BRIEF MENTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10536, 10 August 1912, Page 1

BRIEF MENTION.

London boroughs send 62 members tt Parliament. More than 120 millions of packages are dealt with annually in the English parcels post. A Kent botanist has discovered on the Downs, near AsLford, two fine specimens of a rare hybrid orchid. A parrot, in the possession of three' generation*, has died at Erfurt, Ger-, many, at the age of one hundred and seven. , Agricultural labourers as a class earn in England 18s 4d per week; in Scotland 19s 7d; in Wales, 18s:' and* m Ireland, lis 3d. Bands of gipsies who live in discarded borse-tramcars on the marshes at Ab--bey Wood and Belvedere- are exempt from rates, as their residences reat upon' wheels. The' King has entered hispigeons for " several races this year. His Majesty , possesses "a splendid collection of English and Belgian birds, and a fine new pigeon loft has just been completed at oa"dnn<rham." , « • The Brat motor museum was recently opened _at 175, Oxford Street,"London, I About fifty exhibits wore on view, il-; lustrating the advance which has been ' ronde in the construction of oars and • machinery since 1861. from which year the motor,industry in Enaland dates. -» -,? X l ev Charles Collis~ Vicar of St 1 ' I aul s, Barton, Isle of Wight, has been' busily employed in , painter's whit* . apron during the Wbitsun holidays with ' a party of men recruited from his sue- ' oessful Church Brotherhood, in painting the parish hall, in order to save' extra '■ expense, which the parish fund is not' at present alia to bear. _lt now appears that ' ChristopherV Columbus did not see Ihe. licht at ■Genoa as has always been affirmed.-. <<°rn 0 , r Garc, 'a de la Riira, the London relograph" says, states (hat lie pes--" sesses documents proving that Colum-' bus was born at Porto ftanto, a small "' village- near Madrid. The historian is a person of considerable nuthoritv, and "' war; formerly in the late Colonial Office; What will be the first Alpine convict-,' prison m Europe is about to be erected S?,.JW 0 P °f tha Beal P 'mountain;-' 1 5060 ft high, m the Canton of Uri. Themountain belongs to the Canton, thus '. obviating the necessity of buying a ' site, but, apart from the nuestion of" economy, the promoters of tho scheme": are of opinion that mountain air will be good for the health and spirits oi • tfie convicts, and more work will thus be obtained from ,them. - The cost ia'> estimated to be about £BO.OOO. " -'- \ It i* reported that illuminating ea»v is to be made in Austria bv a dome-' : what unusual process, and for this ' purpose a plant is being erected at the. town of Brnnn,. where gss is produced by distilling dried pediment from sewer, water. The method is due to the re- "- searches of Professor Honig, who discovered that a cubic yard of sewer - water contained- in suspension a solid .i substance which can be made to giv»* { off gas like coal or peat. It is claimed \ that such gas has a very high heating < power, and this is even gieater than','-, coal gas. ' ,-' The phenomena supposed to he ey-*'" hibitod by ■ tha divining-rod, lately in- ■.' vestigated in England by Professor . ; Marrett, have now been seriously tost-*,, ed in German South-west Africa, wiierei.' ■something like SCO experiments weremade with it in search of wster, about 80 per cent of these being successful : It has also been used with.success in"' Hanover to .indicate the presence,' or otherwise, of veins of salts of potash • in the sc'l. The Ministry of Agricul-" ture in France has appointed a departmental committee to make similar experiments. A man has 500 muscles, oiig billion cells, 200 different bones, four gallons of blood, several hundred, feet of ar-, • teries and veins, over 25ft of intestines and millions of pores. His heart weighs - from Boz to 12oz, its capacity is from . 4oz to Goz in each ventricle, and its size is sin by 3Jin by 2-Jin. It is a hollow, muscular organ and pumps 22}lb of blood every minute. -In - twenty-four hours it pumps 16 tons. It, beats about 72 times a minute. In one" year an average man's heart pumps '11.680,0001b of blood. The heart is a - willing slave, but sometimes strikes—• and it always wins.— " Practical Drug- ' gist." .- • The loss of valuables aboard the T> ,' tanic recalls the fact that in 1870 a Scotchman named Jr>h«'t<"n pptc-itcd a treasure safe for ships designed to render such loss Hi? proposal was that an unsinkable safe should be suspended at the ship's davits, ready to be lowered into the water at a moment's notice, and he invented a contrivance by means of which the safe - would detach iteelf on emergency and '-; float about until picked up by another vessel. Ships' enptains. however, declined to entertain the thought of having a safe full of pionev hnndng at th© >-' davits readv'to the hand of any whp ' cared to trust, to a dark nischt and the navitrahle qualities of the chest to maka - off with it.

An emerald, which was once tho talisman of the Momil Emperors, and! k ' which, with the Koh-i-Noor diamond, *_ formed part of the loot carried to Per- 'J pia by Nadir Shah, the conqueror of -.' Delhi, is beinsr exhibited in the show- J roomsof a Bond Street jeweller. Thla \ historic gem is the most precious piece brought from tho East by M. Jacoues Carter, who went out to the Durbar . for the pnroose of studying and ooFleob-' ' ine Oriental jewels. This emerahj , weiehs seventy-eieht carats, and is of a fine deep-sea colour. It is in the form, \ of a flat oval, slightly over an inch in lensrtb and a quarter of an inch in , thickness., About, the edge is the following inscription in Persian :—" He .- who possesses this charm shnll enjoy the special protection of God."

Why are flags on public buildings • hoisted only cart of the way up on the occasion of the death of a great man? - Ever since flags were used" in war it ' has been the custom to have the flag ■ of the superior or conquering natijn ' above that of the inferior or vanquished. When an army found itself hopelessly beaten it hauled its flag down far en ouch for the flag of the victors to be ; placed above it on the same pole. This was a token not only of submission, but of respect. In those days, ' \rhon a famous soldier flags were lowered • out of respect to his memory. The custom long ago passed from "purely military usage to public life of nil" kinds, ." the flag flying at half-mast being a sign that the dead man was worth™ ~f versa' respect. The space left" above i$ is for the flag of the great conqueror of all, the Angel of Death. i At Aurora, Illinois, Mr D. W. fitces.- .' well, one of the quaintest characters in the State, who has been known for

many years as " The Man Who Stcod -till," died recently. Fifty years ago he was the owner of one of i he biggest dry goods shops outside Chicago, and > during the Civil War he prospered greatly. After the war be i'ttiied tc keep abreast of the times, and the eanio poods which ha carrk-d then' still sdern tlio show windows of his shop. For * few years the shop made a profit, but. ' within half a dozen years after the war the place was a curiosity shop, and con tinned so. Mr Stockwell carried about £2OOO woith of goods—all out of datc--for over forty- years. But, notwith--' \.- funding lae'v of custom, he opened' his -v shop promptly at eevon every morning,'-!,£ and remained, until six m th'o Gvenmg. *\t Ho died at tlu> ay.tj oi: aeventy-BOTfiiaV/.V^ :;-- *- *■;.■• t>\si