NEWS TIT-BITS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 101, 27 April 1912, Page 15

NEWS TIT-BITS.

The world's largest book is reported to weigh 12001b. It would make a capital trouser press.

An Otta-.va schoolboy thinks a '•'layman" is (or should be) "a man who looks after a. hen-house."

A sensitive French cook has committed suicide because her mistress had ventured to criticise tie soup!

A wife told a Tottenham magistrate last month that she, her husband, and five children slept m one bed.

Adulterated oysters are the latest from America. They are fattened in fresh water, and are to be thus labelled.

A Leeds authority dectere3 that most bankruptcies axe caused by the want of judicious and progressive advertising.

In London 900,000 persons are living more than two in a room, and. 26,000 persons are living or inoxe in a single room.

Apropos the report that petticoats are to become popular again, a Toronto paper says it knows certain young men who never deserted them.

One of the new discoveries at Pompeii is "a. kind of public-hojise at which hot drinks wen sold." There was no indication tha.t barmaids were employed.

A heated controversy is going on in Washington over the proper name for ;i woman serving on a jury. "Jurette," "juress," and '"jurene" hare been suggested.

A judge in Texas adjourned the eonrt ■to thrash a barrister who questioned his veracity, resumed his seat on the bench, fined" himself for assault, and proceeded with the case.

Some London West End shopkeepers are now thinking of keeping a show oi wild beasts in their windows with a view to cowing the ferocity of the win-dow-smashing animals outside. A peasant in a theatre at. Yekaierinoda.r, Russia, was so indignant when the villain in the play shot the heroine, that he iired his revolver at him, injuring him slightly. He was arrested.

Being unable to capture Selim-Elan, the vanishing brigand chief of the Caucasus, the authorities have imprisoned 109 of bis relatives. -Which seeme rather hard lines on the relatives.

A German explorer has discovered a >outh American native tribe which regards eating in public as something of which to be ashamed. We all know people who ought to be ashamed to eat in public.

Mr. Matasaku Yoshimura, who discovered a means of rmUrmg soap from silkworms, has received a set of wooden cups from the Governor of Tokio for •■(•on-spicuoua merit in the cause of science.' .

On Bri.ish railways it 13 estimated that a locomotive with ten coaches must travel five miles before it can attain a speed of sixty miles an hour on a level track. Going at that speed, the air-brake will stop the train in 700 ft.

The Paris police have consigned to the Seine over fifteen miles of improper cinematograph films which had been seized. The operation gave rise to an amusi ag incident, v. zealous member of the river police attempting to summon an inspector for '•polluting" the stream. A bill ha.-» been introduced in the Assembly at Albany. >*.Y., compelling h-otelkeepers to use sheets not less than 9ft. lonjr, wide enough to reach ac-oss the bed? A breach of the law shauld bo easily sheeted home to the delinquent. A concern in Buenos Ay res (Argentine) is about to instal machinery, to be used in a factory for producing fertilising, materials. It is proposed to utilise grasshoppers and their eggs, thus converting a destroyer of the crop into fertilising material.

There are still some things they do better i;i Germany. A self-styled prophet, named Voigt. who has written a pamphlet predicting the end of the world for March 21, has been fined by the Berlin police for spreading pernicious literature.

"He is always fighting," said a con- 1 stable of a young man with a heavy jaw who was charged before Mr. Paul Taylor at Marylebonc, London. "If he cannot light his wife, he fights his brothers and titters." Probably bis wife for preference.

Two veteran inmates of Battle workbouse took advantage of the name of the place the other day and had a regular .-et-to. The aggressor was a man of 80, and his victim a youth of 77. The elder man has been deprived of his tobacco allowance and confined to the house.

A burglar who broke into a house in Paris and carried off £SOO in. cash and £2400 in securities, finding that the latter were useless to him, returned them in a registered letter to the owner, with a box of flowers for his wife, and apologies for the emotion he may have caused. The humorous element is not entirely wanting in the rush to insure against strike risks at Lloyd's. A gentleman who lives at Southend paid his premium of i 30 '. in exchange for which underwriters I agree to pay him £1 for every day on which there* is no passenger train to London before noon. I

1 How a newsboy stopped a runaway horse was told at the Westminster County Court, London. The boy said he ran as hard as he could, and overtook the horse and van. Ho then jumped on the back of the vehicle, climbed over the horses back, caught bold of. its ears, put his hand into the horse's mouth, and seized its tongue. The animal then came to a .-tandstill. Why waste time on sleep? Bnda Pesth doctors report the case of a woman who ' has not slept for seven years. Frau Hejames, who is married and has a little girl of ten, began her long vigil one ni"ht when a gipsy woman attempted to kidnap the child. Since then she has not been able to go to sleep; neither has she had any inclination to do so. Yet she is in excellent health, and has never had a day's illness.

Tiie {proprietor pf a bathhouse at ] Tokio. where 'began the fire which re-' suited in damage estimated at £3,000.000. has been fined £50. This is one of the law's jokes. But it is a kind of humour not confined to Japan. In England a soldier who commits an offence maybe sentenced to a term of imprisonment by the civil court. He completes bis sentence, and when he returns to barracks he is dealt with for being absent from his regiment without leave.

Tn the <-!wis3 village of Utzmac-h recently a woman was '"sold," with her consent, to another man by her bushand. The buyer, an Italian and friend of the Swiss couple, thought he was '•legalising the sale by procuring two witnesses and having the contract written on stamped Government paper. The Italian told his Swiss friend that he -wanted a wife, and the Swiss promptly offered to sell him his own wife at a j bargain price, which, -was then-discussed I a^flju^srfca-60Tei*ifl^