GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20402, 2 November 1929, Page 9 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

A CHAMPION PILL TAKER. The identity of the champion pill-taker .of/he world has been preserved for posterity. He was a. farmer named Jessup, who lived in Hickington, in Lincolnshire." Mr. Jessup began to acquire the habit •when he was 44 years of age, and bv the time he died in 1814, at the age .of 65, he had swallowed 226.934 pills,' ;flnd washed them down with 40,000 bottles medicine. / SOME NAMES! Chargoggagoggmanchaugagoggabunagim.gamogg is the Indian name of a pretty little Massachusetts lake. Wales litis a.i even greater orthographic monstrosity in the name of the town of Xlar.uirowllgwygyllgogerychwyrndrobwililiandysiliogogogoch. Names like these are more difficult to ra«tfe off than even " Theophilus Thistle t'r successful thistle sifter in sifting a sieve/ill of unsifted thistles thrust three thousand thistles through the thick of his .(thumb." TALKIES IN YOUR HOME. Many inventors are making home talkring film machines, using small cine projectors and synchronised gramophone fliscs./ One, the Svntoh, a new British disc mac.uns. can bo made very cheaply. Pictures can be recorded and produced by tag/same machine, while the gramophone part of the apparatus also controls the jtpeed. At a recent demonstration the *ouixtfs were found to be quite clear, and synchronised with the pictures. THE PILLION DOG. Sudbury. Middlesex, has a dog which ' has riddeu over 214,000 miles on the •pilliiMi of a motor-cycle. Punch is his name, and he has several day trips of from 250 to 050 miles t i his credit, and not' once, in all his journey in gs, has he fallen from his seat. A tireless traveller, Punch is something of a road hog, in that he likes high speeds and objects to pedal cvclists and traffic blocks. On these latter tttinoy- . anc&i he frowns through his goggles and gives vent to his anger: in growls and barks. CHANNEL SPEEDWAY TRACK. A cyclist has crossed the Channel on nis cycle. People have rowed across: one man paddled a canoe. The Channel has oeen' crossed by pedal-cycle; and now a motor-cyclist and his pillion rider have ridden from Dover to Calais and back. First the machine was lashed to two flouts similar to those used by seaplanes, and then a propeller gear was fixed so that the power u.sr.ally transmitted to the back wheel drove the propeller'. The motor-cyclist and his passeciitg: mads the return journey in seven hours and 25 minutes, including 40 minutes for lunch and two other stops. MARRL4.GES IN MAY. Figures compiled from newspaper marriage' announcements in England for 65 days from the last week in April to early in July showed that of 725 marriages announced, only 36 were for Fridays, wbjle Saturdays had 250. On grounds of convenience alone one would expect "Friday to be almost as popular as Saturday. Similarly, if one takes these 65 issues as being a fair sample, there are on an average 11 announcements a day. Therefore.,!/ for the .27 week-days in May one ■would expect a list of about 297. Actu.allv there were only 126. The frantic rush to avcid a May marriage resulted in 93 marriages in ths last week of April, while in the first week after this dreaded period there were 115. HISTORIC ENGLISH SMITHY. The ancient smithy in Station Road, Harrow, 'winch has existed on that site for over ,500 years, is yielding to the pressure of shop extension, and is to be removed to another site. It has always been an object of interest, and once was almost surrounded by poplar trees. Previous to the Dresent owners it had been in the hands of generations of a blacksmith family known for their great strength, one of whom used to crack nuts between thumb and finger. Tradition states that, in 1646, when Charles I. flea from Oxford, his horse cast a shoe '.iear the smithy, and that he waited while a new shoe was procured. Further up the kiii a tablet records the fact that the fugitive King rested there and took his last Icok on London, until brought Lack a prisoner. RIP VAN WINKLE POSTCARDS. The British Post Office, for all its faults, knows how to make a gesture. It recently delivered two picture postcards to /an address in Lowestoft. They bore halfpenny stamps instead of penny ones, yet the Post Office forbore to demand surcharge. Perhaps the postal conscience was touched' by