Notes and Events.

Manawatu Herald, 18 July 1893, Page 3

Notes and Events.

The consumption of tea in England during 1892- reached the highest point ever touched since its use has been generally diffused among the masses, the total quantity used being 207,000,0001 b, Few ladies have 'such a curious matrimonial experience as one recently married, for the third time, at Newcastle on-Tyne. ■ Her first hus-band-was a Quaker, the second a Roman Catholic, and her present one a Protestant. 'She married at 16, when the bridegroom was 82 ; at 80 she choose a partner aged 60 ; and now, at the age of a little over 40, she has chosen a gentleman of 84. A wonderful freak of nature in the vegetable kingdom may be observed a short distance east of Ashburnham, Massachusetts. A tree, about the size of a large apple tree, has a limb about 18in. or 20in. in diameter. Persons have dug down and found but one root underneath, but it has two kinds of foliage, that of a pine and that of an oak. In the fall of • the years burrs fallon one side and acoins on the other/ : It is stated that" 1 wool can be manufactured out of iron . There comes from the iron furnaces (says the Drapers' Record) a substance so white and light, so fluffy and flaky, that it looks and feels like picked wool. It is called "slag-wool." Slag is a waste substance, formed by the separation of the earthy matter from the ore, and looks like coarse dark glass if allowed to cool as it comes from the fire. Formerly it was thrown away as valueless, but now that a process for converting it into " wool " has been discovered, it is utilised for maby purposes.