GENERAL ITEMS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLI, Issue 9256, 25 January 1916, Page 8

GENERAL ITEMS

An Australian soldier, who met with; trouble in England, complains bitterly of the number of shirkers in London.. “A few days ago,” he write*, “I stopped four days Over iny furlough, and they fined me four days’- pay and gave me seven C.B. (that means confinement to camp ■■ and . report every half-hour). This is what you got for, giving your life I did not mind going back to: the front again before I came to London, but when you are walking about the streets of London and see the men—and mostly all young men—walking about nipping beer and that sort of thing it makes you sick. They ought to he ashamed of themselves to see us poor devils come all the way from Australia to fight for them- "W« came 16,000 miles for those laay devils, in London.”

Large quantities of potatoes have passed through the hands of the Auckland authorities for eximrt to Sydney during the past few days (says the “Herald”). The steamer Kaverin* was to have taken' a large consignment, but when some of the tubers were being examined it was found that many of them were affected with blight in an advanced stage. About 3000 bags were rejected as unfit for export. The modern kingdom of Greece date* from 1832, in which y**r the Greek people threw off the yoke ot Turkey and elected their own King. The sugar duty under the recent Budget will amount, roughly, to a tax on beer of £700.000. there being about 160,000 tons used annually m brewing. A window-cleaner at Tooting eonfmn that h* ha* an arrangement, with nearly 500 housewives to clean tha front windows at ‘a 'charge of Bd a house, which amounts to £6 5* a week.

Mrs Mary Page, of Rochester, celebrated her hundredth birthday recently. One of her treasures is a bed quilt in which is worked a portion of the gown she wore for her wedding seventy-mu* years ago.

There are at least 2000 women fighting in Serbia. They represent all classes of the community, and are armed just as the men are. In many cases they wear soldieirs’ uniform for the sake of comfort.

The Germans have another barbwire device. Masses of it are laid, close to the ground, with the escaping high-explosive shells. But immediately attacking infantry cornea near, up goes the wire, levered up by long-distance wires. At the Midland Railway lost propertr sale at Derby recently, a keg of methylene blue, weighing about 1| cwt, realised £3lO, which worked out at over 36s a pound —a world's record. Prior to the . war the keg would have- been worth £l3 to £ls. Serbians have a practice of forecasting the future by means: of the shoul-der-bone of a roasted sheep or pig. A large portion of Montenegro is uncnltivaibie, consisting of forest and mountain pasture and hare limestone. / At a Japanese dinner your glass is constantly kept full by the servants, who squat in a ring round the diners.

The Vatican, the palace of the Pope, contains no less than 1000 hails and rooms, and covera fourteen acres of ground. Guinea-pigs are born with all tbsir fur, their eyes open,, and with sufficient teeth to enable them to eat solid food at once.

Every grown man in Serbia can claim five acres of land from the Got* eminent,, and this is exempt from all claims of debt.

Practically the whole of the population of Serbia dwells on the land, and farming and pig-rearing are the staple industries. Prisoners in Montenegro wander about, meet their friends, join in festivals, and are known only, by the dull music of a clanking chain.

Japanese do not use buttons for buttoning but stick them through their sashes and let them hang down by silver chains or silken cords. A machine on the lines of the modern typewriter was made early in the eighteenth century by an Englishman of the name of Mill.

: Water is “herd” owing to the pres-, enco of minerals. Rainwater, which contains no minerals, is “soft."

The “queens” are the only wasps which survive the winter, all the workers and drones being killed off.