All Sorts

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 25, 25 June 1908, Page 38

All Sorts

It's a poor fisherman that spends all his time digging for bait. °

An elephant works from the age of twelve to the age of eighty. lie can haul fifteen tons, lift a ton, and carry three tons on his back.

According to this year's English « Law List, 1 there are over 10,000 barristers, including 260 X.C.'s whilst in 1817 the total number was only 883. A process for making artificial honey, whose flavor is stated to be indistinguishable from the genuine article, has been discovered by an Italian scientist.

The linen industry is the greatest manufacturing industry Ireland possesses. There is invested in it somei?nf rt like £15 > 000 > 000 > and it gives employment to 70,000 people.

' What,' queried the young man, 'is the difference between white lies and black lies ? ' • White lies ' answered the home-grown philosopher, ' are the kind we tell ; black are the kind we hear.'

A purchaser of a riverside property asked the estate agent if the river didn't sometimes overflow its banks Well, replied he, 'it isn't one of those sickly streams that are always confined to their beds.'

Country Cousin—' Are you sure I am in the right train ? ' Town Relative (who has had about enough of it)—' Well, I have asked seventeen porters and thirtytwo passengers, and,- they all say, " Yes," so I' think you'd better risk it.'

' Dad, I'm going in for surgery ! All the girls are taking up a fad.'

■ Good enough, daughter. Could you amputate a button from the back of my coat and graft it on to this vest ? '

A young lady went into a well-known establishment a few days ago and said to the shopwalker : ' Do you keep stationery ? ' ' No, miss,' replied the shopwalker ;' if I did I should lose my job.'

A proposal is on, foot in Sydney to organise a midsummer pleasure expedition to the Antarctic circle at the end of December next. It is the intention to leave Sydney about Christmas for Hobart, and then steer a direct course for the ice pack, covering a route which has not been traversed by any vessel for seventy years. The excursion would occupy about a month, and would allow five or six days within the Antarctic circle. A guarantee has been given for forty passengers at £25 a head, but eighty to one hundred would be necessary to make the trip remunerative.

The contraction ' viz. 1 is a curious instance of the universality of arbitrary signs. There are few writers who do not appreciate the fact that the little contraction may be used in ' good form ' writing of all kinds, but there are probably even fewer persons who have any idea of its origin. It is a corruption of the word videlicet, the terminal letter of which was formerly made in the shape of a ' z,' but was never intended to represent that letter, being simply used as a mark or sign of abbreviation. It is now always written and expressed as ' z ' and will doubtless continue .to be so used as long as written language exists. It is, however, as we have said, one of the many arbitrary modes of expression used by the masses, who never give a thought as to their origin.

Elephants live 100 years and upwards ; rhinoceros, 20 ; camel, 100 ; lion, 25 to 70 ; tigers, leopards, jaguars, and hyenas (in confinement!, about 25 ; beaver, 50 ; deer, 20 ; wolf, 20 ; fox, four to 16 ; llamas, '15 ; chamois, 25 ; monkeys and baboons, 16 to 18 ; hare, 8 ; squirrel, 7 ; rabbit, 7 ; swine, 25 ;stag, under 50 ; cow, 20 ; swans, parrots, and ravens, 200 ; eagle, 100 ; geese, 20 ; hens and pigeons, 10 to 16 ; hawks, 30 to 40; crane, 21; blackbird, 10 to 12'; peacock, 20 ; pelican, 40 to 50 ; thrush, 8 to 10 ;. wren, '2 to 3 ; nightingale, 15 ; blackcap, 15 ; linnet, 14 to 23 ; goldfinch, 20 to 24 ; redbreast, 10 to 12 ; skylark, 10 to 30 ; titlark, 5 to 6 ; chaffinch, 20 to 24 ; starling, 10 to 12 ; carp, 70 to 150 ; pike, 30 to 40 ; salmon, 17 ; codfish, 14 to 17 ; eel, 20 ; crocodile, 100 ; tortoise, iOO to 200 ; whale, estimated 1000 ; queen bees* live 4 years ; drones, 4 months ; worker bees, & months.