NEWS IN BRIEF.
Iceland holds the record for centenarians, Italy possesses more theatres than any other country. Violins vary more with the weatlur than does any other instrument. Pennsylvania has grown tobacco worth £25,000,000 during the last half century. The Kimberley diamond fields were discovered in 1871. Thore are no less than 5,000 houses empty in Nottingham. in Amsterdam there is one factory which cuts 400,000 diamonds every year. The printing trade in Canada finds work for some 10,000 people. 800,000 tons of granite c-lifT were removed by one blast at Dover in 1873. On an average 1400 lives are lost by fire in. England and Wales every year. Holland has more than 10,000 windmills/
Artesian wells were known in Thebes 2000 years B.C. Prussia's zinc-mines produce half the zinc of the world. 25,000,000 squirrels are killed annually in Russia for their skins. Punctuation marks were first used in 1400. Hearing as a rule is more acute with the right ear than with the left. In the United States last year thirtyone persons were killed while hunting. Four million pounds' worth of talkingmachines were manufactured in Germany last year.
The Penzance Education Committee are considering the institution of cooking classes for boys. Max Barewski, the boy pianist, has insured his hands for £5,000, at a premium of £2OO a year. The present Mayor of Rome is an Englishman, who became naturalised twenty years ago. In China athletes train on duck brains, which they regard as the most strengthening of all foods. The average number of persons in each family in the United Kingdom is, as nearly as possible, four and a half. ■Lightning kills, on an average, 23 people in England, 92 in France, and 105 in Germany every year. With a load of 4001b. a camel can travel twelve or fourteen days without water, going forty miles a day. A new club, formed for New York women, bars low-necked gowns, hansomcobs, and after-theatre suppers. In time of war the death-rate among 3rmy officers is proportionately heavier than among the rank and file. There are 17,000,000 children between the. ages of six and fourteen in Russia who are receiving no education whatever. Two Norwegian clinvbers have created a new mountaineering record in the I'limalavas. Thev attained a height if 23,!)00ft. A bridge recently built for the Cape to Cairo railway over the Kafue River is the longest bridge in Africa. It measures 1,400 ft. |
During the last century fifty-two vulcanic islands rose out of the sea. Kino, teen of these have since disappeared, and ten are now inhabited. By French law no doctor may inherit property left to him by a deceased patient. ■During Willi the coal produced in the United Kingdom weighed 251.000,000 tons. The Canadians' as a race sing in a lower key than do the British, owing to climatic conditions. In an elephant's skull found in the Klodyke region a gold nugget worth .tloO wan discovered. Some Atlantic liners have as many ai 150 firemen on board. A fossil skeleton of a lizard, d:'Wovered at Wyoming, U.S.A., measu',s 314 ft. long.
A new "cure" for sen-sickness is a chair which is kept in a constant state of vibration by mechanism. The blood propelled by the human heart travels at a rate of seven miles an hour. In Exeter poor school-children are no.v provided with breakfasts for one Jorthing each. An old Belgian custom rcquiies the King to stand as godfather to every seventh son. Many old houses in Holland have a door which is only used for a wedding or a funeral. A bird's .wing is, in its owner's il3 strong as ' \ .r-ftWks have been known \to follow a train to prey on the small bi{rds etartb'd bv the sudden noise.
The meteors which hind ;on the earth are estimated to 1000 tons i-o Us weight every three years. ' Silk is considered imcleanVby the Mohammedans, because it is produced by a worm. •
The capital of the Dank of England, which was £1,200,000 in !1G94, is now £14,500,000. The Ameer of Afghanistan has a subsidy of £120,000 a year from the Indian Government.
Under the Copyright Act of 1842, the Britis.li Museum jveceives one copy of every book pii'ufisMied. Each pulsation i of the heart of an average adult sends 101b. of blood through the veinWnd arteries of the. body. W~ In coining goli.'i' the British Government profit of '/ 2 din £lO, or about U2OO per million, largest cigars come from the Phil. ippine Islands, some of them being 18in. long. The lyrebird of Australia, which is about the size of a pheasant, is the largest songbird in the world. On Arnisli Rock, Stornoway Bay (Scotland), is a lighthouse without a light. Instead it has a mirror, which reflects a ray of light shone upon it from a lighthouse on the island of Lewis, over 500 ft. away. A series of picture-postcards Is to be Issued all of which have been painted by Royalty; the proceeds are for charity.
The Goverffiuerit of Japan has erected tombstones on the graves of 180 Russian soldiers who died there during the war. The first regular newspaper is believed to have been the "Frankfurter Journal," which was published weekly in 1015. The estimated total product of potatoes in Great Britain in 1007 was 2,077,010 tons, nearly 500,000 tons less than the previous year. According to Professor Ridgcway, the English language is spoken by 050,000.000 people. Russian bv 235,000:000, and German by 215,000,000. In 400 years 07 arc leap years and 303 common, leap year lieing omitted everv lHOth vcar, but not omitted cverv 400 th. Telephones from the pulpit to the pew have Veil placed in Y'eovil Baptist Church for the benefit of the members of the congregation whose hearing is defective. In Jai»in the dead are always interred with tkeiv heads towards the north. >"o living Japanese will sleep that way. In some houses a diagram of the points of thcepmpass is painted on the bedroom "'ceiling's to reassure timid guests. A watch sold in Paris is intended for blind users. The hours are on raised studs, while a strong hand—the only one—indicates the minutes. The hour is shown by the depression of the various studs.
AVith its microscopic bruin tho ant has not tho power of reason (said .Mr. Hcurv llill at tile London Institute recently). Experiments have proved that; but it is excessively imitative, lias marvellous power of adaptation, and acconiplislies all its* remarkable work through the medium of "plastic instinct."
They have made bread from peanut meal for many years in Spain. The bread is light and porous, but rather nn-! palatable, and it is eaten only by the lower classes. The first silk hat was worn in the streets of London by John Hotherinton, a haberdasher, on January S, 1797. He was arrested for inciting a riot, but was dismissed with a reprimand. Tho popularity of the game of bowls is proved by the fact that there were 11!).] TO players on the Glasgow greens during last, season. Over 24,000 games were played on the London County Council's greens last year. The female brain commences to decline in weight after the age of thirty"; the male not till ten years later. Japanese workmen are all labelled with the. character of their trade and the name of their employer. Calico-printing was a new industry in Japan twelve year* ago. To-day a single linn has a factory covering nearly four acres. Mr. Busby, of Terriers, Bucks, has grown a cabbage measuring 14y»ft. round the outer leaves. There were seventeen heads on the stalk.
The population of Canada, according I.) the official estimates of that country, wo* 0.5041000 en Anril I—an increase of 21 per cent, in six years. Tim firsMnßs battleship Superb, a ves«el n' Hi" inlnroved Dreadnought tvn". is 400 ft. lon« his «2ft. beam, and a'disnlacement of 18.fi0l) tons, against the Dreadnought's 17,1)00.
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Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 48, 15 February 1908, Page 4
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1,316NEWS IN BRIEF. Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 48, 15 February 1908, Page 4
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