From Many Lands

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1022, 12 July 1930, Page 19

From Many Lands

_____ TABLOID READING FOR THE WEEK-END.

15,000 WORDS A DAY A CHILD'S VOCABULARY Or. K. D. Gillespie, a mental specialist, lecturing in London, said that the growth of the brain did not begin at birth, for then it had attained onefourth of its full size. After the age of 16 there did not appear to be any increase in the growth of intelligence, but only in the expansion of knowledge and the growth of experience. Tests applied to a three-years-old child showed that in 24 hours it used 13,000 words, but only SOO of them were different. FALSE PEARLS AND A PROSECUTION One man was sentenced to imprisonment and two others were fined in Paris for having sold cultivated pearls as real pearls. The Correctional Court held it to be “false pretences” to describe the cultivated pearls as genuine. Pearls are the exclusive product of the meleagrina (speckled) oyster, according to the court. Rival pearls must not be sold unless their origin is given. ON THE HIP! HIT BY POLICE BULLET The hip flask became popular in America when Prohibition came in. Now it is becoming a target for police pistols, as well as a shield for illegal dope topers. Patrolman Harold M. Conger inaugurated the new sport. He fired at a suspected figure, and to his surprise splinters of glass instead of blood flew. A dark liquid that was not blood stained the pavement. “H’m, rum!” said the policeman. His bullet had smashed the hip flask and glanced off. Brother officers bestowed upon him a medal for marksmanship. UNMIXED BATHING TONBRIDGE IS CAUTIOUS! Mixed bathing had an inauspicious opening at Tonbridge, England, recently. At 7 a.m.—an hour after the baths opened—the water was deserted. In 1921, mixed bathing was permitted in spite of the opposition of Cr. Clark (who won for himself wide publicity). It failed for lack of patronage. Later it was again tried, with the same result. | WANDERING WHALE STRANDED IN MEADOW Anglers see and sometimes dream about some curious fish, but an Irishman was considerably startled recently when fly-fishing for trout on the banks of a placid tidal stream in County Wexford. To his amazement, he saw a monstrous fish coming up the stream with the flood tide. The fish subsequently ran aground in the shallow water, where it was identified as a grampus griseus, a rather rare type of whale in British waters. A 10ft whale stranded five miles from the sea, in the midst of green fields, is unique. It has since been duly reported to the department of zoology at the British Museum. LAUGHING INCENDIARY STRANGE SENSE OF HUMOUR How a boy aged 15 set fire to a farmhouse, and then, because the firemen had nothing more to do, fired a rick, was told in the Worcester Police Court recently. The boy’s employer, Rice, woke up at midnight to find his house afire. After the brigade had put it out, it found a straw rick ablaze. The police inspector saw a figure in the dim light, and found the boy, who laughed when questioned, and declared: “I sat on the stile, and heard Rice shouting, ‘Fire!’ I didn’t half laugh. If you had not caught me, I should hare fired the stable and barn.” ABSTEMIOUS CENTENARIAN REFRAINS FROM WHITE BREAD The accession of Queen Victoria to riie Throne is recalled by Mrs. Hannah Soanes, of West Ealing, who was 100 recently. Her mother, who had 10 children, lived to an age of 93, and an aunt reached 103. Mrs. Soanes rises always at seven and does not go to bed until evening. I have never slept In the afternoon, she said recently. “I haven’t time.” Mrs. Anne Little, of Blyth, who was 101 recently, believes her longevity to be due largely to an abstinence from white bread. "If girls ate less white bread,” she said, "there would be fewer newfangled diseases.” THE GIDDY OUTLOOK CIGARETTES UNBALANCE GIRLS A leading Harley Street physician said that excessive cigarette smoking was the cause of the "giddy outlook” on the life of many modern young women. He was commenting on the remarks made by Mr. Justice Avory at Devon Assizes, when, in binding over a 21-year-old girl who was a very heavy smoker, on a wounding charge, he declared that she was In a state of hysteria which might have been brought on by excessive smoking. "A number of young women today smoke far too much—3o or 40 cigarettes a day.” said the physician. "Heavy cigarette smoking has a bad effect on the heart and on the whole nervous system. It promotes lack of self-discipline, giving the women a giddy outlook on life. Cigarettes may also cause a type of blindness when smoked to excess.”

