NEWS OF THE WORLD

Evening Star, Issue 20346, 30 November 1929, Page 7

NEWS OF THE WORLD

£BOO,OOO A NIGHT reading in bed It is estimated that about £BOO,OOO Is spent every night of the year in electric light and other forms of illumination by people reading in bed before they go to sleep. ROCKING BABIES HAPPY SUGGESTION An effective method of rocking babies to sleep is claimed by Mr. Sanger, of Munich, who has invented a pram-pushing device, which, when connected up to the pram' and the current switched on, moves the pram quietly to and fro, the hum of the electric motor serving as a lullaby. ILLUMINATED ELEPHANTS HEADS AND TAILS It is stated that the Municipal Council of Candy, Ceylon, has recommended that every elephant should carry a head and tail light. This is a move in the interest of travellers against the trains of unlighted elephants that carry merchandise along the roads by day and night. It appears that the dirty grey of the elephant makes it practically invisible in the dusk. LURE OF LIPSTICK AN EXPERT’S ADVICE Beauty doctors have saved more marriages from breaking up than any other agency, according to Miss Frances Martell, of Chicago. She addressed the tenth annual convention of the National Association of Cosmeticians. She warned wives to beware of husbands who say they love them for themselves rather than for their looks. “The woman who gets the most attention from her husband,” she said, “i‘i the one whose cheeks are pink, whose lips are vermilion, and whose ’ nails are newly manicured. Nineteuths of the husbands cited in divorce cases are married to drab wives.” 6,000,000 FLIES HOUSEHOLDER’S PROBLEM A Somerset family’s war against flics ended recently. Mr. W. H. Reynolds, of Chandos Lodge, Keynsham, and his household had been fighting si:-- million flies for nearly six weeks. Swarms of flies had poured into 'Mho house, and bedroom walls and cci ings became black with them. “I have not slept for a month!” Mr. IN. molds said. “My family and I have undergone torture lying awake at night listening to terrible buzzings. jWe killed thousands of flies with swats; others wm sprayed with poison; wo used scores of flypapers—and still they buzzed. They were not ordinary house flies, and, being much smaller, ?vere difficult to swat. ' “ T thought the plague would never en, , but at last, with the aid of experts from Keynsham District Council, and advice from scientists, we have won. I think we have cleared the house of them.” DOG MATHEMATICIAN "SAYING IT WITH BARKS” The story of a retriever dog that could do mathematics was told by Dr. William Moodie, of Islington, in a lecture to the National Council for Mental Hygiene. “His master,” said Dr. Moodie, "was a mathematician, and used to take a delight in asking; the dog a simple question in arithmetic. It Would answer by barking the requisite number of times. The dog would tell you what was the square root of nine, what two and three made, and so on. “This mathematician had no idea himself how he gave the dog the signal, and observers who watched him carefully could see no signal given. “The dog gazed intently into his master’s face and never failed to bark the requisite number of times. This dog, I am sure, had some method of communication which human beings could not appreciate.” HOMES OF THE FUTURE NOVEL FEATURES A full-sized model of a wholly new type of house, “designed without regard to popular prejudices,” was one of the novel features at the House and Building Exhibition.recently held in the Forum, Copenhagen. The house is circular in form, with a flat prismatic glass roof. The entrance corridor leads to a central hall, from which the other rooms open, following the course of the sun according to the use for which the room& are intended. Thus the bedrooms and gymnastic rooms turn toward the east, and the parlour or general living room toward the south. On entering the corridor one steps on a perforated rubber mat, the pressure starting an electrically operated vacuum underneath, which removes dust from the boots. Here are some of the other novel features: — Beds, which are supplied with rubber air mattresses, are let into alcoves, and a radio apparatus is fitted into a niche alongside each. In the parlour is a glass-top table on steel legs, the top so adjusted that it will revolve and bring to hand anything lying on the opposite side. The room is equipped with magnavox and television apparatus. Alongside is a suction tube connected with the local post office for reception and dispatch of letters. A circular over-room in the centre of the roof, reached by an elevator, provides sleeping accommodation for the children and gives them <iirect access to the. roof games. Antennae over the roof pick up electric energy transmitted wirelessly for the lighting and heating of the Ijouse, and all sorts of auxiliary services.

