NEWS ITEMS.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12454, 2 February 1909, Page 1

NEWS ITEMS.

The word "tariff" originates from the name of a Moorish chief, called Tariff, who held a port in Spain, and levied tolls on passing vessels. .

In Silesia, glass bricks of a durable kind are now used for building purposes. Many of the residential houses are constructed of these bricks which are made in various tints.

China has sent abroad a large number of students to various countries There are 50 now in France, 50 in Germany, 100 in Belgium, about 70 in London, and others in Austria.

The difference between rising at five and seven o'clock in the morning for the space of forty years — supposing a man to go to bed at the same hour at night — is nearly equivalent to the addition of ten years to his life.

Cold seems to hare no effect on several varieties of fish. Perch will live m ponds frozen all over in the winter; and the white fish of Canada have been caught frozen so stiff that they have been brittle enough to break, yet showed signs of life when properly thawed out.

The annual loss to the world's shipping averages 2172 vessels, out or which 94 are completely missing and never heard of again. ,<■■ %

The normal number of telegrams sent daily through the London Central Office, which is the largest in £™ X£? ld > is , about 160,000. About pUO.OOO words are sent every night m the form of press telegrams when Parliament is sitting.

A queer tradition is responsible for the annual disappearance » of thousands of French silver franc pieces. When the coins were first circulated it is said Napoleon concealed in one written on asbestos paper, a chequo on the Bank of France for £4000 payable to bearer. ♦ The result ofl the mythical tale is that many of tho pieces are broken in two.

The swagger nuisance is sometimes a serious one, but it assumed rather aggravated dimensions in the opinion ■?i \T m ? f the southern end of the North Otago district the other uay. In the morning .about 6.30 ne saw three men approach his front entrance and camp there. At S o clock one of them went up to the house and asked for the usual billy of tea and something to eat supplementing the application with the announcement that there were three of ' them. The request was granted not altogether willingly, but the climax was reached .when half an hour .later the, three men boarded the samo train as the farmer and travelled to Uamaru consuming a bottlo of whisky on the journey. . '

Colonel Nugent,., commanding officer of the Irish Guards, at the annual dinner of the Windsor and .bjton Chamber of Commerce, told a story of an Irish soldier in the late war. At dusk of day, throughout which they had been lying under heavy fire, an officer crawled up with orders for the battalion to assault u J> on , which the Irishman got up' shook himself, and said, "And why not.-' On another occasion when a man screamed at the loss of a finger on the battlefield a sergeant shouted to him, "Hold your row ver cowardly' skut-j- there's, a mort : over there who's lost his head, and ho hasn't said a word."

The Shah has given an annual donation of £1800 to the German hospital at Teheran as a mark of his recognition of the services which Gorman civilisation has rendered to Persia.

Spaldmg Old Age Pension Committee have rejected an application on tho^ground that the applicant has resided in the Isle of Man; which was not regarded as a part of the British Isles. An" appeal to the Local Government Board is to take place.

A Norfolk workman named Gotts allowed himsel fto be crushed to death m a collapsing wall to save his brother and a boy who were working below him.

The Commission under Count Pahlen has ordered the criminal prosecution of. many of the highest Russian officials in Turkestan for swindling, oxtortion, and other offences.

On arrival at Dover of the night mail steamship from Calais a lady,, whoso appearance created suspicion, was requested to enter the search room. A searcher discovered a black and tan terrier concealed in a largo pocket sewn in the lady's skirts. The authorities detained the dog. There was a scene on the pier when the owner was compelled to part with her pet.

Among all the horrors of war, humorous situations often occur. An English army surgeon in South Africa tells an amusing story of an English woman of high rank who was engrossed by the charms of amateur nursing. One morning on approaching the cot of a soldier to whom she had given special atention, she found him with his eyes closed and a piece of paper pinned or the sheet on which was written: "Too ill to bo nursed to-day. Respectfully, J.L."

On a recent showery day, a countriiied looking person, evidently from some remote back block, strolled into the Auckland Art gallery and pushed ou towards the door of the .ilcKelvio section. The polite custodian followed close upon his heels and accosted him. "Your iimbrolla, sir," ho remarked suavely, extending his hand to take the "gingham,'' with a view of placine it in the umbrella stand, in complianco with the rules of the place. It was plain howover, that the countryman did not understand, for he defiantly pulled away the offending weapon and mado for the door. "I knew there must bo something queer about, it when they told me you could get in- free,'* was his parting shot, and when last seen he was hurrying away down the stairs still clutching the umbrella that he reckoned ho had so nearly lost.

If the Government were to supply a list of all the officials in its employ who could be classed as inspee-, tors and give the cost of such ofii-' cials ill salaries,' travelling expenses, and general working expenses, the total would simply paralyse the taxpayer. — Masterton "Age."-

Mr J. Comyns Carr in his recent book says that a gentleman whom ho believes to have been the original of Dickens' character of Pecksniff, observed unctuously one evening to his wife at a dinner party that one of the chief privileges of the future stato was that 'he would always be with her. "Oh, no," replied the lady with utterly conscious humour, "I shall bo ill Heaven." V