Oddments

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 August 1949, Page 4

Oddments

He is indebted to his memory for his jests and to his imagination for his facts.—Sheridan. * * * * An American with some aversion to her countrymen’s constant recourse to hyperbole, notes with some satisfaction that German-speaking immigrants refer to the skyscrapers as wolkenkratzer, which, being interpreted, she says, is “cloud scratcher.” “There is,” she continues, “a conservative note in this description which allows a high tower to scratch at an occasional low cloud. But one American extravagance sends every high building scraping at the infinite.”

Mark Twain would probably have said “welkin,” but Mark was only on the way to the limit. It looks as if he were still fvith the German folk, much as he may have disliked their language. s{:

While timber-is scarce in Britain, there are 1,224 timber controllers, according to a recent Parliamentary reply by Mr-Wilson, President of the Board of Trade. Their salaries total £593,000 The estimated number engaged in the trade is 86,700 which gives an average of one controller to every 71 employed. In comparison, the Paint Directorate manages with 12 controllers, pr one to every 3,100 people employed. The Paper Control numbers 206, with 75,700 employees in paper and board manufacture, giving an average of one controller to every 367. . In all, the British Board of Trade has 2,134 paid controllers' of raw materials at salaries totalling £992,400. They are rated as non-in-dustrial staff. In addition, 476 industrial staff are employed, bringing the total remuneration ’to more than £1,000,000. Controls are supervised by the Board’s Raw Materials Department, salaries of which are estimated at £1,298,260 this year.—London Daily Telegraph. —The Seeker