NEWS IN A NUTSHELL’

Taranaki Daily News, 3 November 1934, Page 13 (Supplement)

NEWS IN A NUTSHELL’

THE WORLD AT A GLANCE

London boroughs collect 2,000,000 tons of refuse every year.

The use of face powder may cause nasal catarrh in certain persons. As many as 100,000 ants may live in large anthills.

Doctors, nurses, actors, clergymen, and people with artistic temperaments make bad patients where operations are concerned.

The word “tabloid” is a copyright trade-mark. It was coined fifty years

ago as -the name of compressed chemical products.

Cruising liner Ordurfa left Liverpool recently on a Welsh League of Youth cruise to North Africa with 102 Joneses, 68 Williamses, and 53 Thomases aboard. We might live for 1900 years if we zould keep our blood temperature at forty-five degrees Fahrenheit, laboratory tests show.

So much static electricity accumulates m one New York skyscraper that a neon lamp can be lit by applying wires to a doorknob.

There is, for the first time for years, an increase in the number of miners employed, the number now being 2000 higher than twelve months ago. Ten families in Newcastle-on-Tyne have cost the ratepayers £10,700 in outdoor relief. In one case, all the six children were bom while relief was being received. At a cost of £750,000, thousands of men are at work laying a cable that will put Scotland in instantaneous telephonic communication with the rest of Britain.

The medical profession in England is In danger of becoming overcrowded. There were more than 56,000 names on the register in 1932; this is 15,000 more than in 1912.

The caterpillar of the puss moth spits a stream of poison liquid when it fights. Fly’s wings are mixed with rag fibers tn making a high-quality correspondence paper.

Wages equivalent to two shillings and fivepence for a fifty-five hour week—about a halfpenny an hour—are in many cases being paid to women working in Jugoslav textile factories. What, it is claimed, will be the world’s finest road is being planned to’cover the 2204 miles beween British Columbia and Alaska, at a cost of £2,800,000. Already 1000 miles of this mighty thoroughfare have been built. The custom of strewing the bridal path with sand, recently revived at Knuteford, England, owes its origin to the pagan belief which held sand to be a life-giving substance and healer of sickness.

When struck by lightning during a recent thunderstorm, Captain A. V. West, skipper of the Ramsgate boat, Stourgate, suffered no physical harm, but afterwards discovered that the flash had melted his c!ollar-stud. Immunity from the law is granted to members of the Diplomatic Corps, theii secretaries and servants, resident in London. A pedestrian run down by an Embassy car is powerless to take action unless the diplomat waives his privilege. <~

In the small town of Verkhoyansk, in north-eastern Siberia, temperatures as low as ninety-five degrees below zero have, been recorded, while the average winter temperature is fifty-five below. Even the trees freeze so solidly than an expert woodsman wielding a sharp axe has trouble denting them.

Tooth troubles afflict monkeys and apes as well as human beings, it is revealed by Dr. Adolph H. Schultz, of Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Schultz found that teeth lost through disease are more common among some ape species than in some human races. Although no definite source of the firefly’s light has been found, it is generally believed to be caused by the rotting or oxidation of a secretion given off by cells located under the body. According to many accounts, tropical fireflies grow so large and so luminous that they often 4re caged by natives and travellers and used as lanterns.

A pocket cigar lighter that , requires no liquid fuel is-a recent innovation. Modernislng an old principle, it employs flint and steel to throw sparks against a tubular cartridge of inflammable woolly material. The dry fuel bums without flame, but with a glow that permits lighting a cigar in the strongest wind.

Making cod-liver oil taste like sweets is the accomplishment of Canadian Government Fisheries research workers. The oil is mixed with cocoa to form a choco-late-coated confection in which it is said to be impossible to detect its taste or odour, although all the health-giving qualities are retained.

A total of 1851 b of clothing was worn by Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra, and Henry Wilcoxson, as Marc Antony, in one of their love scenes. Wilcoxson’s armour weighed 1101 b, and Claudette’s • beaded gown weighed 751 b. It took 600 ostrich feathers to make up the solid feathered arch before which stood Cleopatra’s couch. About 250 frogs took part in a jumping . contest at Angels Camp, California, and 20,000 spectators watched them jump. The contest, inspired by Mark Twain’s atory, “The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” is held annually to revive memories of California’s gold rush days when frog-jumping was a popular pastime among the miners and prospectors. The record jump of 13ft lin was made by a frog named “Budweiser” some years ago. ■ '

A Yorkshire woman who, when six months old, was so delicate that she was kept in a straw-lined basket in iront of the fire, celebrated her 104th birthday in London recently. She is Mrs. Christina Sowersby, of Woodberry Grove, North Finchley. Bom at Skeme, an East Riding village, she was twenty when she married John Sowersby, a farmer. He died 38 years ago. There were 13 children, and five are still living. Mrs. Sowersby lived on the farm for 70 years, and went to London by motor car 14 years ago. It was her. first motor car journey—and her last. She prefers a pony and trap.

Amazement was caused at Brighton, England, during the holiday season, bsr three young men who walked along the seafront wearing sandals, their toenails stained a deep green, orange, and black. AH three wore white duck suite and dark blue berets. The men were followed by a crowd of several dozen holi-day-makers, but’ in spite of this, and heedless of cat-calls, the men strolled unconcernedly for over a mile along the promenade before boarding a passing omnibus. Similar scenes were witnessed at Brighton last year, when a number of “young bloods” attempted to start a beach pyjama fashion for men. When they appeared on the promenade they were almost mobbed.