his f flips.

A wall 30ft hij- jh and 13ft broad could be built all round 11 -.agland with the coal annu;dly raised in th; t£> country.

The Philippine i Islands grow 110,000 tons of hemp yearly , , but could produce five times that amoui it with ease.

Servia and £ hritzerland are tho only States absolutely 1 Without a navy. That of Belgium is ext oemely small.

Judges' salaries in Japan range from £60 a year in the pet' iy Courts to £400 or £500 a year in the S: jpreme Courts.

Russia is aboui ; to export its first cargo of coal to Ameri ia. Tho consignment "is one of 9000 tons of anthracite at 32s a ton.

Lord Charles I Joxesford declares that he ia regarded as a mustard plaster on the back of a-uthority 'in the House of Commons.

The biggest bi: jiMing stones ever used are found, not in Egypt, but at Baalbes, in Syria. They met; ture 901 1 long and 20ft square.

Microscopes \vl icch ordinarily magnify 11,000 times have their power increased to 16,0U0 diameters !i \y immersing the lens in vaseline oil.

Lake Wastwatc r, in Cumberland, ie the deepest of Euglh b lakes. Its bottom- is far below sea lev *1, though its surface is over 200ft above , (he sea.

Australia has il' ie largest duck farm and the largest incubi tor in the world. The incubator has a <-. opacity of 11,440 ducks' eggs, or 14,080 hit ks' eggs.

The West lndi js migrator? crab is the only creature w_ lich, is born/ in the sea, matures in fresh water and passes the remainder of its da; js upon land. The greatest su (render in the world was at Metz. TJie Fi ench army included three field-marshals, 6! > generals, 6000 officers, 400 guns, and 17; 1,000 rank and file.

The most dung jrous part of the British coast, is between ■ Flamborough Head and the North Forela ltd. Next comes that between Anglesea a ind the Mull of Cantyre. The owners of a number of sky-scrapers in New York cit r have been forced to purchase ground ad joining them to prevent their liirht and sir being tiut off by other tall buildings.

A coal famine of long duration in England would soor i produoe a strong d.mand for the national Is&tion of all coalmines, with its inevit* i>le sequel, their working by convict labc ur. In tbe last til »:rty years the population of Germany hps iv creased 40 per cent, that of France 2 per ce fit, that of the United Kingdom 30 per cu jit, and that of the United States 100 per cent.

The Pope's :' fcicome is £280,000, oneseventh of. whi ch is guaranteed by the Emperor of Aust kia ; another seventh comes from vested in tere-sts, and the remainder is derived from 1 Jeter's Pence.

During the ' feist thirty years the population of Germa; iv has increased 40 per cent, that of Franc. * 2 per cent, that of the United Kingd- im 80 per, cent, and that of the United St (R-tes 100 per cent.

A .ingle gai t company in London owns over 13,000 coin-freed meters, through which the pul lie purchase gas by the pennyworth. Cor iruimers are numbered by millions, and the f are increasing daily. At the pre: tnb day, on the best authorities, there ar t 250,000,000 Mussulmans in the world. The Christian population is put at 447,0C fI.OOO, but the increase of Islam is more r t-pid than that of its sister re-

ligion. Nearly elev en miles of the Simplon Tunnel have now ' been bored. At the tunnel head the temp rrature is stated toliave reached 136d0g Pa krenhe.it, while, thermometers outside were registering 36deg of frost.

Eighty per *cent of the heads of English families are rr. I tie and twenty female. Many houses are n. » wadays taken in the wife's name in order • that the husband may not be subjected to ita convenience and loss by serving a« a jui tir. *

A new type < >f railwav carriage witt shortly be running in England between Newcastle and Q.irlisle. The old-fashioned cushioned seai| : have been, replaced by light cane armchailrt , with removable cushions, and accommocj iting four persons each side.

Scanted cloti. , designed for ladies' dresses, is the latest _ ovelty in Paris. The fabric retains it. fnaf prance so long as there" is. a fragment of ihe material left; you may tear, drench, "with rain, or fling aside the perfumed go\Fi i, but its particular fragrance will dling to f) \, still.

What trem* ;ndous power an eagle exerts when carryini r away a lamb that weighs, say, 601b or i vex ! If you take tlie weight of the bird a_j .ogetber, 761b, then it appeal's that an eagls can develop more than two horse-power, and pvust jmt a. strain of over 11001b on thi muscles of the wings.

The terra * ' Sick Man of Europe," applied to the Bu!t:<ii of Turkey, is appropriate in more senses/ than one. 'The offspring of a consumptive mother, Abdul Haanid is physically the weakest of living sovereigns; His chest iss! narrow, bis back is bent, his eyes ar. w_i.k, and he is perpetually aillng.

There isv-a great consolation for the smoker in pH_> assurance that tobacco smoke confers uj jdni bdm comparative immunity from puhrtanary diseases. Tobacco kills microbes, and iH recommended as a protection again rt cholera. Smoking is now advised by £ _me doctors as part of the treatment of c ansumption. . ' - Some id m oi the extent of tie craac yfor pictorial V fest-cards may.be gleaned trom a return t _ the number sold, in Germany within a * ingle week. This, according to a return c .mpiled by the German Imperial Post Offiw | reaches the enormous figure of 10,128,569,1: an average of nearly a million and a half 'on each of the seven days. The postai cha rjjes on these cards amounted to £24,000.

spends £2000 annually on its