BRIEF MENTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8100, 27 August 1904, Page 3

BRIEF MENTION.

Virtue itself offends when coupled with forbidding manners. Marconi's 130 ft masts for wireless telegraphy, cost £40 apiece. The humour goes out of life as the days continue, and it is replaced by the caustic vein. ■ Brussels contains a clock which is wound up by the wind, and never by human hands. According to latest computation there are 15,948 different kinds of postage stamps in existence. Germany's colonies are five timea as big as herself," those of France eighteen times, and Britain's ninenty-sevett times bigger than herself. More hearts pine away in secret anguish for the want of kindness from those who should be their comforters than from any other calamities in life. — Dr Young. An ingenious fanner in Mezieres, France, has succeeded in grafting tomatoes on potato plants. The product is a crop of tomatoes above gronnd and of potatoes below. I The latest bird to become extinct is the ! Calif ornian condor, the spread of whose wings was 12ft. Four hundred pounds is I offered for an egg, but none has been fonnd for seventeen years. '■'-'■' Tlie finest grape-vine in Europe isyat Auchmpre House, Lord Breadalbarie's Scotch residence. It is double the size of the one at Hampton Court, and sometimes produces 4000 bunches of grapes in a.season. "." : One of the South African memorials mi to consist of a rough-hewn trough of water, a statue of a soldier giving his horsey* drink. It is to be erected at Port- Eliza-: betb, and is to commemorate the 400*000 "remount*" that perished in the British cause. Thomas Kidney, a Leed9 steeplejack, claims to be the world." chimney-felling champion. He has recently brought down his one hundred and sixth. Mr Kidney, who is seventy years of age, announces that he will retire when he. bas demolished 200 mill chimneys. ■ ' - :■ Mount Sangay is the most active volcano in the world, "it is situated in Ecuador is 17,120 ft in height, and has been in constant activity since 1728. The sounds of its eruptions are sometimes heard in Quito, 150 miles distant, and 267 reports were once counted in one hour. The site of St Mary Woolnoth. ■ under which the Bank Station of the City^and South London electric railway has been buiit, iB said to be worth £400,000. One Sunday only thirty-eight persons attended tbe mornin_: service in this church, which is considered by many to be no longer needed. j ■ '- , In Malay the natives keep a- record ol time in the following way : —Floating in a bucket filled with water they place a. .cocoanut shell having a small perforatum, through which slow degrees the water finds ita wav inside. This opening is^so proportioned" that- it takes just one hour for the shell to fill and sink. Then a watchman calls out, the shell is emptied, and the process goes on a/gain. The total outstanding loans of local authorities in the United Kingdom amounted at the close of the year 1901-2 to £412,000,000. In the twenty-two years 1889 to 1902 there had been' sin increase "of £206,482,512. There is no sign of cessation, nothing to chow that the necessary halt is beincr called, or that the mad spend; thrift race between the municipalities is ttodergoing any diminution. /'_ .1 Among the pumerous superstitions of tihe Cossacks there is none stronger than the belief that they will enter heaven in a better state if they, are personally clean at the time they are killed. Consequents, before an expected battle they perform their toilj ets with scrupulous care, dress themselves in clean garments, and put on the best they i have. This superstition is not confined to tho Cossacks alone, but is widely prevalent in all branches of the Russian army. j On tolerably long journeys, say of a hundred miles or more, the pigeon will average j a speed of from thirty-seven to forty-three miles an hour. The cel-brated racehorso Flying Childers. in a run of about three miles, covered 15.65 yards per second. The best horse in the world can only kesp.np a speed approximate to that for cix Or seven minutes at most. The pigeon's speed is about thirty-three yards per second, just ! about twice a3 great. All sailors in the King's Navy are obI liged to buy a blaok silk handkerchief. 1 They get it from the Government stores', j and the price, about Ss 9d, is deducted from their pay. Thia yean- the Admiral-y lhas ordered 160,000 handkerchiefs from I Messrs J. and T. Brocklehurst and Sons/ of Macclesfield, who are the largest silk manS ufacturers in the world. This number is j 40,000 more than has ever been required before. Each handkerchief is 35in square. j The fact that the up-to-date Mikado of I JApan sleeps in a European bed does not seem anything to be surprised at until -it is remembered that 40,000,000 of his subjects prefer the floor. His Majesty does not stop short at this one foreign cußtom, but wears European clothes, uses a knife and fork in preference to chopsticks, arid rides in a carriage that would not attract particular attention in the West End -• of London, but for the gorgeous livery of -the men on the box. An accountant, after seven months' ; hartwork in vainly trying to balance the books of a grain company at St Paul, in" the State of Wisconsin, made a singular discovery. His accounts were exactly 100 dollars (£2O) out, and, while passing his pencil down a column, the first figure of an entry of 140 dollars suddenly broke in two. On looking closer, he perceived that the "1" was really a fly's leg, whioh had adhered to the page and caused him so many hours of fruitless toil. Many English Queens, have chosen octrees in Windsor Forest whereon their re; spective (names, with tho dates of their choice, have been commemorated by means of brass plates. In different- parts of the forest, with seats round them, are oaks bearing the names of Queen Elizabeth, : Queen Caroline, Queen Charlotte and Queen Victoria. "Heme's Oak," mention-, ed in the " Merry Wives of Windsor " as being in Windsor Park, was destroyed, by a gale on August 31, 1863. Investigations into the production of gum in German East Africa show- that practically all secretions of gum in that country are provoked by ants. The ants , ! perforate the bark of the a-cacia to gain ! admittance into the wood, where they -lay their eggs in the excavations, which are 1 sometimes of considerable extent, each perforation being marked with a globule-- of gum. The ant that produces the gum makes no use of it • it is only an ob-true* ; tion to her work, since it stops up the gal- - leries she hollows out. « We do a good many things in a minute, says a calculating fiend. For instance, we. are whirled on the outside of the earth just thirteen miles, and have gone around the sun 1089 miles; a ray of light has'travelled 11,100.000 miles;" the lowest sound your ear can catch .has made 990 vibrations, the highest tone 2,223,000 vibra-. tions. Twenty-four barsgls of beer have, gone down 12,096 throat^ 6673 cigars h^Ve i been made; 300 tons of coal have been .. mined,, and £13 4s worth of gold has been . extracted from mother eartli. Germany possesses a miniature but most useful railway, to which no parallel is found in England. Its peculiarity is that its trains have no drivers. It is used for carrying salt from the salt mines at Stass- : furt. The trains consist of thirty trucks, each carrying half a ton of salt. The en- : gines are electric, of twenty -fonr horsepower each. As ifc approaches a station, of which there are five along the line, the train automatically ring 9 a bell, and^fhe station attendant turns a switch to receive! 1 it. He is able to stop it at any moment. To start it again he stands on the locomotive, switches on the current, and then descends again before the engine haß gained speed. .