HERE AND THERE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3016, 3 January 1912, Page 85

HERE AND THERE.

—leaves of Sawdust.— Sawdust may not appeal to the palate as a digestible or appetising substitute for hour in the making of bread, but all the same there is a large bakery in Berlin turning out 20,000 loaves of sawdust bread daily. The sawdust is first subjected to n process of fermentation and various chemical manipulations. Finally, it is mixed with one-third part of rye flour, formed into loaves, and baked in ovens like any other bread. Although this new pain de bois, as the French call it, is meant for consumption by horses only, claim is made by the manufacturers that in case of famine it would furnish a nutritious and highly satisfactory food for human beings. Sawdust bread may not taste as bad as it sounds. In various parts of the world bread is obtained from trees. For example, in the Molucca Islands the starchy pith of the sago palm furnishes a white, floury meal, which is made into flat, oblong loaves, and baked in curious little ovens divided into small oblong cells just big enough to receive the loaves. In Lapland the inner bark of pine trees, well ground and mixed with oat flour, is made into cakes, which are cooked in a pan over the fire. In Kamchatka pine bark and birch bark are used for bread without the addition of any other substance, being reduced to powder by pounding, made into, loaves, and baked" Along the Columbia River bread is made from a kind of moss that grows on a species of trees. After being dried it is sprinkled with water, allowed to ferment, rolled into balls as big as a man’s head, and baked in pits with the help of hot stones. Travellers who have tasted it say it is by no means unpalatable. The Californian Indians collect the pollen of cat-tails in large quantities by beating it off the plants and catching it on blankets. They make bread of it. But as a delicacy they prefer bread of grasshopper flour. —Spy’s Remarkable Career.— Hans Bords, a young man, 28 years of age, accused of espionage, was recently sentenced in the Vienna Criminal Court (says the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph). He is the son of a Prussian singer at the Court opera. Deserting from the German army at an early stag© of his career, he has been a professional spy for seven years. H© is a man of elegant appearance, and has an extraordinary talent fur languages. During the trial, from which the pubkcw«r6 occluded, he related that he began Ms career in a

