GENERAL ITEMS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XVII, Issue 1402, 13 March 1905, Page 3

GENERAL ITEMS.

[ The fiercest of all animals is the bla° panther. ;.- ; f ‘ ' Malta'is the most densely populated island in the world. Five feet is the minimum height of the Russian conscript. Thoroughbred dogs sere said to be less intelligent than mongrels. The finest poultry produced in France are bred and fed in the vineyards. One hundred and seventy different species of bees are natives of Great Britain.

Tbe tallest man in America is said to be Edward Baupre, a Canadian, Bft 3in in height. Egypt, with 10,000,000 people, has only one lunatic asylum, and that with only 500 beds. Japan is the only country in the world which has never been subdued by any foreign .enemy; . The number of public lamps lighted nightly in England andl Wales is somewhere about 800,000. Australians earn, on an average, £26 per year a head, Portuguese only £l2, and English people £33 6s Bd. Lancashire is the next richest county to London. It is rated at L 24,000,000 against London’s L 43,500,000. The Rhodesian Government has established a post-office savings bank on the lines of that in England; ’ More than 70,000 coaliminers are out on strike in Germany. The whole of the Dortmund district is involved. - The death-rate at Santiago de Cuba under Spanish rule was 137 per 3.000. Under American sanitation it has fallen to 22. ■

Wellington! police are sadly, an need of a drill-sergeant. The average police slouch suggests a cross between the aggressive. lurch of a London coster and the graceful hobble of a Woolloomoolao pustule. The judges in a ladies’ bike pace down South disqualified. the winner because sihe rode .a man’s hike. On appeal, Jbhe sports committee decided thati - the manly girl was in the right, and upheld her appeal. They’re talking of forming a bowling cl.ub up at Taihape. They reckon that, drawing shots will just be as 1 easy as drawing corks, and when it comes to smashing up a head—well, Taihape has a reputation for being all there, ' ■ t. - A ship’s dootor who has made many ( voyages declares that the Amerioan girl does not become seasick so readily as her European sisters. The English girl is next in order of resistance, while the French girl succumbs most easily. It is said that if music is played under ' a tree infested with caterpillars it causes - them to fall stupefied to the ground. The , great majority of insects dislike music. Several years ago a very well-known French naturalist found that by playing on la loud brass instrument for a few nights he could rid a house of all criokets and black beetles. , Colonists have other and better work to do just now than bothering their heads as to the next election, and the probable candidates. Business is brisk throughou the colony, and so long as this happy state of affairs continues, colonists, one and all, will do well to “ give polities a rest.”— Blenheim Express. We do not think that this colony is advanced enough for a Labor Government pure and simple. f?ith a noisy head. New Zealand was looking after the interests of its workers when Australia was only think, ing of doing so, and we might now take a rest and watch the sister States. —New Plymouth Herald. Undoubtedly the most glaring injustice perpetrated by the present Administration has been its shameless favouritism towards the South Island and its bare faced, callous neglect of the North Island. There is no bilkiog that fact.— Whangarei Advocate. The Paris correspondent of the “ Standard” haß recently given some particulars of a remarkable ease in Paris. The plaintiff is an eminent Parisian surgeon, the defendants a firm who took cinematograph films of his operations- This he allowed them to do, so that he might get scientific records, but the films once obtained have been sold and even exhibited at country fairs. In one case we are told that a Parisian hostess, anxious to entertain her guests as they had never been entertained before, had a cinematographed operation performed after a select little dinner party. Other ladies followed the example thus set, until one fine evening a lady who some time before had undergone an operation happened to be present at a party whore the cinematograph proceeded to give a graphio representation of her own sufferings. Naturally she was much out up at thus befog wounded, in the house of a friend. Wo are not surprised that the surgeon should claim heavy damages for the use made of the films. Meanwhile the photographers claim that they can do what they like with their own. AJ remarkable episode occurred be- j tween the entrenchments of the two armies on the Sbaho on New .Year’s Bay illustrating the absence of ani-i, mosity between the combatants. Russian anil Japanese officers met under red flags,, and spent the afternoon in friendly conversation'. Eac-h officor bail an escort of two soldiers. The affair was entirely, unofficial, and was the result of an exchange of notes between two junior officers who were in ' command of pickets which occupied the same ground alternately ail'd who had carried on a friondly and joking correspondence, by leaving letters in the Chinese houses. When the/parties sallied-forth to the mcetin)g-P.laco, one of the ‘Russian ftrenehesr-which had not been notified, that a truce had been arranged—opened Hro. The Japanese percipijtafely retired, hut on the -Russian party returning to their own lines anil stopping the firing, they again advanced to the meeting-place. Both parties brought refreshments, .-'and the meeting, which was intended to last Only half an hour, did riot break dp. until, two hours had elapsed..