NEWS IN BRIEF.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 6 December 1907, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

We first heard of worsted iu 1340. Punctuation marks were first used in 1490.

Soap has been known to the world 3000 years.

You cannot find a word to rhyme with "echo" or "month."

It is supposed to be unlucky to cany an umbrella handle downwards.

A mouse seldom lives longer than three years. There are 300,000 one-roomed dwellers in London.

Pewter is an alloy consisting of 80 per cent, of tin and 20 per cent, of lead. The first street tramway was opened in America in 1832, and ran from Xew York to Harlem.

Korea is one of the most responsive of all heathen countries to missionary effort. . . .£, (.lerinan silver is a brass containing from 15 to 25 parts of nickel in each hundred.

Japanese factories do not stop work on Sundays, but the first and fifteenth of each month are holidays. The Nile overflows its banks from July to October. This is due to the rainfall of the Abyssinian highlands. Owing to the great improvements in antiseptic surgery, only six patients die of every hundred that have a limb amputated. Rheumatism -is exceptionally common amongst sailors, owing to the cold and wet to which they are exposed. The manager of a theatrical touring company in Russia has to deposit with Government enough money to bring all his people home again. Actors are never stranded there.

In Gorman East Africa, giraffes, zebras, antelope?, chimpanzees, ostriches, and vultures are now protected by the game laws, but bonuses are paid for killing full-grown leopards and lions. In Berlin is a 'Central Baby Transfer Institute," where anybody can place or secure a child for adoption according to their selection and according to the rules of the institution.

Men of big individuality are as rare in the world of music as they are in the world of polities. The late Dr. Joseph Joachim's influence, says the "Nation," was largely due to his character as a man.

A steeplechase for ladies, held annually in Calcutta, is believed to be the only existing event of the kind. The course is two and a half miles long, with many mud fences, and the prize consists of a handsome cup. A boy's hair grows one-half slower than a girl's. In boys the average rate of growth is 3ft 3in in six years, being an average of .WSin per" day. During his twenty-first and twentyfourth years a man's luiir grows quicker than at any other period. A priest from the Midi. France, who is now in London, states that in the south of France wine is now sold by the hour. On payment of a penny you can go into a wine cellar and stay tliere for half an hour.

The famous fogs of Newfoundland are only found, as a rule, on the east and south coasts and on the "banks." being caused by the meeting of the Arctic current with the fiulf Stream. The interior in summer is described as a most delightful climate, resembling that of the south of France.