BRIEF MENTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8309, 6 May 1905, Page 3

BRIEF MENTION.

The iron contained in clay produces the red colour of bricks. The latest feat in horticulture is the production of a seedless and even coreless apple, With tho flavour cf wine. The American potato crop for 1904 is 332,000,000 bushels— an increase of 40 million bushels on the best previous record. Herr Faber, the well-known pencil manufacturer, has given £50,000 for the erection of people's baths in Nuremberg. • Great cremation fires are burning over the' scenes of the recent big battles about Mukden. (Who wouldn't be a soldier P Large deposits of emeralds have been discovered at Ekaterinburg, in tne Ural Mountains, some stories woighing as much as 80 carats. •Herr Renauld, who was a colonel in the German Army, says "that a war j between two European Powers would not cost less than £6,000,000 daily. , Canadian manufacturers are endeavouring to persuade the Dominion Government to prohibit the exportation of ; logs and woodpulp from the Dominion. Half a lemon, dipped in salt, is an excellent substitute for oxalic acid in cleaning copper boilers, brass teakettles, and other copper or brass utensils. The capital expenditure of the London County Council during its life of niteen years has been £23,780,355, of which only some £5,043,391 is classed as "remunerative." To the late Earl de Montalt belonged the distinction of being the senior Peer member of the Carlton Clvb — a., distinction which now falls to the Duke of Rutland, who was elected in 1839. The Canadian Northern Railway, whose earning capacity has attracted the attention of American financial magnates, is planning to carry out large extensions ' during the coming year- . • • •• . . The grey wolf is very destructive to cattle in Montana, and sometimes overpowers tbe strongest steers. No trap yet made has been able to capture one ; the, animal seems to shun all traps instinctively. , Born ninety-five 'years ago in Cheshire, the Rev William Jackson, of the .United Methodist Free Churches, died recently at Exeter. He was probably the oldest Nonconformist minister in the country. There is a great dearth of farthings in London, due to the winter sales. Most of /the bargains are ■■ marked in farthings, and the result is nearly all the nimble coins have found their way into drapers' coffers. Mr Cross, the. #_11-known Liverpool naturalist, received by the steamer Achilles the smallest elephant (a baby male) ever seen away from its mother. Weighing a little over 2cwt, it is half an inch short of a yard in height. 1 The pulling strength of men and animals was recently show> in an exhibition. For each pound of its own weight an elephant can pull 0.72 of a pound; a camel 0.76, and a horse 1.17 of a pound. A man oan pull 0.82 of his own weight. , „,-.„; So intense has lieeri the cold recently in Switzerland that in the observatory On the Santis aU, re^steri-lg instruments Were frp^ri, which has not occurred for twenty-^three years. The temperature sank to minus 34deg Fahrenheit. .'■ ■r> ••'. ;;■■ „ •'.„ Nature's infinite.: variety is well illustrated in the of photographs of snow crystals made during the past twenty years by an enthusiast. He has now more than 1000 photographs of individual crystals, and among them no two alike. In Iceland there are no prison-., apd the inhabitants are so honest that such material defences to protect property as locks, bolts and bars are .not reqtrlred. Its- history , for the past one thousand years, it is said,' records no more than two thefts. Ferro-conorete railway sleepers are now being tested in France. .. Their coat will be a little less /than 4s 5d per sleeper, and it is thought that, under the most unfavourable circumstances, the cost will be less than twice that of oak, while the life will be four or five times as long. The use of Rontgen rays in the hospitals of Germany has opened up a new field of work for Women. The services of nurses for patients treated, by Xrays iand as asfri-tants at the "rise of them is of a very delicate nature, and in ; Berlin coursed of instruction for Xr rays nurses are 1 to be in__ituted. The bell in the steeple has not always been the means of summoning the worshipper to church. In America drums used ' to be employed for the purpose; and at Flamborough, in Yorkshire, prior to 1860, a woman went round the village with a handbell, giving vocal announcement of the services. A curious industry in China is the manufacture of mock-money for offering to the dead. The pieces are only half the size of the real coins, but the dead are not supposed to know the difference. The dummy coins are made out Of tin, hammered to the thinness of paper, and stamped out to the size required. Home Rule is not dead, and the opposition to it .has not declined (according, to the " Irish Times "). The first serious, attempt which is made to deal with the question will rekindle into octive life the. popular feeling in England, and in all likelihood the disaster which attended Mr Gladstone's two efforts to tear up the Act of Union will repeat itself. . - Father Gapon, the champion, of the people's rights, recalls to us (says the "Church Times") the priest John Ball;. and the concourse to the Winter Palace of. the labouring class to appeal to the clemency of the Czar, reminds '/ us of . the famous scene in Smithfield in which a King, at other times weak and unpopular, for once showed ihim-self-possessed'6f'-kingly tact: • In a pessimistic address on Sunday observance, the Rev A. T_. Hurst, va Hanley> vicar, prophesied that it will not be long, unless the present tendency is checked, before the theatres arid the concert halls are in full swing on the, Sunday night, and the great pricket and football grounds of the country are thronged on Sunday afternoon with great crowds of spectators. The British Adtriiralty has issued a general order regarding tho naval manoeuvres of 1905. It is intended that the manoeuvres should; represent the condition of affairs which might exist at a period when the relations of Great Britain with some hypothetical Power or Powers had" become so^ seriously strained that an outbreak 1 of hostilities was . possible at any mol ment. ... ■ As little furniture as comfort will permit in a sleeping room, and as much air and light as possible, is always now advised. Never be afraid of too_ much air. It will not harm those who are accustomed to it, and the sooner one becomes accustomed to it the better. Never sleep in too ' warm a room. It is better to be too cool than too warm, and the. window should always be open, summer and winter. . .There has been conferred on Ser-geant-Ma jor R. Brownlee, the Keeper of the Scottish Regalia in Edinburgh 'Castle, the silver medal for meritorious (service. The honour carries with it a gratuity of £10. Sergean .-Major Brownlee has Completed forty-seven years' service, twenty-five having been spent with his regiment, the 71st Highland Light Infantry. After joining the regiment at Hamilton in 1858 he saw service in India, haying been through, the Central Indian campaign, receiving L the Umbeyla medal of 1863.