NEWS OF THE WORLD.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 31 October 1925, Page 13

NEWS OF THE WORLD.

* ; MUSIC AS MEDICINE. r A medical journal has recently announced the results of some experiments made to ascertain the relation ol ! music and medicine. One curious piece of news obtained is that if a lively air is played on a harp or mandolin, a man’s tired muscles regain their original vigour. The music of a violoncello, on the other hand, has a precisely opposite effect, in temporarily lessoning the usual strength, and vitality of the hearer. In nervous and impressionable people, sad music in a minor key, such as Chopin’s ‘'Funeral March,” actually weakens the pulse and makes the beating of the heart feebler and more irregular. An American doctor stated not long ago that almost every mental trouble could be cured by suitable selections of classical music regularly administered. Jealousy, grief, overwork, homicidal mania, nervous breakdown, all had their corresponding air. WATER-DROP WONDERS. Interesting pictures of the myriad forms of life that exist, in a single drop of water were shown in a recent film. A pond covered with green slime and apparently still is in reality a teeming mass of life. A drop of water taken up in the eye of a needle and magnified eleven million times reveals a swarm of wriggling creatures that in the ordinary way are invisible; they appear to be ruled by a great jointed monster that looks like a sea serpent, but. whose actual length is loss than three-sixteenths of an inch. The rotifer, an inhabitant of stagnant ponds, has a “water wheel” entrance to his internal system and catches his victims by means of suction. ROSE RECORDS

As a rule rose bushes are not classed with yews and oaks among the longlived and ancient, but a rose tree on the wall of Hildesheim Cathedral, Prussia, can be traced back 'with, certainty to the eleventh century. Its main trunk has a thickness of twenty inches, and the branches spread over the wall to a height of twenty-five feet. The Castle of Chillon, on Lake Geneva, in which the famous “Prisoner” of Byron’s poem was interned,' has-a very large rose tree of unknown age, and in the Marine Gardens at Toulon there is one that spreads across a space of eighty feet by fifteen feet,#and which has been known to bear fiftv thousand blooms at the same time!

. The biggest rose tree in Europe is in the Wehrle Gardens in Friesburg, Germany. Its stock is a wild rose on which a “tea rose” was grafted forty years ago. To-day the bush is one hundred and twenty feet high.

ARMY MANOEUVRES. The Army manoeuvres, to bo held in - September; will be the first undertaken : since 11) 13 (wrote an English observer last month). The area in which they are to take place may be roughly indicated by an imaginary boundary line drawn through Reading, Devizes, Bland- . ford, and Petersfield. Since the war ’ great progress lias beeu made in muni- , tions and appliances, some of which are extremely expensive. The Army authorities conteild that unless they.can try them out they will not bo in a position to go in for production on a large scale. Though the manoeuvres themselves are expensive, they will save money -by showing the best line for development, besides training troops and staff. A test of the new tanks will bo made. These are believed to be an advance on the old ones. There will also be experiments in new methods of mechanical transportation. Another object will be to see the effect of certain smoke-producing devices, confidently believed to be capable of saving our armies heavy casualties in the field. The manoeuvres are expected to forward cooperation between land forces and air forces. BUTTONS PROM SNAILS. At an auction sale the other day some green snail-shells were sold for £1 and upwards per hundredweight. These snail-shells arc used for inlaid work by furniture makers, and are also turned into buttons. A very large number of the so-called “pearl” buttons which wo wear on our clothes are made from mussels. The mussel-shells, when they reach the button factories, are cut into rough “blanks,” and then turned on a small lathe to the proper shape. The depression in the centre is made at the same time. Afterwards two or four . holes are bored for the thread. The polishing of the buttons is done by means of a chemical fluid. CLOWN FASHIONS

. Paris has organised a competition with a view to altering the facial makeup of clowns.

On the original meaning of these designs, opinions differ; some say they were intended to ridicule the rougetinted cheeks of the Columbine, while others declare it to be no more than the outcome of a naughty boy’s raid on his mother’s jam-pot. The fish-tail is supposed to be accounted for by the fact that all clown's are descended from Momus, the god of mockery, who was always personified with a large, gaping mouth.

These symbols, however, have never been adopted by the circus clown, who seldom does more than paint his nose a bright red.