NEWS AND NOTES.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 18 November 1901, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

There are no fewer than 533 technical schools in Belgium with a regular attendance of 40,000 students. In England several cycling clubs have barred the free-wheel in road racing, on the ground that it is a source cf danger.

The authorities of the New York Metropolitan Museum have declined to buy or accept Chinese loot.

The British Government spends about £IO,OOO a year in presents to females who marry after having been in the postal or telegraph service. The New York World says that the annexation of Canada would be a natural beneficent expansion for the United States and asks if the finger of destiny does not point the way. A West Yerginia farmer is using an elephant to do his ploughing. A small circus was stranded in the neighbourhood, and the farmer bought the animal at a bargain. The elephant is much stronger than a horse team, is gentle and eats little and his owner is well pleased with his purchase. Thus the Boston Herald:—-Is Uncle Sam henceforth to act as postboy for Great Britain? It has been demonstrated that the route between London and Australia, via San Francisco and New York, is quicker and better than the route vie Suez Canal or Vancouver.

In some of the schools in Sweden, bathing is one of the compulsory lessons of the pupils Three times a week they must disport themselves in smimming baths, and while the youngsters are enenjoying this curriculum their clothes are purified in steam ovens. The City of Now York contains twice as many Irish as any city in Ireland, and a greater number of Germans that any city in Germany, with the sole exception of Berlin. Many thousands of its inhabitants cannot speak English. Only 20 per cent of the New Yorkers are Americans by birth and parentage. The proportions of the human figure are six times the length of the right foot. The face, from the highest point of the forehead where the hair begins, to the end of the chin, is one-tenth of the whole stature. The hand, from the wrist to the end of the middle finger, is also onetenth of the total height. From the crown to the nape of the neck is onetwelfch of the stature.

A telegram from Elmore, county Alabama, states that George Howard, a well known resident, has been sentenced to imprisonment for life for taking part in the lynching of a negroe. This is the first time in the history of the State that such a sentence has been passed for a lynching outrage. The jury was composed entirely of whites. Two other residents who were leaders in the same affair were each sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. The public sentiment in Alabama ap proves the verdicts and sentences as a vindication of the law. Canada is determined to be in the front rank of the revived shipping trade. The Government of Nova Scotia is making special efforts to induce big firms to plant themselves there. It offers to give £20,000 to the first company establishing a shipyard on its coast capable of turning out five steamers a year of 5000 tons each. The municipality of Halifax further offers a similar amount as subsidy for “a firstclass modern ship-building yard and plant able to build the hulls of iron and steel ships adequate to the construction of not less than 20,000 tons • annually.” Halifax is also prepared to give 2dol a ton for tonnage constructed and launched in the harbor of Halifax, and sdol per gross ton for each ton equipped with machinery and engines manufactured in the city of Halifax.

One phase of Indian progress is shown in the recently published statistical abstract relating to British India from 1890-91 to 1899-1900. It informs us, among other matters, that while in 1890-91 there were only 1,484 printing presses at work in India, there were in 1899-1900 as many as 2,155, In the same period the number of newspapers increased from 547 to 675, and the periodicals from 330 to 465. In the opening year of the decade 664 books were published in English or other European languages, while last year 1,164 saw the light of publication.