GENERAL NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8045, 6 February 1906, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS.

Japan is a corruption ot the Chinese word Shi-pen-Kue, which weans "root of day," or" sunrise kingdom," because Japan is direct); east of China.

In the British Isles are now produced 2,508 newspapers, to which total alone Londo contributes 490, while there are also published a variety of magazines and reviews to the number ot 1,540.

In the collecting-box at the door of the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital has been found half-a-crown, enclosed in a note which reads Thirty weeks' savmg<froma working woman as thanks for good health, 1

Fifty numbers of a newspaper 300 years old have been found in the State archives at Stettin, Pomerania, containing descriptions of the plague, shipping disasters, etc., the news of January being given only in August.

A German chemist named Blau has succeeded in liquefying illuminated gas, in that form giving a good light, which is useful in country houses, railway trains, eto. It costs more than ordinary coal gas, but less than •lectric light.

Lighthouses for the guidances of mariners are very ancient. The earliest in England of a permanent character were the North and South Foreland Lights. They were merely lath-and-plaster buildings, with a light on top of them in a glass lantern. The first Eddystone was erected about the middle of the last oentury.

In Tokio, the capital of Japan, there exiata a gigantic statue of a woman, made of wood and piaster, and dedicated to Hachiman, the god of war. In height it measures 54ft.; the head alone, which is reached by a winding stairway in the interior of the figure, being large enough to comfortably hold twenty persons. The figure holds a huge wooden sword in one hand (the blade of the weapon being 27ft- long), and a ball 12ft. in diameter in the other. Internally the figure is fitted up with an extraordinary anatomical arrangement, supposed to represent the different portions of the brain. „ The sheep king of the world is said to bo G. L. Waidron of Patagonia. Mr. Waidron is the principal owner in a company that has 750,000 sheep and which has annually a wool output of 4,000,000 pounds, On the sheep range he has two packing houses employing 500 men, and they prepare 70,000 sheep for the market each year. In that far off land he owns a territory of 1,200 sijuare miles in extent, with a frontage of 270 miles of sea coast. In addition he owns most of the is'and of Tierra del l'uego, and <IO,OOO acres m the Falkland Islands.

The honour of being first photographed belongs to Lord Avebury. Monsieur Daguerre, the co-inventor of photography, came to London in 183!) to patent his new process. Whilst explaining [tie details of his invention to Sir John Lubbock's father, the little son of his host was playing in the garden, and became the first sitter to the first photographer. -The very successful result helpei to give a practical turn to the demonstration. By the labours of Daguerre and Talbot this art was soon placed on a commercial basis, and almost immediately sprang into prominence and popularity.

Before the North American Colonies revolted, it was the British custom to present medals to Indian chiefs with whom treaties were made. These medals bore a figure of the reigning British sovereign on the obverse and emblems of peace on the reverse and were called Indian medals. After the declarations of Independence, Washington presented a United States medal to the Seneca chief Sa-go-ya-wat-lm (he keeps them awake), who was known popularly as lied Jacket. This lied -Jacket medal is interesting as one oi the earliest of the medals issued by the first President of the Great Republic.

The so-called briar pipe is not made of briar at all, hut train the root of a particular kind of heather, called in French bruyere, which grows oil the hill sides of the Tuscan Alps in Xorlh Italy, and on the mountains of Corsica. English tradesmen, finding the correct word bruyere somewhat difficult for the British tongue to pronounce, reduced it to briar, and in this way the corruption crept in and was established by popular usage. Originally .Swiss peasants made snuff-boxes of this wood, aod when snulf-taking became unfashionable, tlie peasants turned their attention to making pipes from the root, and found a ready market for them.

• • 1 Wo are continually hearing stories about the intelligence and affection of animals, but none can, 1 think, equal the pathetic little history of a swan who has just returned for the summer to Moorhouse Tarn, Cumberland. Home seasons ago he lived happily on the lake with his mute ; but, alas! their nest was robbed, and the female bird pined away and died. The disconsolate survivor covered the body with leaves and grasses and left the scene of his formei-happiness. But memory has made him return, and every spring has seen him back at the tarn, always alone, and swimming about with only the water birds for company.

Pompey's I'ilkr, at Alexandria, waa neit her erected to Pompey nor to.liis memory. Brazil grass neither comes from nor grows in TirAv.il. It is stripped from a species ol Cuban palm. Galvanised iron is not galvanised at all. hut is coated with zinc, by being plunged into a bath ol that metal and muriatic acid. Cleopatra's Needles were not erected by that queen, neither do they commemorate any event in her history. They were set up by Hameses the Great. The Jerusalem artichoke has no connection whatever with tile holy city ot Palestine. It is a species of sunflower. and gets its name from girasole, one of the scientific names of that genus of plants Arabic figures were not invented by the Arabs, but by the early scholars of India.

The electric lights seen playing round the masts of ships at sea, and known variously as the fires of St. Helen, St. Elmo, SL Peter, and Kt. Nicholas, were familiar to sailors iong before the Christian era. If single the Ilainc was named after Helen of Troy, and its appearance was regarded as a bad ome'n. Two lights were known to the ancient liomansas 'Castor and Pollux," and sailors welcomed I hem as boding good luck. In tliilli M."dc Forbes records counting more than thirty lights danc'iig round the masts and rigging of his ship. If the lights first appeared low, and disappeared by ascending the masts, a prosperous voyage was believed to be assured, but lights that began at the topmast, and descended towards the»sea presaged tempest, and danger of wreck. 'llhtc is a •• house of call" in Kginont jSlrivl, i[uilc ..I' the Continental |> ,Mi. At (lie Arcadia Cigar Slure, a man ciiii enjoy liis :'ig:iivl Ic ol' pipe 'n a cosy sitting-room, write a lelterov I\m>, piny liis game ol' elie>* or ilraughls, ami llien- ci.uilinuc liis business. Here, tile morning p:i|vT, the " Daily ]Ve\vs," and 1 lie "Times" can be purchased with (lie early morning smoke, JO. Vim i'eldcn, the proprietor, lias a smoke il ami i iiv. Call in. Ail\l.