MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Lyell Times and Central Buller Gazette, Volume VI, Issue 261, 20 February 1886, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Neither Mr G adstone nor Lord Salisbury smokes. I Iv re are about 4"00 pawnbrokers in o»eat H itain. In I'hiladel.hia there are 25,000 morn women thai men The bir'hs in the world exceed the death-* by th»ee minute. A woman in N w Yoik had a delusion tb.it she was the p sse-sor < f two heads,; n 1 therefore ki led liemeh Parliamentary Blue-books are s ■ ca'bd because their covers are- blue Foiig Chins: is I lie wealthiest Chinese merchant in S.n FrancVco He speaks good Kng ish, and owua in all sixteen shoe lartori s, si uated in that city, Texas and Mexico The average rental paid for agii ul tural lai d in Knelind is now fr >ra 20< to 80s per acre, as compared With 21s in Krance, 80s in Belgium 30s in Holland, and 24* in Denmark ()ver £IOOO )0 a year are received by Queen Victoria f<om the esta es ot pinions who die intestate and without heirs, all such property belonging to her Majesty, in right ot her royal pre* rotative. Suicide is fashionabe in Ber'in There are ten eases a day on an average Kecently a banker named Kirkwold and his wife committed ■suicide, and left directions to have their bodies cremated. V r anderbiit us*d to plough with oxen on aSt iten Jsland farm. Jay Gould used to be a b »ok peddler Most American millenaries began life entirely outside of what are called the favoured clashes. The story emes to Nantucket by letter that a Chicago man, eating tried clams there last summer bi noon a hard substance. He saved it as a souvenir, and now lie is assured hv a lapidary that it is a pearl worth cOOdols Work in Kussian fabric factories is by a new law lot bidden between 8 o'clock at night and 5 in the morning It was not out of regard for the employees, but with a view to lessen ing over-production that this has been done. Excitement has been caused in Rome by the confession of a horrible murder by a butcher named Tazzio. He killed a rival butcher nam «d Poppi and boiled his blood to make black puddings, which wete sold ic his (TfzzioV) shop The ancient whaling barque George and Susan, recently 104 in the Arctic Ocean, was built in 1810, and during her 67 years of activity bad brought home to New Bed'ord in round numbers 45,000 barre's of oil and ICG 0001 b of vv hah bone. A Californian blacksmith is dangerously ill with glanders, contracted while shoeing a horse. And a Penn sylvania woman is suffering from a si rained ankle contracted while " shooing " a hen. There *eems to be a fatality about sheir shoeing business The longest canal in the world is the one which extends from the frontier of China to 8t Petersburg; it measures in all 4172 miles. There i« another canal running from Astrachan to St Petersburg, which is 1431 miles long. Both ot these were commenced bv Peter the Ureat. Lord Napier, in a recent address to the Church of England Temperar.ee Society, said that while commanding the armies ot India a return made to him, relating to 18 000 men, showed that among the total abstainers there were no crimes, but the whole body of crime, was am*>ng ton-abstainers. The New York Examiner eavs that for each 10 000,000 of the population the number ot murders is as follows:England. 287; rjelgium. 240; France, 2b's; Scandinavia, 2GG ; Germany, 279; Ireland, 294; Austra, 310; Russia, 323; Italy, 504; Spain, 533; United States, 820 The wives and families of Peruvian soldiers always travel with tiVm, like the squaws and papoosos of the North A merican Indian Their powers are extraordinary. Often it is tha ease that thev will march twenty or thirty mi'es.a day over dust? roads carrying a child on their backs, with out food or water. Kirg Humbert of I'alv is thirty eiiiht years o.d. His tace hibitually wears a sad and sober expression. The rare unile which lights it is one of marked sweetness an I character His manners are courteous Me takegreat interest in the education of his only son, a boy of't n years. Blotting-paper, saturated with a solution of oxa'ic tfcid and dried ™ili not only absorb the ink o f a blot, bu» will remove 'he blot itself if the iilt does not contain indigo or at.iline colour It miyht be dangerous in re moving sigrahires from important papers, but ibe trace of the writing will remain, and can be made hv adding fcrrocyarude of potassium or gallic acid.