BREVITIES.

Evening Star, Issue 14931, 18 July 1912, Page 8

BREVITIES.

Dunedin incorporated July 18, 1865. Four miles of an ordinary spider's thread would weigh only one grain. Tiie parrot appreciates music more than anv ether of the lower creatures. A whale of 50 tons v;cight exerts 145 h.p. in swimmintr 12 miles an hour. In one vear 86,707,C00 telegrams were despatched* in the United Kingdom. Nearlv 16£ million tons was the world's production of sugar for 1911. The population of India is over seven times as large as that of the L'nited Kingdom. Ninety-nine miles is tho total length of the Suez Canal, and the width is just over 121 ft. Dr W. G. Grace was born on July IS, 1S?8. The health authorities claim that Auckland is now a clean city. There are 5,155 girls employed in work rooms in Auckland, and of these 1,652 are under 21 years of age. _ A man who was charged with drunkenness at Portsmouth said that the police had behaved " as nice and decent to him as if he were a German spy." Ths first case on record of suicide by taking quinine has occurred at Pittsburg. Pennsylvania, where a 3'oung girl killed herself by swallowing 18Sgr of the drug. A woman in a Bukharest theatre, instead of complying with a request to remove her hat, bade her husband exchange places with the exacting spectator in the seat behind her. Mile Gertrude Wicker, who has been appointed assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Leipzig, is the first woman to occupy a university chair in Germanv. Mrs Bacon, of Great Gravels, Burghclere, Hampshire, celebrated her 101st birthdav last month. She is in good health, "and can see to read and write . without the aid of glasses.