GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20520, 22 March 1930, Page 9 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

BUTTONHOLE' MICROPHONES.

C : The difficulties of. taking talking Sims in noisy streets have long' puzzled lisisdirectors. Their problem has now Jleen ' solved by means of buttonhole p 1 microphones, which are worn by the gii^players.' ' • i'Thesa microphones- are connected to Pt&tnd-recording apparatus by wireless, :: " J wid ifc is claimed that voices are recorded 'Clearly against the loudest background 'of traffic noise. '' WORLD CYCLING TOUR. ' J 'A motor-cyclo trip round the world has 'teen completed by/Mr. Douglas R. Hill, who, to win a wager of £2OO and expenses, undertook to do tlio journey in sii months. Unfortunately for him, he took 33 weeks. ''He covered 23,000 miles a t a cost of £IOOO, and lived mostly on yice, eggs, and potatoes. When in Japan, Mr. Hill was mistaken ' Jor a spy, while he was nearly stabbed - bv a, peasant at a local fair in Jugoslavia wten he attempted to claim a pair of stockings that had been stolen from his % -sidecar He had an encounter with rattlesnakes in Ney Mexico, and while in rfexas he suffered from malaria. SIX MILLION SCHOLARS. - o na would probably be surprised at the difference between their estimate and the correct figures if asked to state how much lola.\ education authorities iu England and Wales spent during 1928-29. The amount 'j ? £75,940,000. " / i ■ to tal of 6,027,526 pupils up to the age of 17 attended schools in England and Wales under the control of th© Board of Education during 1927-28; 110 of these ,were under three years of age. There are '76 certified day and boarding schools with accommodation for/4484 blind children, 50 schools accommodating 4726 deaf children, arid-184 schools Accommodating 17,035 mentallv defective children. Nearly 16,000,000 ■ meals were provided by education authoriiies.for 123,677 children during 1927-28. PROTECTING THE ORANG-OUTANG. From now onv/ard the orang-outang jnuonc his native /trees of Sumatra and Borneo will have a better chance of regaining there. This Old Man of the [Woods, which is what his rfime implies, must not be exported to the Stiaits Settle//nients or the Malay States. This was the only way in which to stop the traffic in these animals, most of which died from pneumonia or tuberculosis when they had been brought to Europe by Sealers in wild 3niinals. The Dutch Government forbade their exportation or capture some time ago, but there werd always people to smuggle them out of the islands. Now that the British Government? has set the example of forbidding their entry into British territory it is hoped that this form j,pf slave trade will end. / I NEW RAILWAY ENGINE. Railway engines without visible funnels 36nd with bodies almost as much streamlined as Sir Heniy Segrave's " Golden 'Arrow" seem likely in the future if the new express engint- No. 10,000, built for the London and North-Eastern Railway and recently tested!/ proves a success. It j is to be used betvyeen King's Cross and ' Edinburgh, and is' the largest locomotive yet built for passenger service in Great Britain. Many new-principles have been incorporated into its design. No. 10.000 has 'the exceptionally high boiler pressure of 4501b. to the square ' inch, and is the first British tender engine ' having the 4-6-4 wheel arrangement. _ It is also equipped with a water-tube boiler pnd an eight-wheeled tender. Tfie most powerful British express engines now in service have been of the 12- ' wheeled type, and it is said that the de"cision to experiment with a 14-wheeler may exercise an important influence on future locomotive practice. MUSIC-TYPING MACHINE. There has never, so far, been a really Satisfactory and simple machine for typing music, but Dr. Sander, an inventor, has recently patented one that seems to fill the bill. His machine is about the size :©f an office typewriter, and looks like a ; combination of adding-machine and printing press. It is as easy to use as a wireijess set. '■ It has the base aDd undercarriage of a • typewriter, but instead of a keyboard has a cylindrical " bohnet." On top of this 5s a radio set tuning-knob, and next to jt- a small, flat plate, showing the 220 key characters, 11 rows of 20 each, giving all jthe usual typewriter keys, and, in adjdition, every possible music symbol. Words music can be produced at the same time. Instead of " fingers" and typeface, it has a cylinder, like a tiny