NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1045, 19 September 1911, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

“I don’t care what you say, but England glows her statesmen ; she cannot make them,” said the student of English politics to a fellow traveller after dinner in a Taranaki pub, says the News. Just look at the Salisbury's, the Rosebery’s, the ” then came a husky voice from the corner, a product of the land, “How about the blackberries !’’

Holding up a pearl button in his fingers, the clergyman of oue of the Dunedin churches recently said on a Sunday night : “The lady or gentleman who put this in the plate this morning may be distressed on account of the loss, so 1 have arranged that it can be returned to the owner at the poich after the present service." We mention the mailer (says the Star) because the loser was apparently not present, and may be wondering what became of the button.

An Oklahoma editor was much interested in a scientific note he

encountered in an Eastern paper to the effect that if the earth were flattened the sea would be two miles deep all over the world, says the Success magazine. The editor reprinted this note, with the following comment: “If any man is caught flattening the earth, shoot him on the spot. There’s a whole lot of us in this State who can’t swim.”

“Personally,” says Ariel in the Dunedin Star, ‘T am in favour of waste Maori lands passing into the hands of white men as quickly as possible. The fine Mokau district has lain idle from the Creation till now. It is a wilderness interposed between settlement in Auckland and settlement in Taranaki. Speedily it will link the two provinces, instead of dividing them. One or two hundred prosperous farmers, representing a thousand people will occupy the block. Hitherto it has produced eels and kakas. I rejoice in the change. I applaud those who bring it about, and don’t grudge them a profit.”

When the Waratah disappeared from human ken, Mr E. R. Waite, curator of the Canterbury Museum, received a letter asking him to decide a wager about a question relating to that ill-fated vessel. The question was: “If the Waratah sank in mid-ocean, would she drop right down till she reached the bottom, or would she merely drop down a certain depth till the pressure stopped her from going further, so that she would then be carried hither and thither far below the surface at the mercy of currents ?” Mr Waite mentioned the matter at a recent meeting of the Canterbury Philosophical Institute. lie said the answer was that the vessel would sink down to the very bottom of the sea.

The Munich News has discovered an insurance company whose business deals with insuring married couples against divorce. This is how it is done. The company have agents in all important towns in the United States —the cradle of the company—who watch the marriage announcements in ihe papers. On the return trom the honeymoon a gentleman agent calls on the husband and congratulates him. Then, when the opportunity permits he gets to business. lie calls attention to the number of unfortunate marriages that have taken place, and then produces some actuarial statistics. Acturial statistics, according to the agent of the Marriage Insurance Company, show that the average duration of a happy marriage is about iS mouths. The young husband, to say the least, has a quarter of a century before him. Divorce is costly, but the company, for a weekly payment of about 2s, will take all risks, pay the costs and damages, if any. “What young man,” our Munich contemporary asks, “can resist such an offer ?” He insures. Next comes the wife’s turu. A lady agent calls upou the wife. The same story in told, and the lady in her turu surrenders, and before night husband and wife have each a policy of insurance without further cause for anxiety.