BREVITIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 216, 5 September 1908, Page 3

BREVITIES.

The title "Ueverend" was not usually g anted to tl.e clergy until the middle ot the seventeenth century. H'roper sanitation and a good water supply reduce the death-rate of a town in most astonishing fashion. No British subject is allowed to wear the insignia of a. foreign cider without' •permission from the King. Thirty to forty thousand earthquakes yearly disturb the surface, of the globebut of these, not more than sixty are heavy enough to do any serious damage. Ihe King and Queen of Ilouniiu'iia were married four times—iirst by civil rites, then ,by Lutheran, thirdly by Human Catholic, and fourthly by Creek ceremony. Of every million girls born, 871,2(10 are alive at twelve months old: of boys, 30,000 fewer survive. Engine-drivers in Orniaiiy who have run their locomotives for" ten years without accident are rewarded by the Ciovernmejit. The fortune-teller is prominent at Chineso weddings; should his prophecies lie unfavourable, either party may break off the match. The wrestlers and athletes of India develop great strength by living on milk, a little goat's llesh, and plenty of food made from Hour.

The sea has, in twenty-five years, washed away -111) acres from the British

isles, but has also added more than 30,000 acres, mostly sand, which will lie useless for many years to come. Elons, tigers, ami" other beasts of

prey in captivity follow the example ".f mankind and sleep during the night, while in their native state these animals sleep during the day and hunt during the night. The average depth of the English Channel is 110 ft. Deprived of food the mole will starve to death in 11 day. It is easierito get divorced than married in Switzerland. ■A first-class glove-cutter can earn as much as ,£11) per week in Paris. Sixty-four out of every 1,000,000 of the world's inhabitants are blind. In Turkey, heiresses do not come into control of their private fortunes until they marry. One farm in Dorset (Hug.) finds employment for forty persons picking and packing watercress. The Frieburg silver mines, in Saxony, after being worked for about 700 years, are about to lie closed. "iStalislies prove that of the descendants of insane persons, about fifty-nine iu every hundred are mentally sound. It has been estimated that'less exertion is necessary to ride fifteen miles on 11 bicycle, than to walk three miles. Among the factories in the Wandsworth district of London is one devoted exclusively to the making of dolls' clothes.

j It is possible to travel three miles by tramcar between the hours of !i a.m. and i) a.m. in Hull for the sum of one halfpenny. What is probably the oldest organ in the world has been found on the island of Gothland, in the, Baltic Sea. It dates from about 1240 A.D, A firm of Sonthporl (Kngland) builders recently failed because they erected houses on the site of an old haunt :d mansion, and no tenant would live there. Manitoba, although the smallest airl most thickly-populated of the prairie provinces of Canada, has still large areas of vacant land for settlement. As onlv a little over one acre in a hundred 'of Ireland is under limber, great, results are expected from the afforestation movement now in progress, ft takes four years to train a lion for exhibition ■work, and only one lion in four is lit for training. A welltrained lion is five times as valuable as an untrained lion. Although the population of London s metropolitan district is 2.000.0110 larger than that of New York, the latter city does a. restaurant business one-fifth "renter than the, former. ° During the last half-year 39,000 persons have migrated from the Unit3d Slates to Canada. They are mostly the families of fanners who have disposed of their American holdings at a profit. Life, assurances now running in Ununited Kingdom amount, in all, _'." ai!!4,430.(10t>. These figures do not include the business of foreign and eolociial companies in that country, of which there arc no ollicial figures. . ■V caterpillar will, in the course of 11 month, eat food weighing 0,000 times as much as its own body. An apparatus for aerating water was patented in 1807. C.uide-books for travellers are an J'.nglish invention. In London there is an average of one cleivyman to every 2,000 persons. The film of a soap-bubble is the •> 500,000 th part of an inch in thickness. Amber is found coloured black, white, brown, anil green, as well as yellow. Crocodiles, like ostriches, swa lo ; \ stones to help them in digesting their food. . Honeymoons are growing shorter yeai by vear, even a week-end sulheing m

some cases. ... , r The shelves of the British Museum are estimated lo contain Ihirl.y-nniP miles of books. , •Hampton Court Palace has snflcied seriously from fire twice within recent vpnrs—in 1882 and 1880. ' Tt, is now possible to travel from Liverpool to Manchester liy tramcar at a cost of a little oyer 2s Brushes made of such thin glass (dire that they are like spun silk are used ,iy artisls in decorating china. tilass mirrors were known in i> &■"■• lnit the art of making them was then lost and not regained till 1300 AX). Air. Winston Churchill states that the lion is no seeker after quarrels. His olijoet throughout life is to save his 'the appetite of a man were as grcit | in proportion to his si/.c as a sparrow s . he would eat a whole sheep at one sitting.