Parisian inquiry office, -where he was employed in obtaining plans and secret documents. He was sent to Austria in the company of an officer and an agent of the firm who travelled abroad for the purpose of corrupting officers. They brought back photographs of the harbours of Trieste and Pola. On behalf of his firm Bords conveyed copies of the photographs to a representative of the Russian General Staff who awaited his arrival in Stockj Holm. Later he took photographs of I Malta, copies of which were found on his person after his arrest in Vienna. These copies were examined by the military experts here, who were present at the trial. They were astonished by the excellent view and the numerous details given in the photographs. Bords was shot at_ by a sentry in Malta, and seriously . injured in the leg. He then had a dispute with the head of the firm, and went into the service of Italy. He was sent to England on a difficult errand, and afterwards to Austria. To win the confidence of the authorities in Vienna he offered to spy on Italian officers there, watch their movements in Austrian ports, . and report them to the Vienna War Ministry. He asked for a premium of 6000 kronen for every officer in whose discovery he was instrumental. He finally accused high Austrian officers of spying ‘for Italy, and was arrested. —Scientific- Tramps.— Jesse and Warren Buffum, known as I “Harvard’s scientific tramps,” have reached I Denver, on their long tramp from Boston ;to San Francisco. The physical director ' of Harvard, Dr Sargent, is anxious to test the relative value of meat-eating and vegetarianism in sustaining man under . physical strain, and the Buffum brothers were selected because, physiologically considered, they are ranked about even. Both j must walk all the way, both sleep in the open air, and neither take alcohol. Jesse is 25 and Warren 23, and both are exceptionally healthy young men. American vegetarians are rejoicing because, with the third long tramp over, Warren, who lives chiefly on vegetables, is in much the better condition. Jess© is not bad, but is quite inferior to his brother. The met eaters, however, are taking heart bs- ; cause ft is predicted that Jesse, on beef, mutton, and chicken, will “knock the stuffing out of his rival as regards endurance.” Warren candidly admits that he finds his vegetarian diet distasteful, and when th© day’s tramp is over he simply , yearns for a juicy beef steak or a tender i enop. Ke regards himself as a martyr j to science, and says his only consolation consists in boiled eggs and milk, which Dr Sargent allows. The Buffum brothers ask for a double room when they arrive at hotels, but always sleep in woollen bags covered with waterproof on the roof. In this way they have weathered several blizzards in Kansas and Colorado, but so I Tar have not suffered from exposure. I The German Houseboy in America. — I Hans the Hausknecht, dressed in his I cleanly garb of washable blue linen, is a I figure so familiar to travellers in Germany I that they will not be surprised to learn j that America has readily adopted him. Arj solution of the domestic problem has been | attempted in certain districts by employing those men who, often accompanied by I wife, and even children, sail for the new country, ready and willing to undertake any duties that come their way. House- | keepers eagerly engage a newly-arrived German couple, for, while the man has a thorough knowledge of the duties of housemaid, as well as valet and house porter, the wife is usually an excellent cook. She is also capable of doing the family marketing and buying to good advantage. In most Continental towns this houseboy, or man servant, dressed in washable linen, is a familiar personage. In hotels and pensions he does more work than in English service, or, at least, he is much more in evidence. A lad who is under training j in a well managed house will easily and j willingly turn bis hand to any sort of j work, or he will run out and do a message without the slightest murmur. American J ladies who have substituted the German J houseboy for a' staff of Chinamen find j them so satisfactory that they earnestly j hope that their simple and cleanly ways j will not be spoiled by the national tendency to extravagant and luxurious living. The Beard in Russia.— Last spring, when Grand Duke Nicholas, military commander of the St. Petersburg district, was inspecting his officers he came to an ambitious young ranker whose face was as clean shaven as a putting green. “ Where’s your beard?” thundered Nicholas. “I can’t grow one, sir; none of my | people ever had hair under their ” “ But that does not prevent you from let- ' ting your moustache grow.” Then fol- . lowed a long dissertation on the evils of American safety razors, of the American clean shave and all attempts to do away with hirsute adornments. Nor did Nicholas stop at that. The next day an order , was issued from the commander’s head- j quarters : —“ ft has been brought to our attention that a grievous habit is growing among the younger generation of his Majesty’s officers —viz., the shaving of the beard and the moustache. Such is not in Conformity with Russian tradition.” Nicholas might have carried the idea further, for it was not so long ago that Russian tradition forbade the cutting of the hair. Mr Andrew Lang recently said some unkind things pf John Knox which seem to have raised the ire of some of his countrymen. The Rev. Dr Macmillan has been voicing the indignation felt, and in a speech recently he said : —“ Mr Lang had written a biography of Knox, and he (Dr Macmillan) might say in passing that it was not nearly so welj known as his Fairy Tale Books, although it might take equal rank with them on their own ground.—(Laughter.) Several of the charges he made in that book had been repeated in his Glasgow' lectures. He attempted to prove the reformer unworthy of credence, a charlatan, and a cow'ard, and most of his strictures were of a flimsy, unreliable, unhistorlcal character. And even if some of them were true, what

f.hen? Cromwell instructed the artist who ‘has painting his portrait to put in the ■ftart and all. Knox was of a similar spirit, and would have been the last man ill the world to feel ashamed of even the warts or defects in his character, but he was surely a very incapable artist who, in painting a man’s portrait, would paint the wart and nothing more.”—(Laughter.) That, concluded Dr Macmillan, would seem to bv Mr Lang’s conception, not only of the character of John Knox, but of Scottish hisUiT.y as a whole. Mr Lang must be sorry he spoke. . — The difficulties of making up a font of Chinese type are commented upon by the American Consul at Shanghai. Kang Hai’s dictionary, the standard and most comprehensive work of its kind in the language, contains some 40,890 characters, but it has been found that for all practical purposes a font need contain only about 7000. With a font of this size the Chinese printer, in the course of setting up a book, will frequently find that he lacks a dozen or so unusual characters, a difficulty which he meets by having these missing symbols hand-cut on blank type by skilled engravers. Although practically all Chinese newspapers and books on modern topics are now printed from movable and metal type, books pertaining to old China, such as the Confucian classics and their commentaries, are still produced by the timehonoured method of printing on wooden blocks.