BRIEF MENTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10440, 20 April 1912, Page 1

BRIEF MENTION.

panada's population exceeds seven million. Potatoes in Greenland do not grow larger than an ordinary marble. Alcholic beverages are manufactured from rice by the Chinese and Japanese. The first submarine boat was invented and successfully tried in the Eighteenth Century. Envelopes can be addressed by a machine at 15 times the rate of a human clerk. Gold can be beaten so thin that it would take 282,000 leaves to produce a pile an inch thick. Old age pensioners in Great Britain total over 900,000, of whom women are in slightly greater proportion than men.

Sponges are'likely to be dearer. There is, it is said a fortune awaiting the lucky individual who discovers a new sponge area.

A Berlin newspaper's latest circulation scheme is the engagement of two physicians to attend gratuitously its yearly subscribers. According to a census bulletin of the United States, the turkey population of the world shows a remarkable decrease, and by 1920 the turkey will have becomean extinct bird. The black jackets and tail coats which are now the regular Etonian dress tire said to date fom the death of George HI., when the whole school went into mourning, which they have never laid aside since.

The most striking suspension of life " has been observed in fresh-water fish. Professor Raoul Pictet states that in one case he froze live goldfish in water to <tdeg Fahr. below zero, and after three months he restored them to lif» by gradually melting the block of ice. Miss Nina Gordon, the clever actress, says that the only time she ever sang m public with an accompanist was at Folkestone, when Tosti, ; .who was in the,' house, offered to accompany "Goodbye if she would sing' it. Needless to Bay, she gladly accepted the flattcrintt offer. It is officially stated in Calcutta that until the best European architect and sanitary engineer obtainable, both to be selected by Lord Crew, have visited Delhi before and during the rains, the Government will select no site Tor tha now Delhi capital, but will merely acquire land. Miss Margaret Doyle, who celebrated her twentieth birthday last Christmas Eve, hasi spent the Christmas holidays for the fifth time in hospital in Philadelphia, having; undergone thirty-ona operations. -The "doctors hold out to her hopes that "she ultimately will be strong enough to care for herself entirely. The Li family are the Smiths of China. The numerical superiority of the Smith does not matter much in England, but m China that 6ort of thing matters a great deal. For, by Chinese law and custom, persons of the same family, name may not intermarry. A Robinson may not marry a Robinson nor ;t Brown a Brown, kinship or no kinship. Dunsany Castle, County Meath, the home of Lord Dunsany, is one of the most picturesque places in Ireland, and is within no great distance 'of farfamed Tara, where the Irish Kings of old wero crowned. The castle Was originally built by Hugh de Lacy, but it has been rebuilt and modernised. Americans have tried to buy it, much, to the amusement of Lord Dunsany. "Every man," says Mr T. A. Edison, the world-famous inventor, "ought to have an acre of land, with threequarters of it: devoted to the intensivecultivation of vegetables. That would provide sufficient food, and make the owner independent. 'That is my idea of civilisation. I would have people live on farms instead of surrounding themselves with artificial urban conditions."

According to news from Rome, tha painter Sartorio has just completed the decoration of a large panelling destined for the hall of the Parliamentlraildings. Th*e work is 13ft high and 400 ft long. It represents the history of the deliverance of Italy, and contains 285 figures of persons of an average height ©f 9ft Din. It is, therefore, the largest picture in the world, and the artist spent thirty-one months on it. ■ The reason why ships are not struck by lightning is attributed to the general use which is now made of wire rope for rigging purposes; as well as to the fact that the hulls of ships are usually constructed o£ iron or steel. Thus tha ■whole ship forms an excellent and eontinuouß conductor, by means of which the electricity is lead away into the ocean before it has time to do any serious damage.. The' wife of an overworked American company promoter said, at breakfast: "Will you post this letter for me, dear? It's to the furrier, countermanding my order for that £IBO sable and ermine stole. < You'll be sure to remember?" The tired eyes of the harassed, shabby promoter lit up with joy. 'He seized a skipping-rope that lay with a heap of dolls and toys in a corner, and, going to his wife, 6aid, " Here, tie my right hand to my left foot, so I won't forget!"

A common Chinese talisman is the • " Hmidred Families Lock," to procure .. — which a father goes round among his friends, and, having obtained from a hundred different parties a few of tho copper coins of tho country, himself adds the balance, to purchase an ornament or appendage fashioned like a lock, which lie hangs on his child's neck ' for the purpose of figuratively locking him to life and making the'hundred persons concerned in his attaining old age. Armed with a recording gramaphone, M. Ponge, a schoolmaster in Paris, spends his leisure hours lying in wait for street cries in populous quarters. Ho is preparing a museum of speech, which ho will leave behind Him for the instruction of future ages. When he" hears the Parisian equivalents of "Milk" or muffiin-man, he pounces on them and compels thom to 6ing or ring bells into his receiver. He has * already collected most of the wellknown street cries. Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema, who has entered upon his seventy-seventh year, tells some interesting stories to a representative of the "Morning Post." Pompeii is one of his favourite resorts for purposes of study, and he has a special permit from 'ttie Italian Government to wander about there at, tt-uL Concerning the ordinary tounstv nr'ss rushes through that marvellous city of the dead at the heels of a guide he relates the following:—A gentleman who had recently returned from Italy was asked, "Did you go to Pompeii?" "Oh, yes," he replied, "it is verv interesting. Something must have 'happened there." The Empress Eugenie, a French con-' temporary says, intends to set up a small museum in the house at Ajaccio, where Napoleon was born. At pre-, sent, in spite of the fact that there is little enough to attract, no visitor to the town fails to make a pious pilgrimage to the house. With its green window-shutters and yellow-painted front, there is nothing to distinguish it from the neighbouring houses except a marble slab announcing the birth on August 15, 1769, of the man who afterwards became Napoleon I. The best preserved room in the building ia that which Napoleon, then a young ai'A unknown officer, used to occupy 'when ho visited Lis family at holiday tiwe^