MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Lyell Times and Central Buller Gazette, Volume VI, Issue 289, 4 September 1886, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

About five miles of cable tramways are about to be laid in Edinburgh, and about six miles in Birmingham. Prince Bismarck's physician says that the Chancellor drinks entirely too much beer. Professor Huxley says it would require nearly one million barrels of herrings to supply the cod on the Norwegian coast with one breakfast. The largest British salmon caught this year was exhibited at a wellknown fishmonger's naar Charingcross lately. It weighed no less than 621b. A drum was often used as a bell by town criers at the end of the last and beginning of the present centuay, especially in the northern Counties and in Scotland. The total capital invested in gas shares and loans in the United Kingdom is £51,988,881, of which amount £17,874,951 is in the returns of the local authorities. The inhabitants of Morocco, as well as others along the North of Africa, blacken themselves around the eyes to avert opthalmia from the glare of the hot svnd. The annual slaughter of 100,000 elephants is required to keep the world supplied with ivory. England alone uses up the product of 80,000 elephants, or 1,200,000 pounds. The Borneo tree toad has a slender toody and broad webbed feet that act like a parachute, enabling the animal to leap from a tree top and float through the air like a flying squirrel. The twenty-six submarine Cable Companies of the globe own a total length of 98,450 miles, their capital being £34,459,089, with a reserve fund of £3,148,695, and a gross annual revenue 0f£8,477,082. Mr Leatham Bright, son of the old orator says—"lt pained him to the very core when he saw his greyheaded father walking to the House of Commons to fling a stone at the head of Mr Gladstone." After the 80 years' war'm 1650, Berlin had only 6000 inhabitants, and in 1861 538,000. In 25 years these last figures have been more than doubled, an unprecedented fact in contemporaneous European history. Germany has of late years become a formidable rival of India in jute manufactures. Germany began to spin and weave jute fibre a a quarter of a century ago. In 1874 the spindles were estimated at about 17,000; they are now nearly 60,000. In the House of Commons on June 17th, Sir L. Playfair made the annual statement with regard to national education. The amount of the education estimate for the coming year was, he stated, £3,425,981, an increase of £123,092 over the previous year's estimate. At Washington, on June 28th, there was sresented the largest petition ever seen in Cougress. It was half a mile long and made a roll two feet in diameter. It contained the names of over 50,000 Knights of Labour asking for more effective legislation against Chinese immigration. The Japanese have not only nearly 300 miles of railroad in operation, but they make their own cars, and the building of the line, from Tsuruga to Ogaki was conducted by young Japanese engineers, whose task included two large bridges and a tunnel a mile long. An association of pharmacists in Paris has been discussing the old question of the influence of plants in bedrooms upon the health of the occupants. The conclusion is that the plants are beneficial, especially to sufferers from consumption, plants without flowers being preferable. The value of ostrich feathers has long been declining, until the price of prime whites has sunk from £SO to £lO der lb. At a recent sale at Capetown 16201b of mixed feathers only realised a total of £8047, values having fallen fifteen per cent, from previous sales. The diamond fields of Central India originally supplied the world with nearly all the notable diamonds ; but they are now nearly superseded. The largest supply is at present obtained from the Brazils, and the diamonds of Borneo are held in high repute, The mines of the Cape of Good Hope have produced a large number of stones, but many of them have a yellow tint. An American physician, Dr. Mott, has been over to Paris for the purpose of specially studying Professor Pasteur's method of innoculating for hydrophobia. He appears to have returned satisfied, and even delighted, with what he saw a learned, and he brought back a rabbit which Pasteur had inoculated for him. This is said to be the first time that Pasteur has given the virus to anybody.