LOCAL AND GENERAL

Patea Mail, Volume XLVII, 17 October 1924, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

A grown-up person’s allowance of air for 24 hours is 2000 gallons. No bird can fly backward. The dragon fly, besides outstripping the swiftest bird, flics backward with ease. Two French professors have devised an instrument which will take a cinema lilm of the beating of the heart. Poplar, in the cast of London, is one of the healthiest boroughs in the country, the death rate for last year being only 11.0 per 1000. Old cinematograph films, after being boiled down, and having a certain proportion of silver removed, are used for making patent leather. A remarkable new kind of sealing wax has appeared in America. Instead of being melted with a flame, it is simply squeezed out of a tube, cold.

On board the “Elcctra,” Senator Marconi’* private yacht, there is a wireless transmitter powerful enough to send messages from England to Australia. Paper teeth are-.made by a dentist in Lubeek, Germany. OnL ( of his patrons has a set which has been in use for thirteen years and gives complete satisfaction. At the special post office in the British Empire Exhibition, 10,UUU letters arc delivered and 30,000 letters and postcards posted daily* and .1500 parcels are forwarded each week. A cushion, upon which lie always sat, was the •secret repository for the wealth of a well-known English “crook.” At times as much as £IOO,OOO in notes was concealed in this strange “safe.” The first menu-card was in the form of a blackboard, on which the order of the courses was chalked up. It was used by Duke Henry of Brunswick in 1500. News of a new automobile highway more than 000 miles long, joining the Congo with the Nile, affords ample proof that complete seclusion from civilisation becomes ever more difficult to find, even in Darkest Africa. i “There is more nonsense talked about this word ‘democracy’ than about any other word ever invented. Men are never equal until they are dead.”—Dr. W. E. Herbert, at the Hospital Boards’ Conference in Wellington.

The contrilet for the erection of the Nurses’ Home iit the local Hospital was signed yesterday.

Snails, by means of an acid which they exude, contrive to bore holes in solid limestone.

One of the largest and best equipped athletic fields and stadiums in France is to be erected at Verdun, a noted city in the history of the world war.

'Thomas Davies, an octogenarian miner, of Perth, has just completed. 73 years’ work underground. For the last 43 years he has worked in one pit in Wales.

An Australian organisation, the Mclvern Tramway Baud, will visit New Zealand early next year for the Dominion Band Contest, and will afterwards tour the country.

Only six Germans, of whom live were females, arrived in New Zealand during the fust eight months of this year. The principal , foreigners who entered the Dominion during the period named were from Jugo-tilavia- These comprised 17(3 males and 41 females.

Wireless music and electric power for lighting and heating are given simultaneously from one lamp socket by a recent American invention.

Measuring only three-quarters of an inch high, the smallest camera in the world was presented to Queen Mary for the Queen’s dolls’ house.

Kettles and pans of cardboard have been patented, by a German inventor. The material'is dipped in a mixture containing asphalt and resin, which makes it waterproof and acid-resisting.

An increase of nearly 100 per cent, in the manufacture of butter is ’shown by figures supplied by the Morrinsville Co-op. Dairy Company. During the past month it manufactured 1880 boxes of butter, while in September last year the total manufacture was 977 boxes.

The fastest lap which has ever been completed at Brooklands was accomplished by Mr J. G. P. Thomas in a Leyland-Thomas motor car at a meeting recently at a speed of 125.77 miles an hour.

The Wellington 'Show Association has donated a .‘{s-guinea challenge cup for competition at the Wairarapa (Show, and it has been decided that this cup shall be a perpetual challenge cup, to be competed for in the sheep classes, and awarded each year to the exhibitor securing the most points in all sheep classes—including purebred, farmers' fats and fat lamb classes.

The hardships of the backblocks settler's lot was brought out in bold relief at the County Council meeting on Tuesday when a member of a deputation, in describing a track that ho and others had to use daily, declared that if a horse slipped it would fall into a gorge so steep and inaccessible that if the horse were not killed outright it would have to be shot, as it would not pay to get it up.

A “Wanganui Herald” representative had a conversation with one of the competitors in the recent cycling road race from Tiinaru to Christchurch, who stated that conditions from the backmarker’s point of view, arc vastly different to what they were some years ago, before the roads became pitted with pot holes through motor traffic. For this reason the scratch men do not have the same chance of catching their field, for if they try to clap on pace they arc practically bumped off the saddle. Limit men, if they are anything like riders, have the best chance of winning.

In referring to the alleged discontent in the Post and Telegraph Department, Mr McCombs recently mentioned that the resignations from the department “exceeded 50 per month at present.” The Hon. J. G. Coates, in reply, asks: “What are the facts? The average, which is slightly less this year than for the past two years, is 38 a month, of whom 18 are message boys, 1.1 are juniors of 17 and IS years of age, and 9 arc women who resign to marry, leaving a balance of 0 a month out of a staff of 9000 to support Mr McCombs’ contention that the service is resigning because it is discontented.

“There is not a shadow of a doubt that a League football team will be sent away to England,” said Dr. Thacker at the annual dinner of the Christchurch Marist Brothers’ Old Boys Association. Ho added that he hoped that this team would not be called “All Blacks.” The words “All Blacks” had been done to death. They were New Zealanders, and proud of it. People in England associated the “All Blacks” with the Maoris. He hoped that the Lcagiu* team would be called New Zealanders.