All Sorts

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 22, 3 June 1909, Page 878

All Sorts

On the Junfrau, in Switzerland, is the highest restaurant in the world — 10,000 feet above sea-level. Prisoners condemned to death in Greece have to wait two years before the death penalty is carried out. Owing to the lack of farm hands in Austria, 'goodconduct ' convicts are being employed as agricultural laborers. Lightning, when it strikes a tree, sometimes converts the sap into steam with such energy that it explodes, scattering the wood in every direction. The most costly tomb in existence js that which was erected to the memory of Mohammed. The diamonds and rubies ixsed in the decorations are worth £2,000,000. Guernsey, which measures scarcely 21 square, miles, exports annually to London and provincial markets over 20,000 tons of tomatoes and fruit, which realise a sum of over £500,000. A perfect diamond must be free from the f aintost tinge of color, though when it has a decided color, such as blue, green, etc., it becomes a fancy stone, and will bring a fancy price. ' See here, Mr. Editor, I thought your paper was friendly to me. See what you have done. I made a speech at the banquet last night, and you haven't printed a word of it.' ' Well, what further proof do you want?' ' Pardon me,' said the Christchurch lady on a marketing expedition, ' but are these eggs fresh laid ?' ' Absolutely, madam,' replied the grocer, promptly. / The farmer I purchased those eggs from won't allow his hens to lay them any other way.' . Jones (to Brown, who has been relating his wonderful adventures in Russia) : ' And I suppose" you visited the great steppes of Russia ?' Brown : ' I should rather think so, and walked up every one of them on my hands and knees.' ' Yon ought to be ashamed of yourself,' observed the Sunday school teacher severely to the small girl who had but too obviously omitted to wash her face that morning. ' Look at your little brother ; see how nice and clean he is.' The small girl sniffed. ' Well,' she replied, * it's 'is birfday.' Friend (noticing the confused heaps of goods of every description scattered promiscuously about the shop) : 'Hello! What's happened? Been taking an inventory, had a fire, or are you going to move out ?' Draper : ' That shows how little you know about the drapery business. We have merely been waiting on a lady who dropped in for a paper of pins.' There are 37 clerks in the House of Commons, -only three of whom sit in the Hoitse itself. The remainder are divided between the four main offices situated in various parts of the building — the Public Bill Office, the Journal Office, the Committee Office, and the Private Bill Office. The head of this body is the Clerk of the House, who sits at the table in the seat nearest the Treasury bench. The New York correspondent of the London Express says : ' According to the estimates of the municipal authorities, the present population of New York City is 4,500,000 — an increase of half a million in the past four years. The city contains 1,800,000 Germans and children of Germans, almost as many as there are in Berlin; 1,200,000 Irish, or more Irish than there are in Dublin; 750,000 Jews, more than there are in any other city in -the world; and 450,000 Italians, ranking New York next to Naples, Milan, and Rome as an Italian metropolis. The rest of the population is_ divided among representatives of almost every • nationality in the world. There are also some Americans. The annual budget of the city is, £31,200,000, one-fifth that of the United Kingdom.' v Smithfield (says a writer in the Daily Mail) is the largest meat market in the world:*- The other week there entered it 7900 tons of supplies. Perhaps ' a ton of meat ' does not convey a very clear idea to your mind. Tliink, then, of a pound ~of meat. Now multiply it by seventeen and a half millions. London last week consumed 17,696,000 pounds of meat — over 1100 tons a day. And that was a small supply. The daily average for last year, omitting Sundays and bank holidays, was 1611 tons. Where does this enormous quantity of meat come from? Clearly it is not all Home-grown, for as one looks. out of railway-carriage windows in England one sees ample pasture land, but few cattle or sheep. Our own farmers supply only a small percentage of the 720,000 ~ bullocks, > 6,150,000 sheep, and 800,000 pigs which London's appetite calk for in a year.