All Sorts

New Zealand Tablet, 30 July 1908, Page 38

All Sorts

The fairest rose may have the largest thorns. Experience gives us knowledge, butJt costs us ideals;" ,- ' Appearances are not deceitful enough to suit some people. Vanity sometimes assumes the guise of modesty for a > purpose. You might as well talk to an echo as to a person- who always agrees with" you. " If a man's ideal woman is a good' nurse, it is a sure sign he's getting along in years. An experiment has shown that iooo^tons of soot settle yearly on the 10 square miles of London's area. Germany is now making 1,800,000 tons of beet sugar yearly, and exporting more than 1,000,000 tons. In Madagascar silk is the only fabric used in the manufacture of clothing. It is cheaper than linen in Ireland! . ' FJasco ' means a bottle or flask. When the Italian glassblowers detected flaws in the vase they were blowing they made an ordinary bottle of the -failure, and hence the name. - Little girl of four (standing entranced before window of a toyshop) : ' Oh, mother, if you was my little girl, wouldn't I take you in and buy you some of those lovely things ! ' Lady : ' Do you know where Johnny Tucker lives, my little boy?' Little Boy: 'He ain't home, but if you give me a penny I'll find him for you..' Lady: 'All right. Now, where is he?' Little Boy: 'Thanks. I'm him.' The oldest invention for measuring time which history records' was the clepsydra, or water clock. The clepsydra was a glass' cylinder graduated into twelve equal parts, and having at the bottom an opening through which the water escaped in twelve hours. The largest ..churches in Europe will contain the following . numbers : — St. Peter's, Rome, 54,000 ; Milan Cathedral, 37,000 ; St. Paul's, London, 25,000 ; St. Sophia, Constantinople, 23,000 ; Notre Dame, Paris, 21,000; Pisa Cathedral, 13,000; St. Mark's, Venice, 7000. Francis Scott Key, who wrote ' The Star-spangled Banner ' on the back of an old envelope during the bombardment of Fort McHenry, was a Catholic, married into the family of Chief Justice Taney, another Catholic, and whose descendants to-day in Maryland are all Catholics. The Japanese House of Representatives consists of' 300 members, elected by ballot, each member receiving a sajary. . It 3 House of Peers consists of members of the Royal Family, princes and marquises, counts, viscounts, and barons elected as representatives of the several orders, and persons elected for seven years by and from the fifteen highest taxpayers in each , city and prefecture. The two sides of a person's face are never alike. The eyes are' out of line in two cases out of five, and one eye is stronger than the other in seven persons out of ten. The right eye is also as a rule higher than the left. Only one person in fifteen has perfect eyes, the large percentage of defect prevailing among fair-haired people. The smallest interval of sound can be distinguished better with one ear than with both. The nails of two fingers never grow with the same rapidity, that of the middle finger growing the fastest, while that of the thumb grows slowest. In fifty-four cases out of a hundred the left leg is shorter than the right.

Mr. W. Wagstaffe, who has been a member of the London City Guardians for forty-three years, and who was presented recently with an address and a piece of plate, as chairman of the Assessment Committee, "made a' remarkable statement about the city's; wealth. He said that, though the East London and West London Union was incorporated with the City Guardians in 1869, 'and though they had "only jurisdiction over an area covered by < one square 'mile; the annual rateable value had risen from until.it stood to-day at .£6,736,995 — an increase of or a capitalised value of 140 millions. As a matter.o f.f act, -the capitalised value of property in the city today was. 250- millions sterling, and' he ventured to say that no other area-'in the world could claim such a record. " '•