printing-press, With the 220 characters. You put your 'music paper in the roller, set a little pointer against the symbols you require, and turn the knob. The cylinder, revolving over, a tvpewriter ribbon, does the [rest. ' • WALL STREET CRASH. Mr. Edgar Wallace, in a survey of the .United States, which he contributed to the London Sunday Express, upon his lecent return, wrote: " I was impressed by the slump,, 'which broke the market on the day I arrived. Every person I met 'in every station oi life, from elevator boys to reputed millionaires, had been hit, the Inajority of them ruined. " In three days that break in the marlet cost the people of the United States j& sum of money greater than that expended by England during the war. It was the most colossal crash in the history New York. But the lasting impression 3 have is the smiling courage with which every class of citizen stood up to the frlow. /: " I lunched with an author who had Seen his whole life's savings swallowed in two days. I met a man who had lost .£10,000,000 —an unthinkable sum. In proportion to the losses the suicides of desperation were insignificant in number. The lArr.erican has the work habit and the begin-again habit, and I have never met tone v.-ho squawked over his or her misfortune." 7 ' OLD NAME REVIVED. / A member of the British Parliament stated recently that hardly anyone knew fsvnere to find the constituency of Spclthome. They would look for it in vain Pn the map. The name was given in 1913, and yet was a thousand years old. In Saxon times'* the land was divided up 3nto Hundreds. Instead of meeting in the parish hall to settle affairs, the village elders took counsel under a tree. .One of these Hundreds took its name, from the big thorn tree under which men feought justice 'or planned raids. Speljtboina means Thorn tree of Speech. The name was forgotten, except on the /koard of an inn .on the Staines Road, imfri t.be southern half of the old Uxbridge ilivisinn became a new constituency in . IS3B. Both • Staines and Teddington .wanted to give their names to the new constituency and in order io offend neither place a search was made into old records pnd this ancient Saxon name was revived. So the constituency of Spelthorne is fiuite new, but the name goes back to the days when Justice was administered under a tree instead of in a court, and on red-hot ploughshares was thought a good test of guilt or innocence..

BULLET IN THE HEART.

A remarkable case of a soldier who lived for six months with a bullet in his heart is revealed by the report of Lieut.-General H. B. Fawcus, DirectorGeneral of the Army Medical Service. The soldier was accidentally wounded by a bullet, but there were no immediate symptoms beyond some spilling of blood. Six months later gradual and persistent heart faihOe developed, and the man died. A post-mortem examination showed that a bullet v.*as embedded in his heart. AN ELUSIVE PENNY. An eminent London accountant, who deals with more than £5,000,000 every week, recently found himself a penny short. He went ir. search of it. Had he added up a stray fly's leg in a column of figures? Was it an error of simple addition ? Was there a hole in the petty cash drawer ? Had someone used a penny stamp and forgotten about it 1 No. For two days and one night the staff battled with those millions, and it was found that a badly-written figure "2" had been mistaken for "3." GREAT ELECTRIC- CABLE. What is believed to be the "largest and heaviest cable ever mado in England was taken for 12 miles from Brimsdown to King George V dock. North Woolwich, recently, in a special train, a double-rail track being kept clear all the way. The cable, which is designed to carry 33,000 watts, was made at the Enfield Cable Works. It is in five separate lengths, each 700 yards long and weighing 28 tons, each drum being lift in diameter. The special train consisted of an engine, a brake-van, and five wagons, and the journey was made late at night to avoid traffic disturbance. MEDICAL CINEMA FILM. . One of the first films ever made by a medical association for exhibition to the general public was displayed before the clinical congress of the American College of Surgeons. The film deals with the prevention and euro of appendicitis, declared by some of the assembled surgeons to be one of the gravest dangers confronting the world to-day. Dr. Edward Martin, a noted Philadelphia surgeon, stated that " there were 27,000 deaths from appendicitis in America last