Notes and Events.

Manawatu Herald, 10 May 1892, Page 3

Notes and Events.

So inferior is the quality of th c paper of the present clay — even of that which is called the best — that experts predict that our books will fall to pieces before the middle of the next century. The paper which has survived two or three centuries was made by hand, of linen rags, and without the use of chemicals. 'So- day much of the paper for books is made of a pulp of all sorts of materialfTtreated with powerful acids, while the ink is a compound of various substances which eat into the paper upon which it is laid. The printing of tonday, it is feared, will within 50 years have eaten its way through the pages upon which it is impressed. Next to camphor, the chief product of the island of Formosa, off the coast of China, so far as foreign trade is concerned, is sugar. The cultivators are for the most part in the hands of a few native capitalists, and, owing to the usurious interest charged (18 to 80 per cent per annum), are little better than serfs under the money lenders. The cane is crushed in stone mills worked by buffaloes, and held in shares by neighbouring planters, each mill being dismantled and the stones buried at the end of the season. Experiments made with simple foreign crushing mills show that a third of the total crop is lost in the native mills by wasteful working. In a gossipy article in the Nineteenth century on the story of Sedan, Mr Archibald Forbes gives an interesting instance of how " relics " and " historical associations " are sometimes manufactured. The night after the surrender Mr Forbes slept in the house and, indeed, in the very bed occupied on the previous night by Napoleon 111. He was writing at a great oak table one of his telegrams to the Daily News, when a famished companion, who was disconsolately gnawing at a ham bone, " the miserable reman t of their store of pro- visions," threw it on the table with a muttered objurgation and upset the special correspondent's ink, Revisiting tho chateau a few months later, Mr Forbes was gravely shown a huge ink stain on the dining-room table, which, the guide solemnly informed him was caused by the upsetting of the ink bottle used at the signature of the capitulation of Sedan ! Wimfen, he was assured, had overturned it in the agitation of his shame and grief The guide added that great sums had been offered for this .table with the historic ink stain, but that no money would induce the proprietor to part with it. Mr Forbes has shed a good deal of ink with profit both to himself and other people in the course of his life, but in this case the profit seems to have all gone ts "Us autrcs." It is only fair to add, however, that the ink- shedding has usually been a much more laburious and painful process than in the instance under notice. Thirty thousand pounds is the estimated value of the pipe which the Shah of Persia smokes in public on state occasions. It is called "II Kalidin," and is entirely encrusted with diamonds, rubies, pearls, and emeralds. Ihe late King of Wurtemburg inherited the prominence of abdomen for which the Swabian royal family has always been noted. One of his uncesters was so large round the waistband that when seated at dinner he could not reach his plate, and it became necessary to cut out a piece from the table for his accommodation. Every person under 21 years of age needs nine hours' rest out of the 24. So says Dr Cold, an eminent German physician. The Bishop of Chester declares that "late hours of business on Saturday evenings in our great towns lull short of a public scandal ; and it is impossible to believe that there is no escape from a custom which for myriads devotes the evening hours of Saturday to a debauch of drudgery, and makes ' Sunday a day, not of rest, but exhaustion." The most wonderful artesian well perhaps in the world is found in Huron, North Dakota. It throws up water to the height of about 100 ft, and the amount is estimated at from SCOOgal to lO.OOOgaI per -minute,