New, Odd, Interesting.

Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 15 May 1912, Page 3

New, Odd, Interesting.

London has twenty thousand policemen.

The smallest known dog: is the Mexican lap-dog.

Chile produces 1,800,000 tons of nitrate of soda a year.

Most of the shoes worn iri Japan are made of straw or wood.

A physiologist states that nearly all criminals have large ears.

Meat eating is a foreign innovation among the Japanese; their principal diet' is fish.

Lead pencil casings annually consume the product of four thousand acres of cedar trees.

The Andaman Islanders average three feet eleven inches in height, and weigh under, seventy pounds.

In the course of his 34 years' service, a Glasgow postman has walked a distance equal to ten times round the globe.

Experiment has proved thiat every ton of coal burned makes unfit for breathing three hundred thousand cubic feet of air.

Of 1000 species of flowers, 284 are white, 223 yellow, 223 red, 144 blue, 72 violet, 36 green, 12 orange, 4 brown, and 2 black.

Among the latest inventions are electric carpets for the heating of roo.ms; the cost is estimated at one halfpenny

per room per hour.

King- George the Fifth's subjects, numbering four hundred and ten millions, form nearly a quarter of the world's population.

Bread is said to have been first introduced by Ching-Noung, who taught Chinamen the art of making it about the year 1998 B.C.

The Pacific Ocean covers sixty-eight million "Square miles, the Atlantic thirty millions, and the Indian, Arctic and Antarctic Oceans forty-rbwo millions.

Nails are apt to grow more rapidly in summer than in winter. A lost thumb-nail averages five months'to replace, while a great toe-nail averages ten months.

Edinburgh had its first motor funeral recently. The remains were conveyed a distance of 16 miles, and hearse and mourning- coaches were all motor-driven.

In France it is a penal offence to give any form of solid food to babies under a year old, unless it be prescribed in writing by a properly qualified medical man.

La Guayra, in Venezuela, is one of the hottest places on earth. Day and night, winter and summer alike, the thermometer is said to register 100 deg. in the shade.

Norway has just appointed her first female policeman, who has passed the necessary qualifying tests, been fitted with an attractive uniform, and given a salary of £70 a year.

"Chiao jen-kou," meaning "man-bit-ing dog," is the name of along-leaved tree found in Formosa. It possesses the properties of the stinging- nettle, and when touched sets up an irritation of the skin.

The synapta is a peculiar water animal, which nature has provided with an anchor exactly similar in shape to those used by ships. By means of this the insect holds itself firjnly in any desired spot.

In some Hindoo temples the collection is made by an elephant, who goes round with a basket. No one, it is said, has ever ventured to feign unconsciousness when the basket came in

his vicinity,

For a short distance a lion or a tiger can outrun a man, and can equal the speed of a fast horse, but each is exhausted at the end of half a mile at the most. They have little endurance, and are remarkably weak in lung pow-

The surprising fact is brought out in a Blue Book that there are still 362 ships which were built sixty or more years ago still in service in the British mercantile marine. All but nine are sailing- vessels, the bulk being under 100 tons.

Paper can be manufactured out of almost anything that can be pounded into pulp. Over fifty kinds of bark are said to be used, also banana skins, bean stalks, _ pea stalks, cocoanut fibre, straw, sea and fresh water weeds, and many kinds of grass are all applicable.

There was exhibited lately on the Danube, at Vienna, a boat which is controlled by wireless electricity JFrom the .bank, without any person being on board. The boat carries a storage battery, which furnishes its motive power, the "system," or invention, consisting in the adaptation of wireless electric waves in different lengths to the control of the motive power, steering gear and other n-echanism.