GENERAL NEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2174, 2 September 1907, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS.

The world’s blind are computed to number 1,000,000 —about one sightless person to every 1100 inhabitants. The Forth bridge is a mile and a half long, and lias three great towers, a centre span of half a mile, and cost 57 lives and £3,000,000 to construct.

In Italy there are cultivated every year 1,250,0000 z of silkworm eggs, and there, are produced 110,000,0001 b of cocoons. Lombardy produces fully half of this total. The annual consumption of meat in Australia is 2761 b per inhabitant; in Great Britain 118; In France 77; in . Germany, 64; in Austria, 61; in Russia, ol ; in Italy, 26.

Wealth cannot purchase pleasure of the highest sort- It is the heart, taste and judgment which determine tho happiness of man and restores him to tho highest form of being.

Tho gross sum to tho credit of depositors iu ‘ the Australian savings bank is now 16 million sterling. This shoivs a higher average per head of population than in Britain.

A vessel’s tonnage is found thus: Multiply the inside length of the keel in feet by the length of the midship beam, and result by tho depth. Divide the product by 94.

A peculiar incident happened in a liopso near Deal. During a thunderstorm tho lightning imprinted a perfect photograph of a vase or flowers on a mirror before which it stood. Fred Archer had six mounts at

Lewes on August 5, 1882, and won all of them. He rode five winners in one afternoon at Chester, Manchester (twice), Windsor, and Stockbridge.

In proportion to tho population, Italy shows the largest number of murders—l 3 to every 100,000 inhabitants. The relative number in Spain is 9, in Germany 1, in Great Britain 1.

The United States can boast of having 200,000,000 fruit-hearing trees. It is expected that between four and five million bushels of apples will be exported this season, the bulk going to England.

India rubber trees which are tapped every other day continue to yield sap for. more than 20 years, and -it a curious fact that the oldest and most frequently tapped troess produce the richest -sap.

A certain English railway company has a regular , form on which accidents occtirring to animals on its system are! reported. One of its men Rad to report the killing of a cow. In answer to the question, “Disposition of carcase?” ho wrote, “Kind and gentle.”

“That house I have taken from you,” said the dissatisfied tenant, “isj horribly draughty. When I am sitting in the middle of the room my hair blows all ovor my head. Can’t you do something for tho windows?” “Don’t you thing, sir,” replied the house agent suavely, “it- would be easier and cheaper for you to get your hail - cut?”

The Oxford University Press lias just sold the final copy of a book published by it as long ago as 1716 at 12s 6d, and continuously oil sale ever since. The volume which has thus enjoyed 191 years of uninterrupted if somewhat slow circulation, and lias never undergone the indignity of being “remaindered,” is_ “Wilkins’s New Testament in Coptic.”