GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20620, 19 July 1930, Page 7 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

VENEZUELA AND ITS NAME. Venezuela, which means " Littlo Venice," was so named from the lako villages on tho shores of Lake Maraeaibo, where the Indians have lived lor generations in huts raised on piles. Venezuela now ranks second of the countries of tho world in the production of petroleum, the peak production having reached over .100,000,000 barrels yearly.

SUTTEE IN EAST PRUSSIA,

Tho excavations that aro being carried on in tho Samland district of East Prussia have disclosed finds that indicate that the widows of tho most ancient inhabitants ot this part of Germany were burned alive on their husbands' funeral pyre. Tho conclusion is considered to be the more probablo because it is known that ancient Prussians preserved much of the language and customs of their original Indo-Germanic home. PENSIONS FOR PEASANTS. According to an official announcement made in Rome, every Italian peasant who was 65 years of age before tho end of April is to roceivo an annual pension. Tho money for these pensions will bo obtained from a fund to which all Italian employers have been contributing for the last ton years. Tho measure has been greatly welcomed by farmers, and is another indication of the attention given by the Fascist Government toward agricultural problems. NEW IDEA IN ADVERTISING. A vineyardist from Garden, near Cochem Germany recently started out from the famous wine city of Berncastle ou tho Moselle to roll an empty 325-gallou cask from there to Berlin. Tho great cask bears the inscription, " I come from the impoverished Moselle land." The purpose of the novel trip was to induce the Germans to drink more Moselle wines. Tho route chosen leads through Cologne, Dusseldorf, Essen and Dortmund. Tho man hoped fo roll bis cask into Berlin in about three months. NEW LAKE IN ITALY. Tho world would never have heard of an obscuro village some 25 miles from Rome, had it not been for a mysterious lako which first appeared in the night in 1895, disappeared, came once again arid vanished until February 1 of this year. The lako shows signs of having come to stay, for it is extending its shores, and causing considerable stir in the neighbourhood. Geologists aro all allaying anxiety by their reports that the cause of tho phenomenon arc not volcanic, but aro tho results of underground cavities produced by the corroding action of saline waters. FAMOUS ANCIENT CRYPT. The crypt under the eastern choir of the Bremen Cathedral has been restored to its original condition and equipped as a cathedral museum. Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen, the friend of Kaiser Heirilieli I\\ began the building of the crypt about the year 1050, and it was completed by his successor. Toward the end of tho Middle Ages the crypt was used as a storage-room, and was even leased later as a wine cellar, it now contains many things worth seeing, especially the tombstone of Archbishop Uni, who died in 953, early Gothic sculptures representing tho five wise and five foolish virgins, and a group in the same stylo representing the coronation of the Virgin Mary. EDUCATED FISH IN GERMANY. Fish have been taught to distinguish letters of the alphabet" after painstaking effort by professors of a German university. First, the fish were taught to distinguish colours by placing food in the, water in bags of different hues. Tho fish soon learned to go to tho bag of a certain colour containing their food and to open it by pulling a string. Next, letters were attached to tho bags, and, finally, the letters wero used with bags of the same colour. The fish learned to choose the bag containing their food from the letter on it, regardless of its position with reference to the other bags, and at last even acquired tho ability of distinguishing between the letters " B" and " R." OLD WINDSOR OAKS TO GO. A number of ancient oaks in indsor Forest havo been cut down recently as thev have become dangerous to the public. Some of them were said to be a thousand years old and to have. _ been planted in'the time of the Saxon kings. The trees had become mere hollow skeletons. By permission of the King motorists aro allowed to place their cars on the grass bv the side of the Windsor and Ascot, Road, and thousands havo enjoyed the privilege during tho past few summers. Cnfortunatelv after their picnics some of the picnickers have put their empty I bottles and other litter in the hollow of 1 the trees and Have then set fiio to the rubbish. This has caused such a nuif.ance that the authorities decided to removo several of tho trees. ALMOST TO THE TIME OF EVE. Exactly how old the needle i? it would bo hard to say. Its original form is believed to have been a bone implement of tho crochet-hook type, but authentic bone needles with eyes—sometimes in tho middle —have been in cave do- ' Fosits in Britain and in Franco. The steel needle came to Europe by way of the Moors. According to Stow " the making of Spanish needles was first taught in England by Elias Crowso, a German, about the eighth year of Queen Elizabeth ' formerly the pointing (shaipcning) was done by hand—as indeed, was the whole process' of manufacture—and though this sounds a laborious process, a good worker, holding a coupl p of dozen at a time against his grind-stono, could point 100,000 needles a day. TRAFFIC IN SHANGHAI. Visitors to Shanghai are always impressed by the modern traffic equipment introduced to regulate the fast increasing volume of traffic which flows through tho streets. Two years ago experimental signal lights were introduced on Nanking Road, the main thoroughfare, in an endeavour to obtain a bettor regulation of tho traffic The lights were so successful that all the principal crossings in the business dis. trict, and well into the residential district' are now equipped with these lights, and 'probably the most diverse traffic in the world is now governed by red and green lights. Tho amazing success can only be appreciated upon seeing a typical Shanghai street with a dozen different types of ancient and modern vehicles, including rickshas, automobiles, motor-buses, bicycles, carts hauled by coolies, peculiar onewhe'eled barrows, and occasionally ono of Shanghai's few sedan chairs.

