NEWS OF THE WORLD.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 29 August 1925, Page 11

NEWS OF THE WORLD.

WATER AND ARTESIAN WELLS. What will, be the future of arid districts depending on artesian wells? In an American Water Supply Paper Messrs. Meinzer and Hard' find that when the ground water is withdrawn much faster than the rate of recharge the pores of the reservoir rock are gradually reduced, and they conclude that' the Dakota sandstone of North Dakota has been - compressed several inches in the 38 years since the first flowing well were drilled. One indication of the reduction of the pores at least temporarily is the slowness of a flowing well in recovering pressure after being closed. NOSE INSURED POR £IO,OOO. The cilaze .in America for insuring against every conceivable type of risk goes on with nnabaiting vigour. A dancer recently insured her legs for £30,000; a Follies girl paid a premium of two ith.ou.-iand do!lans, in case her facial beauty was spoiled, and a film actress insured “a perfect pair of bhoulde rs ’ ’ for seventy thousand dollars.' The most unique, case on record is thiat of Miss Blanche Oa.vj.tt, who has insured her .nose for £IO,OOO. An American firm liras refused the risk, so she took a policy' out with a British company. Alisas Oavitt is a scent tester, and the slightest depreciation of her delicate gifts loses' her a highlypaid post. CAUGHT IN MOUSE-TRAP. A mouse-trap .set in the’galley of the North German liner Bremen caught big game, the “victim'’ being a. stowaway, a Czeoho-Slovakian, who was attempting to travel from Bremen to New York on the cheap. He and a companion had consumed all the provisions they hlaid secreted in the potato .store and at night raided the .ship’s galley in the search of eatables. Detecting a smell of cheese, the CV.echo-Sloivakaan groped with both handls in the darkness. . . Suddenly there was a click, and the stowaway shrieked in pain land fright when the trap .shut on his fingers. Hits yells brought a kitchen assistant to the spot, and after a fight, both stowaways were caught. “LAND OF HOPE AND GLORY.’’ Since the death of Mr A. C. Benson several notable tributes have been writ- j ten to the modesty of his character and the variety of his work. Few people among the thousands familiar with "Land of Hope and Glory’’ know that Benson wrote the words. The President of Magdalen, in a letter to The Times, recalled the following conversation : When f said to him, some years ago. I would give a good deal to have written it, he replied very modestly. “There's not much in it. It was made hv Elgar’s music.” .1 said, “i agree with the last part of your statement, hut not with the first.

first. Not even Elgar would or could have made it if it had been so good, .y in itself.” In another letter Mr. Hernia n Klein told the story of the coincidence by which words and music were brought together. *’ The tune that the whole world knows to-day already .existed as the trio of Edgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance” March, and there it would probably have remained, “unhonoured and. unsung,” but for the fact that Dame Clara Butt one day asked the composer to write a song for her with a refrain like that.” “But why not that Very tune?” was the reply. Then it whs that A. C. Benson’s poem was laid under requisition, and to the inspiring words in the “Coronation Ode,” which fitted the wonderful refrain, were added the other stanzas of the song which we now know as “Land of Hope and Glory.”

“HAS YS A BIT CORKSCREW? ’ ’

Joseph. Mac-doiiaki (24), a steel worker from Scotland, employed on Waterloo Bridge, was staitect at the Mansion House Police Count, London, to have buanclislhed a bottle oif whisky before a policeman on traffic duty in Fleet bibieat, exclaiming, “Mon, line ye a bit corkscrew 'The .interview attracted a crowd, which stopped the 'traffic, and ns Macdonald would nob go 'away he bad to i he arrested on a charge of disorderly I conduct. . “I was waitin’,” Macdonald told the Court, “for .a, friend. A bit of a fide is my friend. Mail, he lost s*yen quid of bis wages on Friday riieht and l was wantin’ to .see him to safety. He wa.s talkin’ to strangers, which ah consider unsafe for a Scotti>sh mia.n to do in Loindon.” Alderman Sir J. Baddeley fined Macdonald 10s,. and warned him in future not to apply to the police when in want of a corkscrew, says the Daily Mail. PRODUCING NEW FRUITS. With all the variety of apples, pears, plums, and other soft fruits now grown in Britain, of which the total must run to many hundreds, there are numerous gaps which hybridists are trying. to fill. The method' with apples necessitates the removal of the stamens, or male portions, of the flowers of seed-bear-ing parent, leaving only the pistil, or female portion. The flow’er is gently opened and then is bound up in a paper bag to prevent insects from bringing pollen from other trees to it. After a few days pollen is trans fexred to the pistils and the flower is again secured from insects.

“T.P.” ON LATE RISING-. I Mr. T. P. 0 ’Connor,. M.P., was recently the guest of honour at the Celebration Dinner of the National FeclI oration of Retail Newsagents, Booksellers, and Stationers, to mark the opening of the new national headquarters in Fleet Street, London. Mr. T. P. O’Connor said that the members of the federation had long and irregular hours, and really a hard life. He recalled that in his early days of journalism his own working hours were 6 p.m.' to 6 a.m. Now he had a. horror of getting up a. minute before 10.30 in file morning. FOREST GOLD. Tliink of 5000 freight trans of 50 cars each, -hauling; 10.000,000 tons' of a single product! It might- almost be put clown ns s ome roseate dream of an optimistic freight agent; hut it is not. It is merely a computation of the annual movement of Canada’s forest products over the Canadian National Railways—and not all of the by-products, l>v any means.

Some idea of the tremendous value of the forests to the nation and the National system in particular, was given at a recent Forest Protective meeting hv Mr J. li. M’Laren, Comptroller of the Central Region, says the Canadian National Railways Magazine, and, as would be expected of the Accounting Department, he used figures upon figures to help in the work of visualising the important place the forests stand in the economic life, of the nation. and the National System in particular. Here are some of his figures. In one year the Canadian National Railways carried:—

tons. togs, posts, poles, cord wood 1,929,325 Ties * : * 190,861 Pulpwoorl ... ... 2,716,044 Sawed lumber, timber, staves 4,471,125 Other forest products: ... 274,251 The foregoing list totals 9,851,666 tens, but it does not include wood pulp and paper, which are essentially, forest products,, and which provide a large I amount of tonnage to the National System each year.