NEWS TIT-BITS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 58, 8 March 1913, Page 15

NEWS TIT-BITS.

" Dog trained tosteaJ," says a heading. But most of them have taking ways.

It's a stiff neck that has no turning when a pretty girl goes down the street.

A sailor has 412 views tattooed on his body. Rare to find so many pictures in one frame. "Everybody's 'doing' it," remarked the man who emptied the automatic machine, when he saw the lead pennies.

_ The wife of a condemned man in America has been refused an " advanced copy" of her husband's death certificate.

« A Texas man with nineteen children has just wedded a widow with twelve Some people don't know when theyve had enough.

Three doctors, consulted as to Shakespeare's treatment of insanity'in "King Lear," confessed that they had never read the play.

Girls are recruiting for the Territorial force in Peterborough, and, it is believed, are quite prepared to lead citizen soldiers into engagements.

A Chicago woman gave birth to three children on three consecutive nights. Xhe anxiety of the husband on the fourth evening must have been painful

Commenting upon the fact that one of the new Chester magistrates is a working bricklayer, a contemporary remarks, "How curious!" In fact, how hod!

"What have you to say?" asked the Widnes magistrate of a defendant. The defendant: "Oh, lots; but if I said all I thought, I should empty the Court."

A Missouri contractor claims to have broken even American records by building a home for a homeless bride and' bridegroom in less than twelve hours.

Fearing a financial panic, a Dresden widow withdrew her savings from the bank, and concealed the notes in a cupboard, where they have.been eaten by mice.

A Northamptonshire tailor announces: —" Messieurs' habiliments fashionably fabricated, invisibly renovated, metamorphosed, and depurated, by Winson, Cosmopolitan."

A French expert declares that, while string instruments prevent and arrest the falling off of the hair, brass instruments exercise the most deadly influence upon the scalp.

The Appleton, Wisconsin, Education Board has decided to create the position of " official spanker," whose duty it will be to assist parents in correcting disobedient children.

It has lately been estimated that the number of recruits available for the French army has been reduced from 238,----000 in 1006 to 215,000 in 1911, owing to the diminution of the birth rate in France.

We note the arrival on the market of a foreign motor car named the Hurtu, says " London Opinion." We understand that three types of car are being turned out from a standard chassis—the Damu, Mnimu, and Killu.

The suggestion that alcohol shall be used instead of petrol by our motor vehicles has called forth an angry protest from the British Topers' Society against what is referred to as " a prostitution of this magnificent spirit."

" T believe your husband is in a lunatic asylum?" said counsel at Marylebone County Court. " Well —he is in the court here," replied the witness. Such a combination of unconscious humour and caustic description is rare.

Electric massage for trees has been patented by a Colorado fruit grower to enable fruit trees to resist frost when they are budding and blossoming. Let us hope the cure won't prove more disastrous than the disease.

A Stockton man, charged with being drunk and disorderly in the early hours of a recent morning, indignantly denied the charge, explaining that he had only awakened two policemen whom he found standing asleep in a doorway.

An American husband's labour-saving ingenuity has cost him £2 10/. He invented a spanking machine, and on his ■wife objecting to him using it on the children, he turned the weapon on herself, so that she had to seek Court protection.

A diphtheria outbreak at one of the schools at Whitley Bay is declared to have been caused by the children placing pens and pencils in their mouths. The Little One's Own Mutual Protection Society now proposes that all holders should be made of high-class sugar-stick.

" Bob," a dog owned by Mr. G. G. HamaT, of High Street, Rochester, made his annual personal application for a license on January 13. With a note, and 7/6 in an envelope, "Bob" went to the Tost Office, jumped over the counter, and was duly handed his license.

Dr. F. R. Bergius, the scientist who has been conducting experiments in producing artificial coal has, by employing a high temperature and a high pressure, changed cellulose to peat in a few hours. The same change by the process employed by nature, he states, required 7,000,000 "years.

At a Shoreditch inquest recently on a nine months' old child, the mother said that when it fell ill she gave it some saffron. Dr. Speed explained that there was a popular notion that saffron was good for children, but as a matter of fact it had no medicinal virtue at all, and was only colouring matter.

The French police have got hold of a first-class all-round international criminal. Arrested on a charge of posing as a doctor and obtaining £470 in fees from " patients," he has been discovered to be wanted by the police for fraud, incendiarism, and bigamy in America, Italy, Germany, England, Belgium and Egypt.

It is announced that Dr. Wilson has decided not to give the inauguration ball which new Presidents of the United States have been wont to commence the social festivities of their period of office. By the abolition of this function it is estimated that a saving of something like £20,000 will be made to the United States Government.

Dr. Carlton B. Wells, an American brain specialist practising in Paris, says that within 500 years women will be completely bald. This will be mainly due to the fact that women are now developing their brain to a greater extent than ever beforehand intellectual activity has its natural result in the loss of hair. Many of ±he brilliant women of to-day are obliged to wear wigs, says Dr. Wells.

Bulgaria is said to be approaching the ideal state of latter-day social reformers, in that it has neither a poor class nor a very wealthy class. In the towns these are cases of individual want and misconduct, but these cases are few and insignificant. There is no need to make any public provision for the relief of the poor; there is no question of the conflicting interest of workmen and employers; and strikes and trades unions are alike unknown*