NEWS CURIOSITIES

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 189, 12 August 1933, Page 4 (Supplement)

NEWS CURIOSITIES

JOTTINGS FROM WORLD'S PRESS. A block of imitation marble had remained unclaimed on Pier 8, East River, New York, for twelve mouths, so the Customs authorities ordered its destruction. Men with sledge hammers got to work, and out from the marble tumbled 21 bottles of fine brandy. z John Birch, a Russian warrior who settled in Nipissing Junction, Ontario, in IS9O, has fought in so many wars that he 'cannot rfecall the names of some of them." "The Crimean War was exciting," he says. "But I was in a war before that—a fine war it was, too, but doggone, I just can't call to mind the name of it.'' A Hindu fakir buried himself at Oviede, near Madrid, and said he would remain underground for 8 days. On the 6th day it rained, says Renter. The fakir shouted for help because the water was trickling through into his tomb. His disciples hurried along and built a rude shelter over it—and the fakir 6tayed the allotted span. The establishment of sex education courses in the public schools of Mexico is foreseen as the result of recommendations by the Ministry of Education's technical consulting commission for the adoption of the Mexican Eugenics Society's pian calling for the beginning of sex education in the third grade of the primary schools. Three men had been fishing without a bite iii a stream near the village of Porto Viro in Northern Italy. They returned home. Then a squab of rain swept over the village—and a shower of live fish descended upon the amazed anglers. Tho fish had been sucked into tho air by a whirlpool at sea, carried inland for some distance and deposited at Porto Viro. Some Zanzibar natives recently discovered a strange new god, or devil. They worshipped it and found it extraordinarily powerful. The Administrative Officer ill charge ot' the district made inquiries. He found that the god was a large buoy which had been washed up on tho shore. Still more inquiries revealed that tho buoy came from Bajang, a reef off Sumatra, 4000 miles away. It broke from its moorings and disappeared 18 month > ago.