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Otago Witness, Issue 4048, 13 October 1931, Page 60

The most famous bed in England—the Great Bed of Ware, which is to find a new home in the Victoria and Albert Museum —was housed at the Crown Inn at War.e, Hertfordshire, for many years, and after that at the Saracen’s Head, also in Ware. Inns seem to have specialised in giant beds in the old days, for there was one at the White Hart, Scole. Norfolk, which could accommodate 40 people! It is the biggest bed on record. The reason for these large beds has mystified many people, but it is probably simple enough. The Bishop of Portsmouth recalled the other day that his great-grandfather, an Irish gentleman, kept in his billiard room a bed which would hold eight men. “ The purpose of it,” said the bishop, “ was to provide ready sleeping accommodation for at least that number of guests who, after dinner, might prove incompetent to ride home across the Irish bogs.” Although it has only breathed for 48 hours, a Chinese infant may be two years old. How this is possible was explained by Mr J. A. Brailsford in the course of a lecture to the Masterton branch of the Workers’ Educational Association. As far as the computation of people's ages is concerned, China has a plan that differs definitely from that adopted in Western countries. In China an infant is regarded as one year old in the year in which it is born, two in the next year, three in the next, and so on. A child born on December 31 is one year old on that day and two years old on January 1 of the following year.