NEWS TIT-BITS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 299, 16 December 1911, Page 15

NEWS TIT-BITS.

Dear Mrs. Toddles wants to know how, since the Bank of Ejgypt has been wound up, it won't go. Wife deserters in California will in future, under a new law, be made to clean the streets. In a fire at New York two dogs guarded the home of their master so well that the firemen could not get near the blaze. The latest craze among the Berlin smart set is having one's portrait .sketched or painted while asleep. "Punishment," say 3 Br. Devon, "never did anybody any good." Chorus oi schoolboys: "Devon, glorious Devon!" •Last year 22,478 deaths occurred in India from snake bites, and 2,400 persons were killed by wild animals. The hobble skirt has scored a notable victory in Philadelphia. There the steps of the tramcars have been lowered so as to suit the dear ladies' shorter stride. A Buda Pesth merchant celebrated his 75th birthday the other day by taking his 21 sons and 53 grandchildren on a pilgrimage to his wife's grave." A Philadelphia lady has died of fright in the dentist's chair before he had time to extract the tooth—which seems hard lines on the dentist. A man pleaded at Willesden Court, London: "I am seventy-two years of age and an orphan, with neither chick nor child in the world." Mexy, a three-year-old dog belonging to Dr.*B. H. Grosser, of Chicago, has had nine te«th extracted and gold ones substituted. A woman who looked into the barn and saw her husband hanging to a crossbeam, is reported to have exclaimed, "So, that's where my clothes-line -went to!"

The most heavily-insured man in the world is said to be Rodman Wanamaker, the multi-millionaire's eon—for a total sum of £900,000. The very newest anaesthetic is called paminobenzoyldiethylammoethanol. You pronounce it twice quickly, and aTe instantly unconscious. A Sheffield (Eng.) man has sent a postcard round the world in 79 days by way of Batavia, Yokohama, San Francisco, and Ottawa. "It is right to want to be beautiful," says a New York clergyman, "but recent tight skirts, big hate, and painted faces do not add to the 'beauty of women." A 70-ycar-old matrimonial swindler has been arrested in Vienna, His whole income was derived _by loans from his future "brides," who never heard of him again. A business establishment in Paris lends out not only wedding presents, but aleo wedding guests on hire. Perhaps bridegrooms can be supplied on the same terms. That would be business! An old French woman, 'who had for years slept during the day, in. -order to watch her money during the night, ventured out marketing a few days ago, and was robbed of IO.OOOfr. The distinctively "I/ondon smell," says a correspondent, used to be stale gas and soot. Now the predominating "London Binell" is undoubtedly the all-perval-ing petroL The latest fad of the "Viennese fashionable woman is to be 6een out walking with a pet dog, the colour of whose coat, natural or dyed, matches her own toilette. The militant women have now got a heavenly sister. "The Suffragette" is the name given to the latest comet, recently discovered by the Rev. J. Searles, a San Francisco astronomer.

An advertisement in London newspapers points to a new profession. It reads thus:"Dogs exercised.—Ladies or gentlemen wishing to hare their dog 3 exercised daily dn London by dog lover, moderate charges, address, etc." The Kev. R. J. Campbell, who is at present in America, has put himself completely out of the running for any of the millionaire church pulpits, by stating that the unsuccessful business man , was generally the honest man. A business man in Buda-Pest, who is petitioning for a divorce, declares that his -wife's habit of ringing him up a-t the office and abusing him at length on the telephone caused him severe loss of time and money. In the island of San Domingo there is a remarkable salt mountain—a mass of crystalline salt, nearly four miles long, estimated to contain nearly ninety million tons, and said to be so clear that medium-sized print can be Tead through, a block a foot thick. A chemist has recently analysed a sample of a silk dress that was submitted to him by a lady. He found that it contained only a fraction over 28 per cent. of silk, and as much tin was found in it as that present in poor tilt ores from Cornwall. Lord Haldane, in defending the Territorials, declared that he expects to be dead before any political party seriously suggests compulsory military service. We understand that, since making this statement, our War Minister baa "received a number of telegrams from Germany wishing him loDg life.

The position of the funny man is difficult, as witness the following effort from the "Liverpool Post":—"A report has .reached me that a hy-clcction in New Zealand has been won by a Liberal called Isitt. This 'zeal' (may) 'land' him into saying to his friends, Isit' for a 'new' constituency." "I plead guilty to being drunk in my feet, but not in my head," said a man at the Thames Police Court. "Then," remarked the magistrate, "your feet ought to pay the fine —two shirtings!" Measure for meaeuri), it's a shilling a foot for them—and that's not dear. An electric fan installation for use in top hats has been invented. The fan is regulated by a switch on the brim. Fan, motor, and battery are mounted on a board, which is supported in the crown of the hat just above the space occupied by the head. The fashionable young man of Berlin who happens to have a sweetheart is now to be seen with an exquisite miniature portrait of his fiancee printed on his thumbnail. The picture is warranted to last for four months, and the cost of it fa £3O. In Max Pemberton's story, "The Nigger," occurs the stirring passage: "Weil, we went and had tea with him, and so full was he of his 6tory that he ate np all the maids-of-honour before anyone else had a chance, and half finished the greengage jam before I started on it." At first glance, it does not look like being full of his story. "If, because you imagine everyone is looking at you oddly, you suffer from th« self-conscious habit of blushing, wear convex glasses," is the advice of a physician. "They will prevent you from distinguishing people's faces oy distorting them." In fact, you won't know your own friends if you have a rood many glasses.