CRUEL TO BE KIND BARK WORSE THAN BITE A 17-year-old dog sacrificed his molars in order that his 80-year-old owner, Mrs. Francis Edwards, of Pittsburg, might not be deprived of his companionship. 11 Police charged that the dog was vicious and had bitten two people. The aged woman pleaded in court for the life of her pet. The dog was her only companion she said. Judge Calloway ordered the dog to be restored to her—after his teeth had been extracted. A STRANGE HOBBY REMEMBERING BIRTHDAYS The hobby of Mrs. Floyd Davis, of Webster Groves, U.S.A., is remembering birthdays, and she not only remembers these birthdays, but sends each person who is listed in her birthday book a card on the anniversary. Some days she sends as many as ten cards. Mrs. Davis says that even in girlhood it was very easy for her to remember natal anniversary dates, and that at the present time she has a list of 1,000 birthdays. She only regrets that her list does not comprise every day of the year. There are 21 days on her calendar that are blank. She hopes, however, to have these spaces filled before long. HE GOT HIS OVEN! - HOTEL PROBLEM IN MADIERA The Madiera winter season is now in full swing. A London journalist visiting the island came across an instance of the trials of running a big hotel. An Italian chef had been engaged, and arrived at Madiera to take up his duties. But when he saw the kitchens he promptly threw up the job. “It is the stoves,” he told the surprised employer. “I can never do justice to my art with stoves so small.” And he returned to Italy without delay. The hotel immediately ordered the largest stove that had ever been made in Portugal. It duly arrived in Madiera, and for a day provided the chief excitement of the island. Capable of cooking dinners for 500 persons at one time, it was in two parts, each about 20ft long. Eight mules were required to drag each section from the quay to the hotel on the wheelless wooden floats which run over the cobbled streets like sledges. The task of getting the stove into the hotel occupied a score of men for ten hours. Then the hotel manager cabled to the chef to take up the job. REPORTER’S MURMUR CLEARS THE HOUSE OF LORDS Stories of 50 years in journalism were told when Mr. W. J. Murphy, who has retired from the staff of the Press Association in London, was entertained by his colleagues. Once in the House of Lords Mr. Murphy murmured aloud to himself “adjourn,” and the Lord Chancellor, thinking that that was the feeling of the House, immediately put the question and it was carried. He was thus the only man who had succeeded in adjourning that august assembly from the Press Gallery. A REVOLTSKI JUVENILE TSARISTS “Treason” and counter-revolution among children in the public schools have just been discovered and announced with a great alarm of drums by “Kommolskaya Pravda,” official organ of the 2,000,000 organised Young Communists in Moscow. Underground societies of Tsarist supporters among the tiny tots. AntiSoviet propaganda in childish scrawls on the walls of school basements. Juvenile “terrorists” and Fascists — “blackshirts over the pinafores.” The disclosures of juvenile counterrevolutionary activities are not limited to any one school. Examples are drawn from schools in Leningrad, Kharkov, Voronesh, from village and city. In the town of Urupinsk a secret society of school children was raided. The culprits were found singing Tsarist hymns. In several city schools anti-Soviet groups were discovered, calling themselves “Blackshirts,” “Fascists,” “Young Strugglers” and other high-sounding names. FAIRY GODMOTHER MUSSOLINI’S NEW ROLE Teresa Testa, of Tortona, is a girl who understands the art of making hay while the sun shines. She is a fair-haired, blue-eyed peasant girl of 20, engaged to be married to a young workman, but lacking the means to buy herself the necessary outfit. Having read in the daily Press that Mussolini had given a sewing-machine to a girl at Pavia to enable her to earn her living Teresa sat down and penned the following letter to the Duce:— '' “I am young, strong and healthy. I want to be married, but I have no money to buy an outfit, as I have to work and help my parents, keep my five little sisters. If you help me, I promise you that I will always be a good wife and bring up my children to be good, healthy and honest.” Inquiries .were made, and as the facts stated by Teresa proved to be perfectly true, she found herself one day called before the Podesta of Tortona, who showed her a letter written to him by Mussolini, containing these words: “See" that Teresa Testa has her outfit.” The girl’s feelings may be imagined. “I wrote to the Duce,” she told an interviewer, “to thank him,, and it took me three days to compose the letter. Even then it didn’t say all that I wanted, but the Duce will understand.”