CENSUS PROBLEM SOLVED BY RADIO Elmer Davenport of Illinois, U.S.A., census enumerator, was In a hurry to finish his census taking, but was held up by one elusive family. The man was a power plant lineman, always out of town. The wife was visiting relatives in another State. "Take his census by radio,” suggested a power plant aide. Another sub-station is located at Champaign, fifty miles distant. Tlxe uncounted man, it was known, was there. The two stations communicated by a short wave radio set and in three : minutes, one more census district had | been completely counted. ! * NINE LIVES? TWO NEARLY GONE Young Thomas McGulgan, 16, of Chicago, is lucky. Twice in one week he was saved from death in Lake Michigan, the second time by a woman. Coastguardmen rescued McGuigan from a patched-up sailboat when the boat’s rudder broke In a stiff breeze. Then he overturned in a canoe. Mrs. Mildred Clifford rescued him in a rowboat. POLICE! A CRY FROM THE HEART A West Australian country police station recently received the following telephone message: "Grey car passed at 11.30 and killed my heifer, containing four men and two dogs, one of which was a clergyman.” SNAKES! POLICEMEN ROUTED The police of Bridgeton, N.J., United States of America, bailed Walter Peterson, 11 years, of South Pine Street, into Bridgeton Police Headquarters to ask him if he knew anything concerning a recent epidemic of gas meter pilfering. The desk sergeant asked the lad what he had in his bulging hip pocket. “Nothin’s you’d care about.” said the youngster. “Yes, it is, and you’ve been smoking, too,” said the sergeant, who plucked a tin can from the boy’s hip picket. Out squirmed 25 water snakes, each about five inches long, and up jumped several surprised policemen, who were glad when Walter gathered up his pets and departed with no charge against him. MUSICAL PEDLARS CONSTANTINOPLE EDICT Because the raucous cries of pedlars frazzle the nerves of late-sleepiug Constantinopolltans, various authorities have proposed that each street merchant be obliged to announce his wares by playing a musical instrument. Thus far no one has attempted to define the musical qualifications which will turn vendors of chick peas and other merchandise into wandering troubadours. While the proposal is still somewhat nebulous, the municipality has Just taken a very definite step to Insure peaceful repose. A new city regulation defines night as the period between midnight and 7 a.m. In summer and in winter between midnight and 8 a.m. Singing or other untoward noises in the streets are forbidden during that time. A PILOT’S SKILL AVERTS IMPENDING DISASTER A practical demonstration of skill in airplane control was given by Mr. P. Bailey, of National Flying Services, at Eastbourne, recently. Taking off on the last flight of the day with two men passengers, he broke a Btrut on the near side of his under-carriage, but got off safely. He signalled that he was aware of what had happened, and made a clever landing on the off-side wheel. The under-carriage was broken and the propeller smashed, but neither the pilot nor his two passengers was injured. HIT-RUNNER WHO DOES NOT BEG PARDON More callous than any ordinary hitrunner was the motorist who knocked down George Ross at Gordon, in Victoria, Australia. “My car’s full—l can’t help you,” he told the badly injured man, before driving off. Ross had stopped his motor-cycle and alighted, when a passing motorcar knocked him down. The driver of the car continued on for about a quarter of a mile, and then walked back to where Ross was lying on the road, to ask him If he was hurt. Ross said he could not get up. It was then that the motorist replied that as he bad a full car he could not help him. STRANGE COINCIDENCE INJURED MAN'S FATE Seemingly it’s the fate of George Anderson. Surry Hills, to spend all his time in Sydney Hospital recovering from fractured skulls. Anderson did a quick “come-back” recently. In the morning he left the institution a re-conditioned man, after being bedridden several months with a fractured skull. The same night he was back in the same hospital bed again, receiving the same treatment for the same complaint—a fractured skull. How he came by his injuries the second time is a mystery. He was found in the rain-soaked thoroughfare of Riley Street, Surry Hills, unconscious.