NEWS IN A NUTSHELL

Taranaki Daily News, 4 August 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN A NUTSHELL

THE WORLD AT A GLANCE About 95 per cent of the world’s population lives north of the Equator. The earth has shrunk in the last five years, according to a scientist’s calculations, by .000001629 millimetres. Throughout the world to-day, more rice is consumed than any other kind of food.

A certain species of goat, raised in the United States, becomes paralysed when, suddenly frightened, and falls in a faint. Four blind typists are employed by the London County Council at the County Hall. Of the new recruits to the British Army only 10 per cent, have been trained in a skilled occupation. “Slimming” and other beauty treatments are responsible for £60,000,000 a year being spent in London alone. The colossal statue of “Sleeping Ariadne” in the Vatican is believed to be the world’s only marble figure with eyelashes.

Fire does not decrease the weight of all things which it burns. The ashes of magnesium, for example, are heavier than, the metal itself.

One of the most astonishing cases of abnormal human growth was that of a girl exhibited before the‘Physical Society of Vienna, in 1894. Although only five years of age, she weighed 250 pounds.

A London fishmonger who met with an accident outside Charing Cross Hospital, and was successfully treated there, Went back the other day with a thankoffering—four dabs. Rural postmen in the North-West districts of the United States have been officially supplied with packets of birdseed to carry with them on their rounds and deliver to the buds.

Nutria farming is proving successful in Surrey, nutria bein a species of swamp beaver from South America, resembling a cross between a large rat and a porcupine, and highly valued for its fur. Osmium a very hard metal used largely in making gold pen-points, is the heaviest substance in the world; it weighs 1404 pounds per cubic foot, or 98 per cent, more than lead. The potato’s most dangerous enemy, the Colorado beetle, is threatened with extinction by a flower, the petunia, whose leaves attract the pest and then poison it. Of every 1000 square miles in Africa today, France go vers 366, Great Britain 348, Belguim 81, Portugal 69, Italy 59, Egypt 31, Abyssinia 31, Spain 12, Liberia 3. Scientific investigations show that • about 10,000 persons with negro blood “pass the colour line” in the United States each year and become members of white society. Mint sauce with lamb is believed to have originated in the fact that mint was one of the bitter herbs with which Moses instructed the Israelites to dress the lamb of the Passover. England has nearly twice as many vehicles per mile of road as in the United States, and from four to seven times as many as other European countries. Every pound of fat in the human body requires six-tenths of a mile of blood vessels. Therefore a person carries three extra miles of them for every five pounds of superfluous flesh. The use of motor boats, which enable fishermen to make three or four times as many trips as before, is regarded as one possible reason for the decrease of fish round the coasts of Britain, Big-'game hunters are now having their trophies converted into furniture, elephant tusks making excellent bedposts. One hunter has a greatly prized smoking stand designed from a giraffe’s foot. •A fearless man is wanted by M. Max Cosyns, one-time assistant, to Professor Piccard, to accompany him on a new stratospheric balloon voyage. The man must be young, “with first-class scien- ■ tific knowledge and no nerves.” The Kaffirs of South Africa have a naive method of cleansing the blackened name of a thief. They shout it into a kettle of hot, medicated water, dap down the lid, and let it soak for several days. A wicked eye—good legs—an apache voice—fluffy hair—an expressive foot. These are the bare necessities, according to Mistinguett, the famous French comedienne, for success on the music hall stage. Two thousand six hundred ■ fingerprints were taken by the police of Prague to trace a murderer, the only clue to whose identity was a finger-print on the window-sill of the victim’s house. A scientific sifting of the results brought them their man.

The only domestic animal that is bred profitably in the Arctic regions is the reindeer, because it requires neither hay or food nor shelter. There are more than 125,000,000 of them, and. it is not uncommon for single breeders in Arctic Siberia to own herds of 10,000 at a time. iitmiiiiHtiimmiuimtiiiiiiiniiHiMniitimiMiiiiMHHKHiHtuM

aid some American medical men worked as cattlemen on the voyage across the Atlantic in order to save the hospitals expense. At the close of the war arrangements were made to give the Arne--rican doctors first-class passages. They declined, preferring to return secondclass. It is not generally known—or forgotten if it were known—that many of their ablest men served their government for the war period at a salary of one dollar per- year! It was the Prime Minister, Mr. Bonar Law, who told the House of Commons that the way the American farmers had answered the cry for food, had saved the day for the Allies. Those farmers grew wheat far beyond what they had ever done, and in many cases pledged themselves not to use a grain from their bursting granaries so that all might be sent to those at the Front and in England who were in sore need of it Again even before America’s entry into the war committees of a .thousand were established in different places to counter German propaganda and give aid in presenting the Allied side, at that time very badly handled. These are but a few of many instances that could be quoted to show that America has another and a finer and more idealistic and generous side to her character than that generally presented and understood. The fact is that there are few countries where idealism and generosity are more conspicuous and impelling in the national character, and where the veins of goodness predominate over the elements of weakness and evil. That must be the verdict of any unbiassed critic who probes below the surface of things,