BRIEF MENTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9273, 27 June 1908, Page 3

BRIEF MENTION.

Blonde people are rarely afflicted with cancer. . In many parts of Africa gin is the only currency. Negroes possess £70,000,000 worth of property in America. rhidon, King of Argoa, made the first silver coin, in 869 B.C. London's paupers cost £10 a head a year ; those of Paris £1 12s only. In the British Isles alone there are nearly 80,000 motor-cars and motor bicycles. The number of British horses bred is falling off at the rate of nearly four thousand a year. - An Antarctic iceberg has been seen that was 20 miles wide, 40 miles in length, and 400 ft in height. The first expedition in search of the North Pole was made by Corte Real, a Portuguese, in the year 1500. If the appetite of a man was as great in proportion to his size as that of the sparrow, he would eat a whole sheep for his dinner. The size of the brain is not an index of a man's capacity. It is a matter of climate. Small brains are the rule in tropical countries. The value of shipping passing through the Suez Canal in the course of the year is £11,000*000, and the great bulk of this is British. > The first steam fire engine was constructed by Braithwaite in 1830, but the fire brigades for public service were not formed until about 1852. Perfume manufacturers of Italy every year consume 1860 tons of orange blossom, 930 tons of roses, 150 tons each of jasmine and violets, and 15 tons of jonquils. •It has been estimated that there are attached to Portsmouth. (England) no fewer than 45,000 sailors and soldiers, of whom between 10,000 and 15,000 are frequently either in barracks or on the ships in the harbour. The Royal Worcester porcelain works are the oldest in England, having been founded in the year 1751. "Old Chelsea" china is a deep claret red in colour. The earliest mark on Sevres china is two cross capital L's, which which stand for Louis XV., who founded the works. Wedding-veils owe their origin to the old Anglo-Saxon custom of holding a square piece of cloth over the heads of Bride and bridegroom while they were being married. This was done by a tall man holding each corner, and was intended to hide the blushes of the fair bride. Widows were not so honoured, as their blushing days were supposed to be overThe first attempt' to. produce a newspaper in America was made in Boston, on September 25, 1690. The sheet was entitled "Publick Occurrences," and was suppressed by the authorities after the appearance of the first issue. Only one copy of that single issue is now known to be in existence, and is preserved in the Public Record Office in London. It is a popular fallacy that fountain pens are quite & modern invention; As a matter of fact, an oM work of reference published in 1795 contains an illustration of a fountain pen, the ap-peara-nce of which is very much like those sold at the present time. Its construction, however, was somewhat elaborate and clumsy, the pen consisting of various pieces of metal, which had to be screwed and U unscrewed, before the pen could be used. f The Norwegian whale fisheries extend over nearly the whole of the Arciic Sea. The whales are shot from small steamers, the implement used being the so-called bomb harpoon,, an arrow-shaped iron spear furnished with a line, whioh is discharged from a small cannon. The whale often drags the vessel a long distance until the creature becomes exhausted and expires. It is then towed to the anchorage and stripped of the blubber. It is a curious paradox that a the large-handed man loves small things, details, exquisitely finished objecte, and is microscopic in his tendencies; while he whose handsiare small delights in colossal things of every sort, loving ostentation and display, immense houses, majestic estates, and all else that is upon a great scale. His handwriting is large and perhaps full of flourishes, while that of the large-hand-ed man is small and precise. An ardent anarchist, who died not long ago at La Fleche, had announced that after his death a surprise would be forthcoming. On examination of his effects the authorities discovered what they thought was an infernal machine. Fearing a disaster, a magistrate sent for an expert from the School of Artillery at Mans. The expert arrived, and the bomb was opened with infinite precautions. Inside were found 15,000 francs and the will of the « Red." The Orange Free State -was founded by Dutch emigrants from Cap© Colony. The country was proclaimed British territory in 1848* but was recognised as an independent State by convention in 1854. In 1900, at the time of the South African war, it was once more proclaimed a British colony. Cape Colony was a Dutch settlement from 1652 to 1796, when it was captured by an English expedition. It was restored to the Dutch in 1803, reoccupied by the British three years later, and formally ceded to the British Crown in 1814. Watch-dogs are to guard the treasures of the Louvre. A recent and still unexplained attempt to penetrate into the Apollo Gallery from outside aroused the anxiety of the authorities, who are now negotiating with the police for an arrangement by which the night-watch-men are to be accompanied by a welltrained canine police. The role of the latter will depend upon their beat. In the ground-floor rooms the dogs will bo big enough to tackle a burglar. Upstairs, where the more delicate collections are placed, fox terriers, pug dogs and so on will suffice to give the necessary warning. The slaughter of animals for food by electrocution is being experimented by Dr Leduo, a French scientist, who has been conducting his investigations in the French abattoirs. He has been using the intermittent low-tension currents, and says that he is satisfied that the system is painless, the central functions of perception being first destroyed and then those of circulation and respiration, so that there is neither suffering nor reaction in the animals thus killed. The doctor is endeavouring to devise some piece of apparatus by which the killing of cattle may be accomplished by electricity with economy and celerity. It is very possible that the physical strain entailed by being a life-long prisoner within the Vatican walls had much to do with the Pope's recent illhealth, for he has always been a lover of the open-air and exercise, and before the greatest honour of his church was thrust upon him he used to walk many miles a day. Nowadays, if he wanted to walk a single mile he would have to zigzag round every path of the Vatican gardens, which, although of surpassing beauty, are very small. For forty years years it has been a strict and inviolable rule that the head of the Roman Catholio Church should never step beyond the portals of the Vatican, A Russian firm which manufactures optical goods turns out thousands of pairs of glasses every year to be worn by cows. " There are a great many cows that wear glasses in my country/ said a Russian visitor to a "London Chat " representative. " I have seen a herd of 40,000 cows with glasses on. It was on the steppes, the great Russian prairies. Our steppee for six months in the year are covered with snow, but during a part of the time delicate fresh trass tips protrude from that white and azzling mantle. The cows then are turned out to feed on the new grass, "but if their eyes are unprotected the dazzle of sunshine on the snow gives them snow blindness. Thousands of cows suffered horribly, and hundreds died of snow blindness, until a rude, cheap kind of spectacles, made of leather and smoked glass, was invented and used with groat success.**