ths sight of Iving Edward s ' Lead, cn the stamps. One of the cards was posted in Stoke Newington in. August, 1307, and one in London, in August, ISC9. / Both were fully, correctly and legibly addressed, and both were delivered in Lowestoft on the same day in 1929. No explanation was given as to where they'have been during the intervening 20 and 22 years, or why, posted in different post offices 1 , they suddenly came together or., the same dav. and arrived at their destination by the same post. AN ALL-ROUND MACHINE. One of the problems of the day, how to get .v 3d ticket out of the automatic machine without finding three separate pennies to drop in the slot, has been solved at St. James' Park Station. Hie new machine will take six halfpennies. It will also take one penny and four halfpennies, or any other combination of pence and halfpence which makes up the requisite sum. It is not too particular. It is money it wants. There ia no need to find the slot. The prospective passenger merely drops his coins in a bunch into the open lhis cperi door, or mouth, is. caUed a bunch hopper. 'Open-mouthed as this machine is for the money, it is not so greedy that it will swallow anything. A bent coin is rejected. The passenger can get it back by pressing a button and again. ICS THAT WILL NOT 3IELT. Indoor skating is likely to be mora popuiar than ever, for there are ambitious ideas in the minds, of those connected with the rinks in a number of English cities. Artificial ice for skating can be made very cheaply, as Hollywood discovered some time ago- Ihe ■ amateur photographer may be surprised when the secret is revealed, for fiim ice is simply " hypo," as used for fixing photographic plates after development. To make aa icebound river or a Swiss lake in winter sports condition, all the film people do is to melt the " pour it on the floor, and then, when it is cool, go over it with a hot iron. It will then last indefinitely, even in hot weather, though the ironing has to be vepeatpd daily. It is doubtful, however, whether any artificial ice can ever be quite so good as the genuine article. iVVhen big skating races take place the dinners are usually skaters* who have been trained on real ice.

LOW DRESSES AND LOW PRICES. Germany ia returning to the vogue of onger dresses. This is confirmed by the remarkably low prices at which dresses of all kinus are now being offered at the autumn sales in Berlin. Tlie shopkeepers are seeking to set rid of their old stocks before thev become completely antiquat^L A WRONG TITLE. The title " The Bank of England," which has for unrecorded years decorated a Jittle grocery shop in Burnley, is 'to coma down, as tending to misconception. No one seems to know how or why the name was put up; but it is probable that idea was to inspire confidence, just as the pork-pie shop at the corner labels its wares " Our Own Make." INTERNATIONAL FAME. It :s not necessary to become a stowaway to achieve international fame. Master Aven Foreman climbed to the top of a flag-pole in the garden of a town at Baltimore and sat there for the space of ten days ten hours ten minutes and ten seconds. As be sat he heard Mayor Brooning commend his "stamina, grit and pioneering American spirit." Longfellow would have been the right poet to sing the praises of pioneering in one's own backyard. RO3OT POSTAL CLERK. A mechanical letter-box which does the work of a post office clerk has been invented by a Cologne engineer. When one posts an unstamped letter or card it drops on to a weighing apparatus, whereupon a device at the top of the box automatically registers the amount of postage required, which the sender has to place in a siot provided for the purpose. The coin operates the " paid stamp " mechanism, and after the lettpr or card is stamped it is thrown into the container below for removal in the ordinary way. A FLOATING THEATRE. A floating theatre built into an oldfashioned, four-masted schooner is the latest scheme of some German enthusiasts. The ship will be called the Pro Arte, and will cruise round the world, visiting such places as Hamburg, London, Spanish ports, South America, Baltimore, New York and the Azores. The vessel will be equipped with a modern stage. There will be seating accommodation for 500 people,, and plays representative of the German spirit will lie presented. There will also be on board