ITEMS OF INTEREST

Southland Times, Issue 19458, 24 January 1925, Page 11

ITEMS OF INTEREST

FROM THE WORLD’S PRESS. Sameness in our daily food is bad for digestion. There are 95 lawyers in the new House of Commons. Edmonton, the most northern city in Canada, has a population of 63,160. The London County Council’s estimate for education for 1925-26 is £13,000,000. Crime has cost American business houses £800,000,000 during the last 12 months. A report from London states that about 997,000 wireless licenses have been taken out in Britain M. Herriot, the French Premier, and M. Theunis, Premier of Belgium, are both sons of military officers. It is estimated that there 2000 prospectors in the north-west goldfields of the province of Quebec. Banks in New York hold more than £2,000,000 in deposits forgotten by absentminded clients for 20 years. The high cost bf living is not a modern evil; prices rose considerably in 1303, as an effect of the war with France. A Zeppelin of 5,000,000 cubic feet, twice as large as the ZR 3, is to be built in the United States for trans-Atlantic trips. In the Bolshevist Navy there are two Dreadnoughts complete and capable of steaming and six effective submarines. Home-made wines can become highly intoxicating if the sugar they contain turns to alcohol through being bottled up. Russians, Poles and other foreign emigrants going to America by way of Britain are not allowed to pass through London. Glass, made out of a composition containing horn in a Viennese laboratory', does not splinter when it breaks and is malleable, according to the i. enters’ claim. The lumber exports from Vancouver for the first nine months of 1924 totalled more than 323,000,000 ft, which was 100,000,000 ft in excess of the total for the same period of the previous year. A lad playing with his dog, which scratched up a sample of gold from the surface of the ground, was responsible for a fresh gold “strike” at Semphell’s Creek, in New South Wales. Many hairdressing businesses all over Britain, which formerly served both sexes now specialise in “shingling,” “bobbing” and otherwise tending, ladies only, with a big increase in their profits. London's one outbreak of smallpox durng 1923 was due to a woman visitor from Spain, who was taken ill in an hotel. Before the disease was . identified eleven other people had been infected. Only about one-fifth of the total number of flowers have any fragrance. Red and yellow flowers are the most liable to smell, while violet-blue flowers rarely have any scent. There are 308 varieties of violetblue flowers, and only 13 bear fragrance. The report of the mineral production of Ontario for the first six months of 1924 shows that the total output of the province has a value of about £7,600,000 In 1893 the production of the whole year was about £1,224,150. Slavegirls in Hongkong, who are now entitled to return to their parents, are not all anxious to do so. In many cases they live better and have an easier time with kindly masters and mistresses than they would enjoy at home. From January 1 to September 30, 1924, a total of 785 deep-sea ships entered Vancouver from all parts of the world. The British led all with 323 vessels. During the same period a year earlier the total arrivals of deep-sea ships was 613. School children to-day are hardier than those of a few years ago; thanks to the care of school doctors most pupils now leave school with sound teeth and good vision. The weight of smoke in a pound of tobacco was once the cause of a wager between Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh, who introduced the fragrant weed to Britain. An almost continuous downfall of rain, extending for over 40 hours, fell recently in London. It is estimated that over 50,000,000 tons of rain fell in the Metropolitan area. In the first eight months of 1924 the railways of Great Britain carried 824,367,942 passengers, or 1,349,504 more than in the corresponding period of the previous year. The official estimate for last year's wheat crop in Argentina is 5,180,000 tens and linseed 1,300,000, the wheat yield being 90 per cent, of the normal, and linseed 85 per cent. Luminous gloves are being worn by motor-drivers in Paris A red light showing on the back of the outstretched hand is switched on by bringing the thumb and forefinger together. Pedestrians who cross a street in New York without the permission of a policeman will commit a penal offence, if the Municipal Council pass a law suggested by a police commissioner. Two young milk-roundsmen of London, both amateur boxers, fought in a boxing competition for a bride, a young girl typiste. The adopting in London of the automatic telephone switchboard will save London telephone users 55,000 working hours a week. Passengers by air who left Croydon in one week of 1924 numbered 1000; for the same week in 1919 the number of passengers was 20. Among the women engaged in administrative work in England and Wales in 1923 were one Lord Mayor, 5 Mayors and 895 Magistrates. Foreign bricks to the value of £33,000 were imported into Britain in July, 1924, as compared with less than £4OO for the same month in 1923. A cow which had run amok took a flying leap over a perambulator at Leedon (Beds), the animal’s feet clearing the child’s head by inches. A new type of cigar-shaped flying-boat, weighing 14,0001 b, reached a speed of 95 knots and attained a height of nearly 1400 feet at Lytham recently . Five postmen were sentenced to terms ranging from seven to nine months’ imprisonment at Manchester Assize recently, for stealing postal packets. Attacked by a swarm of crows at Orevon, near Nevers, France, an eagle was driven to seek refuge on the roof of a farmhouse, where it was killed. It is stated that 1000 Western Canadian range horses have been purchased by representatives of the Soviet Government. Most were purchased in Alberta. Believed to be the last old timber bridge to be used for heavy traffic in England, the bridge at North Seaton, Northumberland, over the River Wansbeck, has been in use for well over half a century. It is to be replaced by a new steel viaduct, 1041 ft long.