NEWS TIT-BITS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 72, 23 March 1912, Page 15

NEWS TIT-BITS.

Eight millions sterling is given away in charity every year in London. " In the American football season, which has just ended, there were more than 520 seriously injured players. d It is said that many North-of-England mill girls buy Paris bats costing £5 s or £6. B A new novel is announced—"The Gray Stocking." Naturally there will be some curiosity to see what there is in it. An English society photographer says that African princes alwaya *sk him to make them look as white as possible. P A male inmate of the Rye, Sussex s workhouse for-69 year., who ha 3 just n died, cost the ratepayers JEBOO. 1 A French lady has just celebrated her ? 102 nd birthday by knitting a pair of d socks for her seven-year-old grandson. A constable at Brentford (Eng.) said t in his evidence that he heard "unusual i- foot'mtcrks coming" before he arrested I the accused. c A sugar diet is said to be most benefi " cial for elderly people. Some of oui - actresses must owe their good health 1 to reading their Press notices. ? A mean London sweetheart has been sentenced to six weeks' hard labour for irobbing his girl's father's gas-meter while on a courting visit to the house. A n«-w book is called "The Debtor." - The author evidently intends it to bs > something everybody will want to get i hold o r . A man of 60, charged with begging at ■ Manchester, excused himself on the ground that his parents were dead! He got seven days. , No subject would appear to be too gruesome to be treated of in a modern _ book. A volume entitled "Our Weather" has just appeared. A medical man has enred a red nose ' by immersing it every half-hour in cold water. A quicker method would have ■ been to burn it off with caustic. Herringß e-.iu&ht at Yarmouth and Lowestoft in the season just ended total 8.0,000 crans, a cran consisting of 1000 herrings. i "Collapsible" millinery may now be obtained in London which can be folded s up a.'id squeezed into a handkerchief - satchel. : ' A phrenologist in Montreal has offered 1 his services to the mayor to give character readings of the bumps of applicants 1 for civic offices. _ A portrait of her sweetheart on the g point of her slipper is Fashion's latest r suggestion to the smart young Amerit can woman. Let up hope he isn't kept ) there to be kicked. ? The wives of thirty ftfetsburg millionaires have banded themselves together ? to boycott butter for a month, in order 1 to bring down the high price asked for that commodity. "I found the prisoner hanging on to some rails," said a constable at Brentford. "When I asked what was the matter she said, 'I'm going home by rail. It's all right.' " Tne Women Taxpayers' League of Cincinnati is now engaged in a campaign demanding that "straphangers" shall pay a halfpenny less than tnose who obtain " seats. i, The State of Michigan has jnst passed , a new law making it a felony punishable t with two years' hard labour for any , woman to wear a hatpin that is more , than ten inches long. The old question, "Was Hamlet mad"" ' is revived. 'Probably not —but he would : have been if lie had known what liberties ' actor-managers were going to take with I him. The police authorities of Los Angeles ' hr.ye contracted with three aviators to find the whereabouts of seven bandits ' who have baffled all the efforts of the p..lice for the last two years. A young woman who appeared at Tottenham Police Court to answer a charg.of drunkenness denied the accusation, ; and said "her peculiar behaviour was ' due to a lot of mustard on a ham sand- : wich, and also to pickles, which she had , eaten to please her young man." Following the sale of Abdul "Hamid's ! jewels, the Republican Government of Portugal is selling the splendid collec- . i ion absent-mindedly left behind by , Manuel. This shows that a modern Government can struggle along without j much jewellery. i The revolution in China has produced . one unfortunate result, namely a revival i '>f opium consumption. Even before the ! revolution opium houses flourished sei .retly. Now the trade is carried on i publicly in Canton and other places, and ' the opium business in Hong Kong and Shanghai is exceptionally brisk. Mr. James Burroughes, according to ' the London "Evening News," died at the age of 72, having entered the famous ; billiard-table firm of Burroughes and ' Watts "upon leaving school 71 years 1 ago." Did they hurry his scholastic —reer thusly because they wanted some- ; body to make nursery cannons? Planned to throw a projectile weighing . 20001b with armour-piercing velocity a distance of fifteen miles, a new recordbreaking 16in gun has been designed by the United States Navy Department. The gun will be 67ft long, and a new type of super-Dreadnought will be neces sary for its use. The latest circulation scheme of a : Berlin newspaper is the engagement of two physicians tio attend gratuitoi.-sll j its yearly subscribers. A few days ago i one of the staff physicians received this message:—"Don't attend Herr Mullei t any more. His subscription has cxi pired." There is one trade that flourishes in some districts in England that is probably unknown in New Zealand, and that is the worm-gatherer, who flourishes greatly in Nottingham. His duties consist of catching worms from out of the . ground and selling them to the fishing . depots. His rate of remuneration is [ about 2/ per thousand. l King Peter of Servia, following the i example set by Dionysiusi of Syracuse. ' has joined the ranks of barbers. He ; does not actually shave and shampoo ! his subjects, but, nevertheless, makes more out of the trade than Dionysius, ! for he runs one of the biggest hairdrcss- ' ers' shops in Belgrade, and takes a keen ' i personal interest in its management. ! ! Peter also runs a chemist's shop, and ' acts as agent for a big French firm of ' motor-car builders. A correspondent of "The Times' tells ' the story of the man who missed his umbrella in a club, and put up a notice ,I to the following effect:— "Will the ; nobleman who took an umbrella by mis take, etc.. communicate with the port ter?" and then explained his appeal by t pointing out that, membership of the | ' club being confined by the rules to noblemen and gentlemen, as no gentlet, man could possibly have been guilty of i'■ theft, a nobleman must have been the '.•olarii.