FROM FAR AND NEAR.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLIII, Issue 2286, 26 February 1912, Page 2

FROM FAR AND NEAR.

Bricks made of coal-dust are used for paving in Russia. The coal-dust is combined with treacle and resinIt is estimated that to meet the demand of the new King George post-age-stamp 1,000,000 stamps will have to be printed every hour of the working day throughout the year. Miss Dora Harrison, of Evergreen, Long Island, U.S.A, has waUed 1,100 miles—from New York to Tampa—to get thin and to win a bet of £2OO. She intends to return on horseback. Mr. Thomas Bell, a local conductor on the Canadian Pacific Railway, recently took his brea’lfast In a Fort William restaurant and ordered a dish of oyster stew. In the stew he found a pearl' that has been valued by a local jeweller at 2,500 dollars. Nina Turatavilofl, a peasant womjan at Telev, in the Caucasus is probably the oldest person in the world. Recently she celebrated her 160 th birthday. Though she is now incapable of using her limbs, she is still In possession of her mental faculties. The Norwegian Government has submitted a Bill entitling women to be appointed to all the offices of State excepting only military, diplomatic, and clerical posts. The Government was inclined to include even clerical posts, but the bishops opposed this plan. A Yorkshire collector of medals, Dr. A. A. Payne, Hillsborough, Sheffield, has been amassing medals for over twenty years, and has a collection of 2,500, worth £26,000. H( has fifty medals that have been connected with either the peerage, baronets, or knighthoods. Seventy people sat down at Gorleston to a huge sea-pie, made by Captain Harman, skipper of a smack,. Its crust was Sin. thick, and it was tightly packed with rabbits, kidneys, beefsteak, potatoes, turnips, carrots, and sprouts, the whole taking eight hours to cook. As the result of a three weeks’ fishing trip to Iceland, the Grimsby trawler “Bari Monmouth’’ has made £1,221. Her catch was mostly cod, and with the present scarcity and the huge demand for fish, prices have advanced enormously. The skipper received about £IOO for his voyage. In the window of a well-known taxidermist in Edinburgh is to be seen the figure of a starling perched cn a golf-hall, and enclosed in a neat plass case. The poor bird is mounted on the sphere that caused its death. The incident happened on the golf-course at Elie. The bird was struck while in flight, and instantly killed. Owing to the reports of cases of smallpox within the London radius a large amount of insurance business has already been placed against the risk of the disease. It is stated that as much as £IO,OOO has been covered in respect to a single case, and it is generally known in the market that . £I,OOO policies have been freely issued. Mr. A. J. Gorringe, a tradesman, of Ditchling, has a bantam which lays her eggs in different parts of the yard, but his cat never fails to find them. She takes the eggs between her teeth, carries it to the back, places it on the step, and rattles the door-handle with her paws until her mistress arrives to take in the egg. Not one of the eggs has yet been broken. A common South African flower possesses the valuable property of keeping fresh for two months or more after cutting. It is a white Star of Bethlehem, producing a compact spike of flowers on the stiff, erect stalk 18in. to 2ft. long. The flowers are of a thin and papery tissue all white except the yellow anthers. It can be sent over as a cut flower from South Africa to this country, and then lasts for weeks in water.