an old German beer and wine tavern. OYSTERS PASSING THE DOCTOR. The " oyster doctor " is a little-known personage so far as the general public is concerned. ■ Yet his duties are important. He piactises in London in a consulting room at the Fishmongers' Hall, where every ciav " natives " are medically examined. Oysters, like human beings, it appears, suffer from little pains and aches, from headaches and indigestion, and need careful medical attention. "A 1 " oysters are sold almost immediately, but there are many dyspeptic, neurotic, asthmatic little fellows who are classed as " C 3," and not allowed to adorn the tables. BEWILDERING FRACTIONS. In Manchester there is a clock which is remarkable for its accuracy. It gains only 19.33 seconds every year. Many people wonder why it cannot be adjusted to keep perfect time. The reason is that it would be impossible to make such a small adjustment. There are 31,500,000 seconds in a year. The clock gains, roughly, twenty seconds a year; that is to say. it varies from time accuracy by 1-1,575,000 th part of a second every second. The pendulum of this clock swings once every second through an arc of about ljin., so that to reduce the clock to true accuracy it would be necessary to find a weight—and also its correct position cn the~ pendulum—small enough to increase the swing of the pendulum by 1-1.575,000 th part of ljin, ORGAN WITH 2500 . PIPES. Cinema-goers are always curious to know exactly hew the scores of strange noises which synchronise with the modern film are produced. According to the London Daily Chronicle, they are all " played " on a mighty organ which contains 250 miles of electric wire, 40,000 contacts, and 2500 pipes! The organist also operates a 32-note carillon, and 25-note cathedral chime, and 3uch effects a3 : Bird 3* song- Tom-tom. Surf and rain. Whis'les fsteamsr. Crockery smash. police, train). Sleigh bells. Fire engines. The organ also plays the viokn, harp, oboe, xylophone, celesta, and marimba and controls the grand piano. ENGLAND'S OLDEST HOME. It wa.> lecentlv announced that the oldest, residence in England was for sale. This was Minster Abbey, in the Isle of Thanet, which has been lived in without a break since 740, close on 12C0 years ago. Minster Abbey was occupied by the Benedictine monks for five centuries, and was a nunnery for over 250 years. _ There are verv few buildings of similar antiquity in the country, though some of the old Saxon churches—or parts of t.hem—still remain. One of the few comulete examples of a Saxon church is that at Bradford-on-Avcn. But there is Saxon Furniture actually in existence. A chair, which is even older than Minster Abbey, 's still preserved at J arrow, in Durham. It is said to have belonged to the Venerable Bede. A QUESTION OF YEARS. It is generally assumed that wo are living in the year 1929, but the year may really bo 1933,. or even later. This fact is indicated by a record of an eclipse of the moon. Bible history says that. Christ was born during the reign ot* Herod the Great. But Herod died in the spring oi 4 8.C., the exact date being fixed by a lunar eclipse which took place the night before his death. - Obviously, therefore, Jesus must have been born not later than 4 8.C., and possibly earlier. The Churchy had definite knowledge of the date ot Christ s birth. It fixed "the vear, month and day of the month arbitrarily; Astronomers are able to calculate the dates of past eclipses as accurately as those of the future, and so li#ve determined the very day and hour of the. eclipse that ushered Herod the Great out of this life. YORKSHIRE GIRL'S QUEER TASK. The only girl grave-digger in England : s "a Yorkshire girl, Miss Maggie Freeman the last of five generations of janitors in Normanton,. Yorkshire. Maggie acts as grave-digger, verger, clerk of records, bell-ringer, and general at the eight-centurics-cld parish church. She lives alone in a stone cottage adjoining the churchyard, and has attended 500 narriage celebrations, and has dug many nraves. 3 Every Sunday Miss Freeman helps to ring the three bells in the church tower, and she also rings the bells for wed-lirxr-j. She succeeded her father when he died five years ago. after 25 years spent •a the church service. For over a contury a Freeman has held this position, her -veat-granufathsr having been born and s«red in the cottage in she lives now.