GENERAL NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8060, 12 March 1906, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS.

It ts twins seriously proposed lo Iho I municipality of Paris by a contractor o! standinc, to pave the streets with milk. He claims (or n pavement ot iudurated milk the advantages of durability and noiselessness. Perhaps, also, in limes ot distress and turbulence it might provide a resource attractive enough to divert the populace from barricades and bombardment of the public forces. It is sober truth that at the approaching dollmakers' exhibition there will be a great variety of objects made from indurated milk. These include dominoes, dice, cigar-holders, canes, umbrella handles, forks and spoons. * » * Itecent statistics show that serpents kill more persons in India than in any other country. During 11)01 the number of victims was 22,810, and it is estimated that almost, if not ijuite, as many were killed in 190*2. Physicians, by the use of proper antidotes, do what they can to effect cures, but there are many regions where physicians are rery rarely seen, and there the natives rely solely on vinegar, which they apply to the wound caused by the serpent. This simple remedy is said to prove very effective if administered in time, and it is also useful in the case of wound* caused by other animals besides serpents. ' - • • » v &"-.•?' One half of the genial humorist's quaint sajligs are never recorded most likely he even forgets them himself. An acquaintance of his says some of his most quaint sayings are uttered within the privacy of his own home, and fail to find their way into print. Two new maxims are quoted as having been recently added to the world's stock. They are: "Wa ought never to do wrong when people are looking," and "No real gentleman Wfiuldever tell the naked truth in the presence of a lady." To these nwy be added his tribute to a deceased friend, " He did not possess one interesting vice to brighten hi* sombre virtues." _stf"— Lord Brampton tolls the following sfar.y of the days before he became Mr. Justice Hawkins. His first brief was to defend one of two men charged with coining, and when they were placed in the dock he overheard a brief colloquy between them. Coiner No. 1 told his comrade that he was to be defended by a very good man. Coiner No. 2 said he also was defended. He did not know the gentleman's name, "but."—indicating Mr. Hawkins—he added, admiringly, " he's a smart 'un. When I handed over the fee he put the thiok 'un"—i.e., sovereign—" between his teeth and bit it. He's the chap for my money!" , **• ' ' Becent statistics have shown that Germntiy heads the list as a readingnation, and Bussia is falling to zero. In 1893, 23,007 books were published in Germany, as compared . with 8,082 in Russia. In regard to newspapers, the inhabitants of the British Isles are catered for by somewhere like 5000 journals, while Russia with a population of 130,000,000 has only 800. The figures are easily accounted for by the censorship. In Germany the actual number of professional writers is estimated at 12,000, of which number 400 are poets. In behalf of France the assertion is made that she provides the international literature, inasmuch as half the copies of French novels printed are exported, W'hile two-thirds of her historic and scientific works also cross the frontier. » » • " Bacillus tragi " is the name given to a new microbe discovered by a Paris chemist. This microbe is said to possess a very peculiar propertp, that of imparting to the medium in which it thrives and multiplies a strong flavour of strawberries. The chemist lirst isolated and developed his bacillus in milk. The microbe was found to " peptoniso " and render soluble the albuminoids contained in the milk. At the samo lime the liquid, which the chemist was courageous enough lo taste, had acquired a decided strawberry flavour. The'bacillus tragi conveys, it was ascertained, its peculiar property to several other liquidj and some solids, beef tea being among the t'ormer. But it is a. little disconcerting to think that a fair imitation of strawberries and cream can now be manufactured by dropping into a bowl of cream some co'rai.-;.-* »»r*nd n. spoonful of bacilli -agi. All leaf buds, whether underground or on the bare branches of winter, are plant savings, put aside from the superfluity of summer against the proverbial rainy day. The starch of which such organisms consist is to the plant what his savings are to the prudent man, and the common potato is one of the greatest misers of the vegetable world in this respect; for almost the whole of the tuber is made up of starch food, left as a legacy to phe'youug plants represented by the "eyes." This is true of all plants that grow from bulbs. Some go further, for they run a savings bank in the shape of a tap-root, which, if left undisturbed, grows larger year by year, to be drawn upon in seasons of drought when other means of subsistence are exhausted. Amongst these are primroses, carrots, beetroot, and turnips, and with these three last this faculty of saving has been developed by man to make tho plants a source of profit to himself. • « * At the time of the South Sea Company's ■scheme, in 1720, the whole of the country appeared to go mad on stock-jobbing and speculation, and innumerable companies were started which never had the slightest chance of paying. The Government became alarmed, and on the 12th of July an order of the Lords Justices assembled in Privy Council was published, dismissing all the petitions that had been presented for patents and charters, and dissolving all the bubble companies. Some of these schemes were plausible enough, and had they been taken when the public mind was unexcited, might have been launched with some prospect of sueeefs. But they were established merely with the view of raising the shares in the market. The projectors took the first opportunity of a rise to seil out, and next morning tho scheme was at an end. One of the companies started was for a wheel for perpetual motion—capital, one million ; another was for " encouraging the breed of horses in England, and improving of glebe and chureh lands, and improving and rebuilding parsonages and vicarage houses." "Why tho clergy," says an old writer, " who were so mainly interested in tho latter clause, should have taken so much interest in the first is only to bo explained on the supposition *)iat the 6cheme was projected by a knot of the fox-hunting parsons, Mce so . common in England." The shares of the company were rapidly subscribed for, MEKIT REWAHUiSU lit UUURT OF JUSTICE. -The acknowledged good qualities and . success of Saxdek and Sons' Eucalypti xTItAOT have brought out many imitations, and one case was just tricd'in the Supreme Court of Victoria, before his Honor Chief Justice Sir J. Madden, K.C. M.G., etc. His honor, in giving judgment, said that whenever an article is commended I) the public by reason Of its good quality, etc., it is not permissive io imitate any of its features. Restraining the imitators perpetually from doing so, he ordered them lopay all osts. We publi li this to afford ttie people an opportunity of protecting themselves, and r securing what is proved beyond all doubt, by skilled wilnesscs at t'lic Supreme Court of Victoria, ami by many authorities during the last 31 years to be a preparation of gcnuino>picrit,"viz.:—The Gknuink Sander & Sons l'l'itt: Voi.vni.n Ki'i'aj.yi'ti I Exiiuur.