NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 170, 20 July 1935, Page 4 (Supplement)

NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS.

OLDEST PENCIL MAKERS. "The world's oldest pencil concern, run for almost three full centuries by descendants of the founder" will celebrate its 273 rd birthday with a jubilee festival this year, according to the Munich Press. The linn is the famous Staedler Manufacturing Company, of Xuremburg, founded by Frederick Staedler in IGG2—only 14 years after the end of the Thirty Years' War. A later director of the company, Johann Staedler, invented and produced the world's first coloured pencils. ONE MAN IN A BOAT. This month there will leave Sydney a tiny boat, containing a man and a small dog, 011 a 4000-mile voyage to Adelaide and back. The man will be 25-year-old Gordon J. Doherty, his boat a 10ft one, while the dog remains to be chosen. Mr. Doherty intends to go as far as Wilson's Promontory, then by the Bass Strait Islands to Tasmania, and on to Adelaide, after circumnavigating the island. The lone voyager thinks that his journey will take him from six to eight months. OMNIBUS WITH RADIO. The ancient Thuringian town of Altenburg, the home of "skat," the German equivalent of bridge, has always been proud of its skat omnibus, in which devotees of this card game can enjoy their skat while travelling. But the inhabitants of this town, not content with this ingenious contraption of their local passenger transport board, have now been presented with an omnibus fitted with radio, enabling passengers to listen in to almost every European station en route. NEW TEETH AT SEVENTY. A 70-year-old native woman living near Tintwa Mountain, in the Van Keenen district of Xatal, has just cut ten perfectly good teeth. For many years she has been without teeth. Then, about three months ago, she began to complain of severe toothache. Thinking that perhaps the foundations of an old tooth were causing trouble, friends of the old woman took her to a doctor. She was about to cut new teeth, was the doctor's verdict. And now the teeth have arrived, and the old woman can enjoy her meals again.

A BULLET IN HIS HEART. Wounded in Italy in 1915, Antal Kacso, a 50-year-old farmer of Hodmenovasarhely, has been walking about ever since with a bullet in his heart—and he did not know it. Complaining of pain in his side he went to hospital. An X-ray examination revealed that a bullet was firmly embedded in his heart. An immediate operation was necessary. Though wounded in the war, Antal had been soon declared again "fit tor the trenches," and he served until hostilities had ended. He regards this discovery as a stroke of luck. He is now entitled to a pe.usion as a 100 per cent invalid.

THE BASHFUL FIREMAN. A shy fireman at Osaka, who dared not declare liis love for a village beauty, conceived and put into execution a plan which he hoped would provide him with a wife. It has landed him in prison instead. For months the fireman had kept the secret of his love, and at last unable to bear it any longer, decided to set the girl's home on fire. Then, he argued to himself, he would be able to rush in and save her, and dragging her from the devouring flames declare his passion. All went well as far as the first part of the plan was concerned. He. set the girl's house 011 fire —but someone saw him doing it. Before he could carry out the rest of his scheme he was arested for arson.

LADY HOUSTON'S YACHT SECRET. What mysterious things are happening 011 board Lady Houston's yacht Liberty? asks the "Sunday Express." Why were crates of machinery taken on board at South of England ports, and what is the secret of the large instrument that looks like a telescope? The luxury yacht was recently seen off the Welsh' coast near Swansea, and has been cruising in the English Channel and off the Welsh coast. The crew is bound to secrecy, and the captain's lips are sealed. Inquirers have been told that the ship's secrets are to be kept. The "Sunday Express" was told that important tests are to be carried out, which may have vital influence on modern forms of warfare, both under water and in the air. "New ways of combating sudden attack and destruction are being investigated." A well-known scientist is working in the yacht.

PROFESSOR KILLS OLD IDEAS. Professor P. Cathcart. of Glasgow University, addressed the annual conference of the Scottish National Health Visitors' Association at Stirling. He said:—"All the chatter about food we hear to-day has an ill-effect in making sensitive people food-conscious. That is one of the dangers of to-day. People become food-conscious, then food faddists, food fanatics, and finally missionaries-in-excelsis. There is a great deal of nonsense talked about calories —but calories are only a unit of heat. There is no unique hidden value in them. Coal and strychnine have good calorific value, but not even the most benighted mother would think of feeding her children on a mixture of coal and strychnine." Professor Cathcart and other speakers emphasised the great food value of skimmed milk, which at present is going to waste. Lady Leslie Mackenzie. I of Edinburgh, said it had as good food j value as whole milk, particularly in cases were babies could nut take cream. j

MARRIED ONCE A YEAR. Li Chih a 48-year-old Cantonese,'whose first wife died 13 years ago, shortly after their marriage, has been "honouring W memory ever since by marrying a new wite every anniversary of her death Bb has now been questioned by the police but he indignantly denies that he was i polygamist. He has always "divorced'' one wife before marrying the next, h* declared, by throwing her out into th» street, bag and baggage. His twelfth wife has now complained against this treat, ment.

GIRL BARBERS PROTEST. Government action to ban the employ, ment of women in barbers' shops and restaurants is being sought by the Canton Labour Union on the ground that the practice is causing "social degeneration and industrial chaos." The union contends that the growing number of waitresses and girl barbers is causing serious unemployment among men, "thug bringing about most undesirable' social conditions." It is also argued that since the authorities are conducting an intensive campaign to restore the "old virtues " the "immoral" practice of employing pretty young women to serve men customers in tea houses and restaurant* should be forbidden. . WAS IT A PEACH? • Eve may have eaten a peach and not'an apple in the Garden of Eden, says Mr Lloyd C. Stark, a St. Louis (Missouri) authority on the origins of fruits, who recalls the Chinese myth associating immortality with certain kinds of peach A small, hairy peach which grows wild at the height of 7000 ft in Tibet and China is the father of all modern peaches, 6avs Mr. Stark. The modern fruit was developed and carried by commerce into Chinese Roman, Greek and Persian civilisations'. "In more ancient days," Mr. Stark added," "the Chinese believed that eating a certain kind of peach would bring immortality and preserve the body from corruption; The peach tree was the 'Tree of Knowledge' to the Chinese, and it may have been that the apple eaten by Eve in the Garden of Eden was the Persian apple, or, as it is known to-day, a peach."

"GOOD MANNERS SOCIETY." Membei's may not speak to each other in a group that has been formed at Krushevatz, Yugoslavia—with the title of "The Good Manners Society."' When the silence rule is broken it is expensive for the transgressor. If it occurs at one of the society's frequent meetings in a cafe he must pay for all the food and drink consumed by his fellow members as well as pay a tine into the society's funds. But members have "forgotten their manners" so many times already that the funds of the group, solely supported by fines, have already been able to clothe thirteen poor boys in new suits.

THE PROFESSIONAL CONVICT. Sosuke Ivakubari, a 51-year-old exconvict. Ie in prison at Tokyo awaiting with pleasure the prospect of his twelfth conviction. He has sworn a vow that before he is 60 he will have been convicted 20 times, and then commit suicide "in a novel way." The strange vow dates from IS9S, when he concluded his first prison sentence. Finding it Impossible for an ex-convict to get work Sosuke decided he would remain an cx-convict, and made his curious vow. Since then he has not looked back. As soon as one sentence is over Sosuke calmly commits an obvious theft, gets arrested and goes back to prison again. He considers this to be an "expression of revolt against an uiljust social system."