The herald., 1896-11-25
NOTES OF THE DAY.

The largest room in the world is in the
Imperial palace at st. Petersburg. 1t is
100 feet long by $50 wide.
The common measure of road distance
in France is the llilometer. or 1000 r1e-
ters. a little over three quarters of a
mile.
The original Covent Garden theater
was built by John Rich, the celebrated
harlequin, who opened it in December.
1882.
No human head was impressed on
coins until after the death of Alexander
the Great. All images before that time
were of deities.
The mountaineers of Georgia catch
trout with a sledge- hammer Their
practice is to thump a rock under which
trout seeks refuge with hammer and
the conclusion renders the fish senseless
The ''Rubicon; was the ancient name
of stream between Italy and Gaul II
is celebrated from Caesar having hesi.
tated about crossing it with his army
Hence the expression "to pass the Rubi.
con-
To France belongs the credit of the
last great motor car race and to Baron
de Zuylen, president of the Paris Auto
mobile club must be awarded all praise
for his successful conduct of the. busi-
ness.
"A Sup-Hdflne mountain range has
been discovered in the southern part of
Davis strait by the Danish steamer In
golf, which has been carrying on deep
sea explorations on the Iceland and
Greenland coasts for the past two years.
In certain towns of Germany the tele-
phone Is introduced by tobacconists as
an additional attraction to customers.
Any one who buys cigar may, if he de-
sires, speak over the tobacconist's in
strument to a subscriber to the tele-
phone service.
In Germany the man who loses both
his hands in an accident can claim the
whole of his life insurance money, if he
be insured, on the ground that he has
lost the means of maintaining himself.
A loss of tie right hand reduces the
claim from 10 to so per cent Of the total
Cigarette smoking in England dates
back to 1874 The great impetus to their
increased use was caused by the Cri
mean war of 4-56, when numbers of
military and naval officers adopted this
method of smoking from the inhabitants
of Russia, Turkey. Malta, Levant and
other parts of Europe.
1t costs money to hunt on the Emperor
Williams African game preserves. First,
there is a retaining fee or license of $780,
with which the hunter must provide him
self before he sets foot in the jungle.
Then if he shoots an elephant the priv
ilege costs him $50 and each succeeding
one $125 more.
The duration of sunshine in the vari-
Gus countries of Europe was recently dis
cuSsed at a scientific meeting in Berlin.
1t was shown that Spain stands at the
head of the list, having on the average
5000 hours Of sunshine per year, while
Italy has 2300 hours, Germany 100 hours
and England 1400 hours.
OF 274,940 Hungarian gypsies enumer-
ated in the last census 243,432 are de-
scribed as sedentary, 20,406 as semi
sedentary and only 1898 as nomadic,
while 2164 are soldiers or in Jail. All
profess some form of Christianity. Sew
enteen thousand are professional mu-
sicians and only S2,405 are still able to
speak gypsy dialects.
There is only one English variety
of poisonous serpent-the adder, or vi
per The common snake is quite HARM
less, and therefore may be handled with
| immunity The viper may be discrimi-
mated from the other English serpents
| by it's thicker and shorter formation,
hatter head, dull color and rather slug
giSh movements.
The smallest screws in the world are
| those us,e in the production of watches.
Thus, the Aurth jewel wheel screw is the
| next thin Vvlo being invisible, and to the
| naked eye it looks like dust; with a glass,
however, it is seen to be a small screw
| with 260 threads to the inch, and with a
very fine glass the threads may be seen
uuite clearly.