NEWS CURIOSITIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 285, 1 December 1934, Page 4 (Supplement)

NEWS CURIOSITIES.

JOTTINGS FROM WORLD'S PRESS, Girl bus conductors employed by the Tokyo Corporation went on strike. Then they came back, beaten not by starvation or by law, but by vanity. While they had been idle they had been losing that fashionable figure. On an average eachgirl had gained about Sib in weight. The evening service was being held 'A the Catholic Church of Csikszereda, Rumania, when a number of bears invaded the building. The congregation stampeded into the street while the bears were rounded up. Then it was discovered that the animals were pets belonging to the local Greek Orthodox priest. Members of the two congregations are not on speaking terms.

Life in the Stone Age was not without its pleasures. Excavations near the Bavarian town of Nordlingen reveal that beer; was a popular tipple about 3500 B.C. Fragments of receptacles unearthed contained a black substance, which analysis showed to be emmerkorn, a kind of grain, which was fermented with yeast and .which, even to-day, provides fodder for animals.

War lords of the Province of Szechwan> | in China, found when they discussed ways and means of filling their empty treasure chests tiiat everything was so heavily taxed that there was nothing left on which to impose new duties. Then one of them had a brainwave—why not a ''friendship" tax? Now all civilians have been ordered to pay a new levy which will guarantee the friendship of the soldiery. They have been warned that if vhe "good feeling tax" is not paid cheei'lully and promptly, "immunity from the, vJinfity of the army cannot be promised**?