SOME COSTLY THINGS.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 6, 6 May 1893, Page 4

SOME COSTLY THINGS.

Hew York’s capitol at Albany is the costliest building of modern times. Up to date 19,600,000 dollars have been expended on it, equal in British money to £4,000,000. Tbe most expensive municipal ball in tbe world and tbe largest in tbe United States is tbe City Building of Philadelphia. The largest clock in the world is to he in its tower.

The most expensive Legislature in the world is that of France, which costs annually £720,000. The Italian Parliament costs £86,000.

The costliest paintings of modern times are Meissonier’s “1814” and and Millet’s “ The Angelas.” M. Chauchard gave £35,000 for “ 1814 ” and £30,000 for “ The Angelns.” Mr Henry Hilton in 1887 paid £12,500 for Meissonier’s “ Friedland, 1807,” and presented it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The most costly book in the world is said to be a Hebrew Bible now in the Vatican. In 1512 were are told that Pope Julius II refused to sell the Bible for its weight in gold, which would amount to £21,000. That is the greatest price ever offered for a book.

The costliest meal ever served, according to history, was a supper given by yElius Yerus, one of the most lavish of all the Romans of the latter days, to a dozen guests. The cost was six thousand sestetia, or nearly £50,000.

The costliest toy on record was a broken-nosed wooden horse which belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte, and was sold a year or two ago for one thousand francs.

The largest sum ever offered for a single diamond was £436,000, which the Nizam of Hyderbad agreed to give to Mr Jacobs, the famous jeweller of Simla, for the Imperial Diamond, which is considered the finest stone in the world.

In 1836 a tulip bulb was sold in Holland for £4,500. It weighed 200 grains. A celebrated feast given by Vitellius, a Roman emperor of those days, to his brother Lucius, cost a little more than £40,000. Suetonius says that the oanquet consisted of two thousand different dishes of fish and seven thousand different fowls, besides many other courses. The costliest mats in the world are owned by the Shah of Persia and the Sultan of Turkey. The Shah and the Sultan each possess a mat made of pearls and diamonds, valued at more than £500,000. The largest mat ever made is owned by the Carlton Club of London, and is a work of art. The most valuable gold ore ever mined in the United States, and probably in the world, was a lot containing 2001 b of quartz, carrying gold at the rate of £IO,OCX). It was taken from the main shaft of the mine at Ishpeming, Mich. The greatest sum ever paid for telegrams in one week by a newspaper was the expenditure of the Times for cable service from Buenos Ayres during the revolution in the Argentine Republic. The cost of cabling from Buenos Ayres to London was about 7s a word, and the Times paid out £6,000 for one week’s despatches. The most expensive royal regalias in the world are those of the Maharajah of Baroda, India. First comes a gorgeous collar containing five hundred diamonds, arranged in five rows, some as large as walnuts. Top and bottom rows of emeralds of equal size relieve the lustre of the diamonds. A pendant is a single brilliant called the “ Star of the Deccan.” The Maharajah’s special carpet, 10ft by 6ft, made of pearls, with a big diamond in the centre and at each corner, cost £300,000.