NEWS IN A NUTSHELL

Taranaki Daily News, 15 September 1934, Page 13 (Supplement)

NEWS IN A NUTSHELL

THE WORLD AT A GLANCE

In Mexico parrots are eaten, but they are rather tough. Spiders roasted are a kind of dessert with the New Caledonians. In the Pacific Islands and West Indies lizards’ eggs are eaten with gusto. The average man cuts off about 15 inches of finger-nail every year. All American motor-car registration plates are made in prisons by convicts. Eight out of ten cases of stammering among children are found in boys. The London Zoological Gardens at Regent’s Park have a boa-constrictor with a glass eye. If a cinema usherette is caught watching the screen while she is on duty, she is liable to be instantly dismissed. Each year women in the United States spend on cosmetics the staggering sum of £215,000,000. The Navajo and Apache Indians never look upon their’mothers-in-law for fear of becoming blind. The word ‘Tire!” is never mentioned in a cinema for fear of panic. There s a special secret pass-word used, if fir® ever does break out. A Kabyle widow of Afghanistan is not allowed to remarry until the purchase price paid, by her husband’s parents has been returned. The edible birds’ nests of the Chinese are worth twice their weight in silver, i the finest variety selling as high as £6 (a pound. In Chester, a man who fails to raise his hat when a funeral is passing becomes liable by an old law to be taken before a magistrate and imprisoned. The first thing an usher has to learn is to shine her torch down, so as not to interfere with people’s view of the screen. A noticeable feature of new building development in England is the fact that there have been no new pawnshops erected on any new housing estates. Camels’ hair brushes are not made from the hair of camels; they are made from the tails of Russian and Siberian squirrels. It is calculated that 72 per cent, of the people who die of cancer could have been cured had they been examined sufficiently early. In some districts of Roumania, when a girl is old enough to many, a flower is painted on the house as a notice to the wife-seekers. Statistics are said to prove that bread is the most nourishing food, in proportion to its price, followed by peas, potatoes, butter, cheese, milk, apples, cod, and beefsteak, in that order. Probably the rarest clock in the world is the one in the Basque Museum, of Bayonne (France), which with the one face shows the individual time of all the various countries of the world. . The bagpipes did not originate in Scotland; they were known and played iin Persia centuries ago, and were introduced into the British Isles by the Romans. The average smoker strikes IQjOOO matches in a year, and if the cigarettes he smoked were placed end to end they would measure a distance of nearly half a mile. i The Canadian Parliament at Ottawa is the only bilingual Parliament in the World. All the business of their House of Commons is conducted in both English and French. Divorce cases in Britain are becoming much more numerous. In 1913 the number of decrees granted in England and Wales was 557; for the first three Law Terms this year the petitions in London alone exceeded 2,800. So strictly do some Indians observe the purdah, or veiling of their women’s faces, that there are cases on record of surgeons performing’ operations on Indian women without ever seeing their faces. A judge in the Isle of Man when appointed has to swear that he will be as impartial, when deciding cases, as the “backbone of a herring.” 'JMs as the backbone of the herring is always found in the middle of the fish. The Kamchadales of Siberia have an original method of dealing with adultery. The husband of the faithless wife challenges her lover to a fight to see who really has the right, through physical strength, of ownership. The winner keeps the woman. Radium is now used to photograph defects in steel posts and beams up to v 10 inches in thickness. Exposures require . from 20 hours to 30 hours, this length! of time being necessary for the rays to pass through the steel and register all imperfections on the film. The largest electric sign in the world is being built for an Apierican manu- , facturer. A clock with a minute hand . 27ft long will form the centre of the sign, which will be 240 ft, high and 150 ft. wide. Fourteen thousand bulbs and 7000 ft. of incandescent gas tubing will be used. A deep-sea camera invented by Professor Shamanov, of the All-Union Electro-Technical Institute, Moscow, is fitted with a television set hermetically sealed in a special cabinet. The object !s to broadcast pictures of monsters and other denizens of the ocean direct from a submarine. • The Zulu-Kaffirs require a man. to stand at a distance when he addresses his mother-in-law. He may not address her by name, for such familiarity might imply an authority over her. He often communicates with her by means of a third person. If by chance they meet, they pretend not to know each other. In suing her husband for divorce in Chicago, Mrs. Marjorie McKennan asserted that last Christmas the husband gave their three children gifts of money, filched it while they were asleep, and then told them the next morning that “for some unknown reason” Santa Claus had come back for his presents.. The Duke of Atholl is the only person in Great Britain who is allowed to maintain his own army and has Royal authority to do it. His “army” is composed of 300 kilted Blair Atholl Highlanders, who are armed with rifles, have their own colours and are entirely free from the control of the War Office. Th® bulk of the members of it are employees on the Duke’s estate. Drawing attention to her predicament on the roof of the local post office, by meowing piteously, a cat recently caused a stir among shoppers in the main business thoroughfare of Townsville, Australia. The aid of the local fire brigade was requisitioned, and a fireman scaled the long ladders to effect a rescue. Throwing off her bewildered and dejected look, puss eagerly watched the approach of her rescuer, and when a hand reached out to lift her off, coolly jumped to the roadway. , /