INTERESTING ITEMS.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXIII, Issue 2988, 4 September 1912, Page 4

INTERESTING ITEMS.

Crab-pots, fish-boxes, oars, nets and other fishing tackle were us&c to decorate the church at Port Isaac, C fern wall, for a service of thanksgiving for the harvest of the sea. Iri vßussia photographers are in the habit of paying out any customer who refuses to pay up.by hanging his portrait upside down in a con' sjicuous place in their shop. The late Mile. Granjean, of Paris, has left a will bequeathing a small nnuity during their lifetime to each i f her 200 pets—l/ 3 a day to her logs and 7£d. a day to her fowls. A match-cutting machine is an automatic curiosity. It cuts 10,000----000 sticks a day, and then arranges them over a vat, where the heads are put on at a surprising rate •oi speed. Accepting a wager of £20 that he "dare not propose to the lady cashior," a railway man in a restaurant at Lebeau, South Dakota, won the lady's heart and hand after a courtchip lasting 2min. 25sec. A tombstone requisitioned as a roorstop has been discovered in a lonely farmhouse situated near to C'assiobury Park, Watford. This ilone, a line piece of Portland, serves 1.3 a doorstep leading from the din-ing-room to the conservatory, and is lying face downward. Workmen engaged in carrying out certain repairs und alterations came upon this stone which hears the inscription, "In lcving memory of , the beloved wife, etc." They were instructed by the owner, who occupies the house, to replace it, and the tombstone is again fulfilling its somewhat novel purpose. The longest-lived trees in northern Furope are the pines of Norway and Sweden, but five hundred and seventy years is their greatest period. Germany's oldest oaks live only a little more than three hundred years. I love my dear country, and I feel the stabbing truth of what was told me by a superhuman whom I revere only a few days ago. He told me that a great German statesman told him that his countrymen did not hate England, but that they were convinced that England was hopelessly decadent, undisciplined, and given over to strong delusions. Therefore they wished to be in a' position to have the first grab when she went to pieces.—Frank T. Bullen, in the "Express." There is a struggle for existence for all plants and animals. None can be merely onlookers. Each individual has to hold his own against disease, heat, cold, and enemies. There is also a struggle between group and group. Associations of individuals exist for mutual defence. But each individual must be vigorous, and, according to the standard of the species, alert and intelligent. The incapables are got rid of by natural selection, or, more strictly speaking, by the environment, quite as effectively as if no associaticn existed. There is no ro >m for the inefficient, since combination protects only the strong and ca,pabl*.—"Darwinism and T.lodern '• Socialism," by P. W. Headly. ; ' j