HERE AND THERE.

Matamata Record, Volume X, Issue 884, 19 December 1927, Page 3

HERE AND THERE.

ITEMS OF INTEREST. Women are losing ground numerically, in Britain. Last year, per 10,000 of the population, the maies increased by 52, while the females increased by only 40. ' .accommodation for 43 ; 305 more pupils in the British elementary schools is provided in the plans approved for the current year by the Board of Education. There are to be 55 new schools.

A block of oitices that will constitute the largest building in the British Empire is under construction in Montrea.. The g.ound floor will have an area of 1,250,u00 square feet. Although ‘'face-lifting” may keep a person youthful in looks science has yet to discover any method of rejuvenating hands which give away age even more thoroughly than faces.

Stated to be the smallest in the world, a vyonderful miniature Indian carpet, 34m. long and 2lin. wide, has been presented to the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington. Tapestries dating back to the middle of the sixteenth century and among the finest specimens of this art are to be seen in the Jerusalem Chambei az Westminster Abbey. The oldest railway in the world, the Mumbles Railway at Swansea, is to be electrified. It was opened in 1807, and for seventy years horse-drawn trains plied its five-mile track. 1 A tribe known as the Baila tribe, who knock out their front teeth and dress their hair with brass-headed nails, has been discovered in a littleknown district in Northern Rhodesia.

A London vicar has taken up the making of hand-beaten silverware as a means of adding to his income. He specialises in church vessels, but is ready to undertake other commissions. That tuberculosis will be as rare in the England of two generations ahead as leprosy is npw was a cheering fore-cast-made at the recent congress -of the National Veterinary Association. Too many! cigarettes, insufficient attention to diet, and lack of adequate clothing are the cause of the increased cicath-rate among younger unmarried women, according to Dr Mary Schailieb.

Vegetarian weddings are being encouraged by the French Society of Vegetarians. The society has organised a series of functions where young lovers of vegetables can start iAeir courtships. Thirty threepenny-bits were solemnly handed by a bridegroom to the registrar of Dorking, Surrey, recently. He bad promised his fiancee to marry he when he had saved the fee in '' li reepennies. ’’ Artificial silk is now being made from the bark of the giant redwood tree, and it is possible to utilise practically every fibre of the tree. Until the present time the bark was considered a waste moduct.

“Pin-mor-cy, ” as the name of » wife’s allowance, dates back to the reign of Charles I- This monarch received 1 £SOO a year from the pin-mak-ers; this sum he handed to his Queen for her private purse. Built by a religious community, a house near Pontefract was demolished by order of the local council, who had not passed the plans. It was then rebuilt, and. once again the council has ordered removal. Feathers of all kinds are being used for making artificial flowers decorating handbags, and for other ornamental purposes, with the result that even hen leathers are fetching a fair price if in bulk.

Covering a site of seven and a-half acres .and to cost £330,000, a new training centre for Salvation Army officers is being erected at Denmark Hill as a memorial to the late General Booth, the Armv’s founder. There is a lake near Batticaloa, on. the east coast of Ceylon, famous for its singing flsh. The -music heard on the surface of the water is said to be caused by 'the opening and closing of the shells of bivalves.

some cases to a serious extent,