ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 1979, 22 November 1921, Page 2

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

FROM THE WORLD'S PRESS. The oldest known poem is the Song of Miriam. The excessive use of tobacco will often lead to colour-blindness. Whist, played as long ago as 1500, was originally called "Triumph." 3!fter being apparently dead for 14 hours, a Swiss clergyman came to life aagin. After 22 years' service, the White Star liner Teutonic, formerly a famous Atlantic liner, has been sold to a firm of Dutch shipbreakers.Rivers are always in motion, because they are trying constantly to reach a point nearest to the centre of the earth, in this case the bed of the ocean. Gondolas, those fascinating watertaxis of Venice, are to be put into commission on the Thames. A London builder is fabricating a fleet from real Venetian models. Finland is having her troubles over prohibition. Dr R. Kostedt reports to a Helsingfors medical magazine sixty oases of total blindness caused by drinking substitutes for brandy. The Angelus is now rung twice daily, after a lapse of 400 years, at the Church of St. Magnus tht> Martyre, London Bridge, where a new rector, Rev. H. J. Fynes-Clinton, has recently been appointed. The Premier of Queensland (Mr Theodore) recently stated, on the authority of the Agent-General, that Armours had purchased the whole output of the Queensland meat works. Mr Theodore said on September 5 that only the Gladstone works' output had been secured by Armours. British Columbia's June shipments of timber totalled 20,000,000 feet, destined for Japan, China, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, California, Mexico, Chile and Peru. Shipments to eastern Canada by water via Panama are a new feature of the business. Marcel Czrikrzit, the janitor of an apartment house in New York, had a private still for manufacturing liquor. One morning at 5.30 the 100 tenants of the building was aroused by a terrific explosion in the basement, and most of them ran into the street. Czrikrzit confessed that while he was operating his still it blew up.' By treating chalk with a patented process, by which it is blended with a »ich carbonaceous material, a British company claims a fuel can be produced as efficient as coal for household use. The fuel has a valuable byproduct in that the ash remaining after combustion can be utilised as cement for fertiliser. The world's record for a woman flyer was claimed recently, when an American lady succeeded in looping the leep 199 successive times, commencing at a-height of 8000 feet, and finishing 400 feet above the ground. «At an auction sale in Paris, £2400 was paid for the first Mauritius twopenny stamp, which 1b the most popular, though- by no means the rarest, of the valuable postage stamps. It was engraved by a watchmaker in 1817. Only a thousand were issued, and of these but twelve are still in existence. The best briar roots for making pipes come from Sicily and Calabria; the next best from Corsica. The plant —which is no relation to the briar rose—is a white heather, and the name gets its origin from the French word "bruyere" (heather). The plant is so hardy axe cuttings take root where they fall and speedily replenish the supply. Sad Is the story told by the "Army and Navy Journal" (U.S.A.). Someone has been tampering with th 3 alcohol sent to submarine bases for torpedoes. Somewhere between the point of shipment and the base, that pure alcohol was diluted. So now all Navy alcohol must be analysed at its port of shipment and again on its arrival at its destination nd the two analyses compared. An Englishman, John Walker, druggist, of Stockton-on-Tees, introduced, in 1827, the first really practical friction matches. They consisted of wooden splints coated with sulphur and tipped with a mixture of sulphiae of antimony, chlorate of potash, and gum. With each box was supplied a piece of glasspaper, together with instructions to "Sold the glass-paper in two, and draw the match-head quickly through the fold." The resultant friction ignited the match. Mr Joseph Cave, of Belgrave, Leicester, who has just been buried, survived for eight years the preparation of his own grave and tombstone. His burial place was completed in 1913, and he celebrated the occasion by going to the bottom of the grave, smoking a pipe, and singing "Poor Old Joe." Military tanks are being used to check heath fires. All efforts to stop the flames near Aldershot failed until a detachment of tanks crawled out, and the tank crews sprinkled water and chemicals on the fire and cleared the way for the fire-fighters, as though they were dealing with machine-gun nests in Flanders.

One of the rarest diseases known Is cancer of the nail, only four cases being on record. The most recent one is described by Dr Carlos Chagas. of the Medical College of Bello Horizonte. Brazil. It is that of a labourer, aged sixty, who had it on the nail of his great toe. The toe was amputated, and the man apparently cured, disappeared. The toe was examined microscopically, which confirmed tlie diagnosis. The bright red poppies of Flanders fields are not welcome in Massachusetts. The Commissioner of Agriculture, in urging that no more seeds or plants of this variety be brought for propagation purposes, asserted that, thof growing of the flowers might result in tremendous loss in agricultural districts. The Flanders poppy, according to the Commissioner, spreads very rapidly, the seeds being carried by the wind, and there would be great danger of damage to crops.