Interesting Items.
"God save the Queen" is now sung in eighteen languages.
The cost of making a bank-note for any amount is less than one halfpenny.
Eight million baskets of peaches are expected from Delaware and Maryland this season.
The Pool of Bethesda has, according to the quarterly statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund, been authoritatively discovered.
In the whole sky an eye of average power will see about 6,000 stars. With a telescope this number is greatly increased, and the most powerful telescopes show more than 60,000,000. Of this number, not one out of each hundred has ever been catalogued.
The oldest newspaper in the whole wide world is the King Pau, or Capital Sheet, published in Pekin. It first appeared A.D. 911, but came out only at irregular intervals. Since the year 1351, however, it has been published weekly and of uniform size. Now it appears in three editions daily.
On an average each Englishman writes forty letters a year, each Scotchman thirty, and each Irishman sixteen. The average Italian only posts six, and the American twenty-one. It must be remembered that in the country letter-writing is a rare pursuit, and that the bulk of letters are written by business men.
The tomato is, perhaps, used more as a relish than for its nutritive value. Uncooked, it forms the prince of salads, and it is one of the most appetising, palatable, and popular vegetables we have. Violent heat destroys the delicious flavour of this half fruit, half vegetable, so when you cook them, be most careful to use only moderate heat.
Saving the Buffalo.—The buffaloes on the American prairies were thought to be nearly extinct, thanks to the reckless destruction of big game in recent years; but a happy find has been made of a herd nearly one hundred strong in a remote and uninhabited part of Texas. To prevent any danger of their annihilation, an expedition of trained huntsmen is being sent to Texas to drive the buffaloes into a given enclosure, where the breed will be carefully preserved.
Thirteen thousand boxes gone astray, thirteen thousand umbrellas left in railway carriages, sixty-seven thousand different items of property lost on the railways of the United Kingdom during the single month of August, 1887! The railway companies are not responsible for this property, but to their credit be it said, they afford every facility for its recovery.
Popery in Portugal.—A correspondent in Oporto describes the Romish ceremony of washing an image of Christ in Lisbon, and adds—"If those who are drifting Romewards could only see the depths of greed, hypocrisy, and deceit to which the Church descends in these countries where she holds sway, and how immorality, infidelity, and spiritual darkness rule among the people, from high to low, they would surely hesitate to introduce Popish mummeries into free England."
To Cure Feathers.—The following recipe gained a premium from the Society of Arts. Mix a quantity of lime-water in the proportion of one pound of quicklime to a gallon of water, mixing well, and pouring off the clean lime-water for use as soon as the undissolved lime is precipitated. Put the feathers in a tub, adding enough of the clean lime-water to cover them to a depth of three inches. Stir them about until well moistened, when they will sink. Leave for three or four days, and then pour the whole through a sieve to get rid of the foul water. Wash well in clean water, and dry upon nets in a room where the air can be admitted. Cabbage nets will do well, the feathers falling through the meshes as they dry. About three weeks will finish the feathers, which will only need beating afterwards to get rid of the dust.
Curious Custom at a City Church.—The following extract from the last will and testament of Peter Symondes, mercer, dated April 24th, 1586, refers to a curious custom still observed on Good Friday at All Hallows Church, Lombard Street:—"The parson and churchwardens shall every year, upon the same Good Fryday, divide the same raisons into threescore parts in papers, and when the children of Christ's Hospital shall come upon Good Fryday as aforesaid, then the said parson and churchwardens shall give unto every child a part of that so appointed; and although this gift may be thought very frivolous, yet, my mind and meaning being hidden, may, notwithstanding, be performed, praying God to make all those children happy members of this Commonwealth. Amen." Under directions in the same will, each of the sixty boys also receives a new penny. An Easter card is also given by the churchwardens from the parish funds.
The Earwig.—The old-fashioned idea of the much-dreaded earwig is little more than a fallacy. The original English word "ear" signified an undeveloped flower-bud, especially among corn, and "wic" commonly stood for a hiding-place; so that familiar insect (formerly written "ear-wig"), through seeking its favourite dwelling beneath the closely-shielded bud "ears," has been universally accredited with propensities so deadly injurious to mankind of which it naturally stands wholly innocent. In this manner popular superstition has often thrown a mantle of evil and dread upon surrounding objects, harmless in themselves; and so long as the vulgar lend credence to ill-founded traditions without instituting intelligent inquiry, so long must such discrepancies continue to hold sway over the public mind.
