NEWS TIT-BITS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 191, 12 August 1911, Page 15

NEWS TIT-BITS.

A Stockton-on-Tees lady owns a pony •which is still at work in its 41st year. Germany proposes to put a 5/ tax on cats. The Fatherland's tax on dogs is now up to fl.

The 1200 pensioned policemen who were called out for Coronation service in London are to get £8 each.

Many a young man is said to have got thrown over for stealing a kiss—from another girl. The Lord Mayor of London celebrated the Coronation by losing his watch in the crowd.

A cat may look at a King—if (says the London "Star") it can see through a barricade and three lines of soldiers.

"Don't send me to Pentonville," pleaded a Willesden prisoner.' "There are quite enough there without me." Edison says a healthy person should be able to fall asleep anywhere in thirty seconds. This should convulse office boys, who can easily do thw flick in ten.

The death of Mrs Carrie Nation, who advocated Temperance with the hatchet, recalls her desire expressed during her visit to England that her epitaph should be "She hath done what she could."

"Horses for courses " is a well-known turf maxim; but in spite of the German example, we bar horses from the meatcourse.

According to the "Daily Express," the Sultan of Perak calls the English weather "baniak sejak." One has heard it called other things. In 1906-7 185 distilleries were at work in the United Kingdom. In 1909-10 the number was 156.

An old woman has been arrested at Toulon for cutting off schoolgirls' pigtails, which she used to hang up in her home as trophies.

A Preston woman of 92, who walked as a scholar in a procession during the Coronation celebrations of William IV., has received her fourth Coronation medal. • So much cloth is being saved by the vogue of the hobble skirt that several Rhode Island (U.S.A.) mills have closed down, and over 3000 mill girls are idle. A funny chap says that despite all Jack Johnson's bravado, there remains one man who will yet box him successfully—the undertaker. "Welcome" was the inscription over the entrance to Chiswick police station, which was lavishly decorated for the [ Coronation.

. Somebody is advertising for "a young man to share bedroom with gas-stove. "Separate beds" is added as a special attraction.

A London man, who had failed to pay his way, admits that four years he has 'worked only on Bank Holidays—and even then only at picking up waste paper! The British Post Office is getting on. Now that the new stamps are out it is selling what used to be 2/ worth of the old ones at 1/11A —just like the enterprising drapers. In Pennsylvania a man is said to bo free to marry his mother-in-law. It would be more surprising to hear, however, that any man had taken advantage of such freedom. Some statistician has discovered that the average woman carries 40 to 60 miles of hair on her head. One wonders how many miles of it finds its way Into restaurant soup in the course of a year. The weight of the gold plate used at Buckingham Palace on the occasion of the Coronation banquet is more than 20 tons, and its value some three millions of pounds. An American guarantees to produce a coquettish dimple on the face for about £6O. It is a big figure, but on some faces a dimple would be cheap at the price. The report of the Manchester Corporation Tramways Committee, issued last month, was a record one. Nearly 166 million passengers were carried' during the last year, and the gross profit was £290,951. According to the school-boy howlers, Sir Colin Campbell was responsible for the massacre of Glencoe* and John Knox was the father of Mary Queen of Scots, and was several times burned at the stake. These items of history come from Fifeshire. All of us who have happened to be children at one time or another will be interested to hear that Banbury Cross is to' be "completed" at a Coronation memorial by the addition of statues of Queen Victoria, King Edward, and King George. With Archbishop Lang's six-minute sermonette King George got off easy tha other day. At the Coronation of Charles 11. at Scone, in 1651, the sermon is said to have contained over 12,000 words—which must have taken a good hour and a-half in delivery. When the King and Queen returned to London from Portsmouth from the naval review, the engine of the Royal train was decorated with the Royal arms surmounted by a crown, and the coal in tho tender had been whitewashed. The smoke from the funnel wasn't. Two 80-year-old Lotharios In Southern Italy have fought a duel for possession of a giddy young girl of 65. They were I armed with walking-sticks, and so fierce was the encounter that neither is expected to recover. Madam Sarah Grand finds "doctors are as much influenced by fashion as a Mayfair milliner." They know that their patients rely on getting the latest cut from them. A Dr. David Owen has laid it down that "the foundation of success in medi- | cal work is that doctor and patient trust 1 one another." They do sometimes, but the doctor generally gets tired of it after a while., and sends his bill in. On Friday, June 30, the regime of London time was inaugurated in Paris, and the dialless clock of the Tour Eiffel at ! midnight flashed Greenwich time across ( the city. France is the land of clocks, but there is no uniformity about them, I 'and even the electric clocks at all the .cross streets seem to find a way of dis- ' agreeing among themselves. ' During a recent attempt made by tha Japanese to compete with the product of British match-makers their boxes were made to resemble the native article as much a s possible, and the wording on the labels was in English, or purported to be. Here are one or two of the descriptions: "The sure best match." "Superior finery | matches." "Confidential and requisite matches," and "Protection from fire—not i dangerous sparks." After such valiant attempts to "'strike" the market a- eontemporary considers it a pity that their efforts have "missed fixe."