Pith and Point.

Western Star, Issue 2220, 8 July 1898, Page 4

Pith and Point.

In 1894 Germany exported 56,414 tons of wire nails and 209,000 tons of wire. Strawberries have been cultivated in England since the reign of Richard 11. It is not generally known that Mrs. Gladstone is an organist of no mean merit. The United States consumes more than 50 per cent of the tinplates exported by Great Britain. Nearly £1,000,000 worth of patent medicines are exported from the United Kingdom each year. Half-a-pound of broiled beefsteak twice a day is the best tonic for nervous or run-down women. The chameleon, which is said to feed upon nothing but air, has of all animals the nimblest tongue. In many German factories the female workers are forbidden to wear corsets during working hours.

" Going to pot" is a reminder of the clays when boiling to death was a legal punishment of parricides.

Lapp men and women dress exactly alike—in 'tunics, leather breeches, wrinkled stockings, and pointed shoes.

The latest thing in glass is a factory in Liverpool, England, built of glass bricks, with chimney, floors, and shingles of the same material. .N^

The Queen's walking-stick is a branch of the historic oak of Charles 11. Fastened -to the top is a tiny Indian idol part of the spoil of Seringapatam.

The Hotel Cecil has been insured for three-quarters of a million sterling. This huge amount has been subdivided among a number of companies by reinsurance.

The total length of telgraph lines in the world is 1,062,700 miles, of which America has 545,000 miles, Europe 350.700, Asia 67,400, Africa 21,500, and Australia 47,500 miles.

The coal mines of Great Britain produced 1,410,555,360 tons during eight years from 18S7 to 1894. The iron ore mined during the same period amounted to 1,033,204,769 tons.

The Sultan of Morocco keeps a large number of live lions about his premises, and In the evening these animals are let loose in the courtyards of the palace to act as guards to the Royal harem.

An evidence of the striking uniformity of size among the Japanese is found m the fact that recent measurements taken of an infantry regiment show no variation exceeding 2in. in height or 20lt>. in weight.

Rontgen rays have been used to take pictures of flowers. They show the ovules inside the ovary in an unopened bud, the seeds within a seed vessel and even the veins upon the white petals of a flower.

"It may be easier to do the work of a General Gordon," said Dr. Allon, "than to live the life of a London sempstress.-' True heroism is oftenest found in the struggle, endurance, and self-sacrifice of common life."

One of the Empress of Russia's newest possessions is a railway car of her own, exquisitely upholstered in rose satin and lighted by electricity. The wheels of the compartments are covered with indiaru'bber tires.

No more Havana cigars. The Cuban war has done its work so far as tobacco. is concerned. There is a terrible, painladen, smokeless time ahead for the man who can't bear to smoke anything but Havana cigars.

Apricots came originally from Armenia, gooseberries from Siberia, radishes from China and Japan, onions from Spain and Portugal, vegetable marrow from America, and cauliflower from Canada and Cyprus.

Falsehood is never so successful as when she baits h'er hook with truth. No opinions so fatally mislead as those that are not wholly wrong; just as no watches so elfiectually deceive the wearers as those that are sometimes right. The Araibs of the desert have a strange prejudice against running water, and will only drink from stagnant pools. Having done this for generations, perhaps thousands of years, the most poi-sonous-looking water agrees with them; and pure water makes them ill.

When the present Duchess of Fife was about to be married the Princess of Wales secured several fabrics from the Spitalfields silk weavers for the trousseau. She has now commissioned these weavers to make a number of handsome fabrics for the trousseau of the Princess Maud.

It is stated that since trees have been extensively planted in Southern California tlie rainfall of the region has become much more uniform and favourable to agriculture. But there are other parts of the State in which the sawmills are wiping out the forests and planting the desert in the midst of nature's bounties.

We read in the "World" that the Queen's special trains from Cherbourg to Nice and back cost anout £4OOO, and her Majesty also had 'to pay for the specials from Boulogne to Nice and back, which conveyed the servants, horses, carriages, and heavy luggage. The average total cost to Privy Purse of the Queen's annual Continental trip is about £IO,OOO.