Sheep-Shearing by Machinery.—A public trial of Mr. P. W. Wolseley's "Patent Sheep-Shearing Machine" was recently made in the presence of a number of gentlemen interested in sheep-breeding and wool-growing. The result—says The Australasian—was a complete success. The first test was upon a crossbred sheep with an average fleece. The animal was closely shorn in four and a half minutes. The second animal was shorn in the ordinary way, and then operated upon by the machine, with the result that, in addition to the cut of the old-fashioned shears, nine and a half ounces of wool were obtained. It is claimed for the invention that it works faster than hand labour, leaves no second cut, does not injure the skin in the slightest degree, and can be so regulated that the fleece can be removed of any length desired.
A Monster Trout.—A monster trout was captured the last week in July in the river Itchen, at Winchester, weighing 16 lbs. 2 ozs., and measuring 32 inches in length and 21 inches in circumference. The bait was a live minnow, and he was not landed till two hours after he was hooked. He had haunted the stream for years, was almost as well known in the city as Queen Anne's statue in the High Street, and had acquired quite a reputation for the number of rods he had broken, and the quantity of fishing tackle he had carried away. His captor was a labourer named Turpin, who disposed of him for £1 to a fishmonger, on whose slab it attracted almost as many visitors as a monarch lying in state. He was in splendid condition, and has now gone into the hands of a taxidermist for preservation.
A rather curious episode in natural history occurred the other day on board the French steamboat Abd-el-Kader, during the passage from Marseilles to Algiers. Just as the vessel was about two hours out, the skies became quite black with swallows. It was then about six o'clock in the evening. The birds alighted in thousands on the sails, ropes, and yards of the Abd-el-Kader. After a perky survey of the deck from their eminences aloft, they descended coolly on deck, hopped about among the sailors and passengers, and eventually found their way into the cabins, both fore and aft. The birds were evidently fatigued, after a long flight, and allowed themselves to be caught by the people of the ship, who gave them a welcome reception, and provided them with food, which they enjoyed heartily. The little winged strangers remained all night on the vessel, and in the morning, at seven o'clock, the head look-out bird had, no doubt, sighted the Balearic Isles, for the whole flock made for land, after having spent a comfortable and refreshing night on board ship.
Facts about London.—London is the greatest city the world ever saw. It has an influence with all parts of the world, represented by the yearly delivery in its postal districts of 295 millions of letters; it covers within the fifteen miles' radius of Charing Cross nearly 700 square miles; it numbers within these boundaries four million two hundred thousand of inhabitants; it contains more country-born persons than the counties of Devon and Gloucester combined, or 37 per cent. of its population; has, on an average, four fires every day amongst its 500,000 houses; has a birth in it every four minutes; has a death in it every six minutes; has 230 persons every day and 84,000 annually added to its population; has nine accidents every day in its 7,000 miles of streets; has 55 miles of new streets opened, and 17,000 new houses built in it every year; has a vast network of 2,184 miles of sewers and pipes for its drainage, and 2,000 miles for its gas supply of 55,000 lamps; has 1,000 ships and 9,000 sailors in its port every day; has upwards of 89,000 persons annually taken into custody by the police; has more than one-third of all the crime in the country committed in it; has 25,000 persons living in its common lodging houses; has 43,286 persons annually arrested as drunk and disorderly. It is further estimated that it comprises 100,000 foreigners from every quarter of the globe. It contains more Roman Catholics than Rome itself; it contains more Jews than the whole of Palestine; it contains more Irish than Belfast; it contains more Scotchmen than Aberdeen; it contains more Welshmen than Cardiff; it has as many beershops and gin-palaces, the frontages of which would, if placed side by side, stretch from Charing Cross to Chichester, a distance of 62 miles. It has nearly as many paupers as would occupy every house in Brighton.
"WHO SHALL HAVE IT?" (See page 218.)