CUCKOO CLOCKS 200 YEARS OLD. This year brings the 200 th. anniversary of the Black Forest cuckoo clocks, which are known all over the world. Ihe first ono was made by the clockrnaker Franz Anton Kctterer in Schonwald in 1730. Ivetlcrer also discovered a method of making cogwheels, by machinery, thus doing away with the previous laborious process of filing them out by hand.

COMFORT IN RESTAURANTS

The (ired and hungry German business man will soon bo able to havo a nap with his meals when a new eating restaurant in Berlin is completed. In this restaurant ovcry table will be equipped with a curtain which can be drawn around the customer. Tho seats can bo readily converted into reclining chairs and an alarm clock warns tho guest when ho should return to his office. THE KING'S 360 CLOCKS. About 360 clocks of various makes and ages had to be adjusted to summer time at Windsor Castle —where the King was staying—on April 13. The first lever watch ever made—by one Thomas Mudge—was recently discovered at the castle, and although it is a century or two old it still goes as well as ever. It was duly attended to, as was also the famous old clock in the Curfew Tower, made about IG9O by John Davis. NEW YORK'S WONDER THEATRE. One of tho latest wonders in New York is a 200-seat theatre ou the fiftieth floor of the Chanin building. The playhouse is 500 ft. above the street level, and it is equipped for tho display of motion pictures, stage productions, musical recitals, and other events, or it may bo used as a room for sales and business conferences. Patrons are carried to the theatre in six high-speed elevators capable of handling a capacity audience in two trips. The latest developments in lighting, stage equipment, and sound insulation have been incorporated in this theatre in the sky. NEW PARK IN BERLIN. * The Hagenback Park, long contemplated in Berlin, is in less than two years to become an accomplished fact. The sito chosen is an excellent one; tho park will occupy over 420,000 square yards. It will be only some ten miles distant from Berlin. Ilerr Hagenback proposes to work on the lines of other famous parks which serve not only as zoological gardens, but as recreation grounds for the people. Every description of bird and beast will bo specially selected for tho new undertaking, where they will bo able to enjoy somo resemblance of liberty and stretch their legs and wings without the hindrance of the ordinary zoological garden. IMPORTANCE OF COURTESY. The proprietor of an American hardware store had some vaguo ideas on tho value of courtesy as a business policy, and determined io put them to tho lest of practice. Acordingly he instructed his employees on a certain day not to bo more than ordinarily solicitous when customers asked questions and talked about buying goods. A review of tho sales that night showed that tho average purchase prico had been 27 cents. On the following day tho merchant. instructed his clerks to bo specially courteous and accommodating in their | relationship with customers. A counting 1 up of the sales that night showed that tho average purchase price had risen to 90 cents. LADY OXFORD'S £35 BILL. Bradford libraries, art gallery, and museums' committee recently passed a motion for the payment of £35 to tho Countess of Oxford in connection with tho Jubilee Exhibition of British Paintings, which was opened by her at Bradford in May. Mr. W. E. Preston, tho director of the art gallery, said: "Lady Oxford did not send a bill. It was sugested that some remuneration should be made to her for tho services she had rendered and tho time alio had devoted in London and else, where to tho interest of this exhibition and not altogether in connection with the opening. She was involved in considerable expense " PUSHING OUT THE CIRCUS. Circuses are being elbowed out of Paris. The reason appears to be not so much tho competition of the cinema and other forms of entertainment as the demand for space in central locations. Two places still remain where children and their elders may laugh at tho antics of the. clown or gaze in wonder at the feats of tho acrobats. These are tho Cirque Medrano, in Mont mart re, and Ihe Cirque d'Hiver, in the Boulevard du Temple. The Cirque de Paris, in tho Avenue do la Motte-Piquct, is now succumbing, stone by stone, and the Nouveau Cirque was some time ago driven from the Rue du Faubourg Santi-Ilonore by the forward march of business. Another circus of sorts disappeared about fifteen years ago. This was the Jardin do Paris, near tho south-eastern corner of the Champs Elysees. GREAT INDOOR SWIMMING BATH. The now indoor swimming bath ;n the Gartenstrasse, Berlin, recently completed, is tho largest establishment of its kind in all Europe. The hall is nearly 200 ft. long and 72ft. wide, and the pool is 49 by 164 ft., with a greatest depth of 13Aft. There are two gymnasiums in an upper story, and two roofgardons for sunbalhs, with dressing-rooms, gymnastic apparatus and shower baths. Thero are dressing-room accommodations in the swimming hall for 700 persons, 100 tub baths, 25 medicinal baths and Russian and Roman baths, with about 100 cots. Work on the bath had been so far completed that it was ono of the limited number of projects whose completion was decided on despite the programme of economy forced on Berlin by the unfortunate financial situation. WAYS OF WOOING SLEEP. An American professor has been investigating tho sleep habits of more than 500 of his distinguished countrymen. More than 70 per cent, reported sufficient difficulty in going to sleep to cause them to develop personal expedients. Thought control was used by 33 per cent., reading by 25 per cent., relaxation by 18 per cent,., drugs—not including alcohol —by 3 per cent., alcohol by 2 per cent. A largo number of unusual personal idiosyncrasies are reported in inducing sleep. One magazine editor sticks his feet from under the bed clothes. A judge buries his face in his pillow. A young writer strains to keep his eyes open. An actor-playwright repeats Christian names. A judge- counts backwards. A college professor repeats the Apostles' Creed. A journalist thinks over plans for an ideal home, and another judge thinks about tho binomial theorem or extracts square roots.