Notes and Events.

Manawatu Herald, 21 April 1898, Page 3

Notes and Events.

The people of the United State? support and read more newspaper than England, France, and Germany combined.

The richest princess in the world is the Crown Princes 3 Louise Josephine of Sweden and Norway, married to the Crown Prince of Denmark.

Sailors are allowed half a gill of rum every day. If teetotalerp they are permitted to take up the money instead, or cocoa and sugar \i they prefer it.

The uniform of a trumpeter of the Life Guarda cost about £120.

With a Maxim gun something like 600 shots a minute can be fired iv a continuous stream of bullets.

Mexico ha 9 hud 55 Presidents nince 1821. Ol these 16 have died violent deaths.

There is a small estate in the New Forest which has descended in un~ broken succession from father to son for nearly eight centuries. Th family ia that of Purkiss, the lime, burner, who picked up the body oi King William Eufus, and carried ii in his humble cart to Winchester to receive the last rUep.

The railways bring into London about 80,000,000 gallons of milk pn annum.

Each of onr battleships is 'fitted with various, workships, amongsi which may be mentioned a smithy, where repairs to ironwork of every description can be attended to.

The number of licensed publichouses, including hotel?, taverns. and bars in London is 14.000, with an average of 50ft. of frontage, and placed side by side they would stretch a distance of 130 mile?, or from London to Birmingham. Every day London drinks 5,500 gallons, or 44,000 pints of wine, and 16,000 gallons of spirits. Tb» quantity of beer v not stated.

A good story is told at tho Naliona 1 Liberal Club, London. A. Progres sive Oouoty Council candidate sough to persuade a female voter that tb< Progressive party had dorm faithful service for the People. The dam< teas unresponsive. A man burdened with a bag of coal approached the door. " There," said the candidaU pointing to the bag, "you have an evidenJwbf what the Progressives have «rc>ne for the people. Now you •know*tbafc when you pay for a hun-dred-weight of coals you get a hun-dred-weight." "Yes," snapped out the woman ; " my father was in that busin&ss, and you people ruined him."

About 10,000 b. of eider down is

collected annually in Iceland, 7,0001 b sowing exported toL»foreign countries'. * "Formerly the peasants used to receive over 21?. a pound for it, but thp price has now fallen to half that amount. The peasants seldom re caive money, are {obliged to barter

their down for merchandise furnished by the Danish merchants at the little settlement on the fjords.

The Chinese dictionary, compiled by Pa cut-she, 1,000 years before Christ, is the most ancient of any recorded in literary history.

The organ of the German leather trade, Der r Ledermarkt, regrets that last year was not duly observed as the " Jubilee of the modern pocket leather purse." The older folk among us will remember some of the predecessors of the " portemonnaie." The most popular of these was a knitted tube or pipe, closed at each end, with an opening on one side, and provided with two metal slip rings. The neat and handy portemonnaie was the invention of a German bookbinders apprentice in America, Karl Hene by name, and his novel purse first came' into the market in the year 1847. The in-, ventor neglected to patent his new leather portmonnaie with a steel clasp, and it was quickly imitated all over the world, otherwise Heue would probably have become a very rich man. Since that date the portmonnaie has undergone a series of evolutions in form, material and completeness, but the young Heue, according to the LedetmarM, provided the germ out of which all our modern pocket purses have been developed.