GLEANINGS OF FACT.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 351, 29 January 1903, Page 6

GLEANINGS OF FACT.

The province of Quebec is 293 years old; Montreal, 259; Toronto, 109. The carat used in estimating the weight of gems is * grain of Indian wheat. Coffee is planted 400 trees to the acre, and the yield averages a pound • tree. The cultivation of sngar extended from India to Persia some time in the ninth century. A floating bottle dropped in the Gulf stream will cms the Atlantic in about 180 days. English beekeepers average M pounds of honey from their hi was, American only 20 pounds. The United States grants 25,000 patents a year, England only 8,000. Canada grants 4,000 a year. liondon's fire brigade puts out a fire at an average coat of £4O. New York pays £l3B for the same aervice, and Cincinnati holds the, record with £295 per fire. The only ocoasion upon which a peer or peeress wears a coronet is at the coronation of a sovereign. At the moment when the archbishop of Canterbury places the cwown on the bead of the new monarca every psei present at the ceremcejy dons his own .coronet. The invasion of London by American visitors has reached mnprecedented proportions and never before have there been so ms*y wealthy Americans in the English capital. At one fashionable West end hotel a dozen multimillionaires are staying with their families, and money is being spent with a prodigality which th« British "old nobility" must regard « demoralizing and detestable.