year. Twenty-six thousand of these," he'declared, "could have been prevented if the patient had received medical attention in time."DEATH OP A HERMIT. • Mr. Tudor James, a well-known hermit, who resided for a quarter of a century in a hut at Proudfoot, a lonely windswept headland on the north side of the Bay of Wick, in Caithness Shire, has died at the age of 80 years. On hearing of his illness the Parish Council officials went to see him. " I shall live to Christmas and then die happy," he told them. He did not wish to leave his hut, but he eventually consented to go to the County Home at Latherton, where he died. Nothing is known of his early days, although in times past he was regarded by thousands as the fishermen's friend." WAR HEROINE FETED. The people of Bradley village, near Leeds, recently turned out to honour Miss Marie Oliver, a Labour Exchange clerk, who, it has now leaked out, risked the fate of Nurse Cavell during the war. Her bravery became known by her meeting again at Huddersfield with Mr. Dan Young, chief comedian in a revue, who, when an escaped prisoner of war, was sheltered in Brussels by Miss Oliver. Although watched by German spies, she managed to find fresh hiding places for him until she procured a forged passport with which he left the country. The two lunched together before the celebrations. FEARS OP BURIAL ALIVE. Obsessed with the idea that he may reawaken in his coffin after being buried, Mr. Arthur C. Denison, a New York business man, is taking elaborate precautions against the possibility. He has stipulated that a bent pipe must be led into the coffin from the top of the vault, and, by means of an intricate system of jviring, the slightest movement inside the coffin will cause an electric bell to ring for hours. Packages of carefullywrapped chocolate are also to be placed inside the coffin. Ostensibly Mr. Denison appears to be in the very best of health, and his extraordinary plans are causing his intimate friends considerable anxiety. GROWTH OP SWITZERLAND. Switzerland, which has an area of only 15,950 sn-.'are miles, has now a population of roundly -*,000,000, to which it has risen from 3,300,000 in 1900. Small as 'She country is, it has 30 towns of over l(r,wo people. While the population has increased the mountainous regions are being deserted. The general growth of Switzerland is the more remarkable for the fact that one-fifth of the whole territory is mountainous and unproductive. Switzerland is almost dfestitute of native raw materials and yet she has 600,000 persons engaged in productive industry. In fact, it is nofc too much to say that if all the world worked as well and as effectively as Switzerland it would be a happier place. Switzerland is never troubled by war or rumours of war. BEETLES AS TENANTS. A little house is shortly to be built " somewhere in Buckinghamshire," which, from the outside, will seem to have " all modern conveniences." Actually, however, the house—which will cost £looo— have been plentifulSy inoculated with dry-rot fungus, and death-watch beetles (whose kin devoured the old oak of Westminster Hall) will hold undisputed revels in the roof. These undesirable " tenants" _ will be permitted to do their worst, while scientists from the Forest Products Research Institute at Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, the Building Research Station at Watford, Hertfordshire, and other Government centres will look on and increase their knowledge of the pests which cause such damage to Britain's buildings. " HOBSON'S CHOICE." Three hundred years ago last January there died a man whose name is perpetuated in a well-known phrase. Thomas Hobson succeeded his father as the official carrier to the University of Cambridge, which licenced persons to carry letters before and after the introduction of the Post Office system. He carried passengers, goods and letters between Cambridge and the Bull "Inn, Bishopsgate Street. Hobson also made it his business to provide riding boots, bridle and whip, and requested the hirer to take a horse for himself, but it had to be the one next to the stable door. If there was any demur ho declared, in a manner which prohibited further argument, that it was the horse nest the door or none at all. When the animal was taken the others were moved • up, and so each worked in rotation. The university scholars coined the phrase " Hobson's choice," and it remains to this day, although Hobson died in January, 1630. Milton wrote his epitaph*