NEWS IN A NUTSHELL

Taranaki Daily News, 13 April 1935, Page 13 (Supplement)

NEWS IN A NUTSHELL

THE WORLD AT A GLANCE

Early Sydney advertisement:—To Ist at Petersham. House and 3000 acres of land. Bootblacks are dying out in London. To-day there are only about forty; before the War there were more than l(K}0. Boy Scouts will light a chain of beacons on high land over the British Isles on Accession Day, May 6.

No money-l Aider may belong to England’s biggest synagogue, which has a membership of 1600. A golfer who lost his ball on the Titirangi (Auckland) course found it wedged between the horns of a goat.

According to an auctioneer, experienced buyers indicate bids by almost imperceptible movements of the head. A nod means a lot.

In spite of the romantic stories of Hollywood, eighty per cent, of the actors and actresses earn barely enough to Eire on.

A primitive telephone system is installed in a village in the heart of Africa. The telephone instruments are made from coconut shells and the wires ere of fibre.

Separation orders are sought in Britain’s courts by 15,000 wives each year, while 3500 husbands go to prison rather than pay the allowance fixed by the magistrate. • •

Karachi, the Indian airport, \ has an aerial milestone which indicates the way and distance by air to London, Bagdad, Delhi and Quetta. It is visible from -a height of 2000 ft.

Apples weighing 81b. each have been grown by Mr. I chitaro Matsuda, of Nagano, Japan. Although sour, they have a good flavour. Their- size is the result of many experiments. Operators of a “numbers” game in Danville, Virginia, were bankrupt when the whole town took seriously a railway worker’s dream that the number 805 was sure to win. It did.

Although the number of automatic telephone exchanges in Britain is steadily increasing the total staff of the exchange -was only 10,500 at the end of last year; this is an increase of 500 on 1933.

Mr. Joseph Maltby, of Tatfawsball Thorpe, Lincs., who died recently at the age of ninety-two, left eighty-four grandchildren, 100 great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildreß. The German people are to be encouraged to eat more mutton, the price > of which Is to be kept down by law. This will mean the imposition by of a change in German taste, pork being the favourite meat dish of the population. . ’

Walking seems to suit the American woman mail-carrier who recently retired after 14 years’ service. During this period she walked 34,000 miles, ans is now three stone heavier than when she first took up the job. Old church pews are often bought , for public-houses. At a recent auction five old-fashioned “horse-box” pews were sold to licencees, as well as a number of plain oak benches from Sundayschools. In Sydney in 1807 the Judge Advocate said that he would take no excuse for the non-attendance of a witness. "He was sentenced to death by your Honour yesterday,” said a constable. “And he was hanged this morning.” One of the smallest Bibles in the world was printed at Glasgow in 1901. Without the cover it measures 1-f by IJin., and is seven-sixteenths of an inch thick. It contains 876 pages and many illustrations.

Philip Lancaster, of Hull, has laid 3000 Pricks in four hours. In the first hour he broke all known records by laying 908 bricks. Lancaster had a wager with a haulage contractor, who said he eould not lay 2500 bricks in the time. St. Andrew’s Cathedral, George Street, Sydney, owes its position to a murder. The original owner was robbed and killed, and as no one claimed acquaintance with the corpse the land reverted to th* Crown. It was later granted for Church, use.

A British manufacturer has brought out a device for protecting sleep-walkers. It consists of a beam of invisible ultraviolet light and a photo-electric cell. When the somnambulist begins to walk, his body intercepts the beam falling on the cell. The latter then throws a relay, ringing an alarm. Fishermen drawing in their nets at the mouth of the river Arno, at Viareggio (Italy), were excited at the weight of their catch. They hauled up the net ■ inch by inch, and at last the catch came into view. It was a marble statue of an angel in a protective attitude over a child.

Farmer Ben Roberts,, of Red Water, Alberta, went to his well to draw a pail of water. He was amazed to hear orchestral music coming from the well. Since then the farmer has listened to all sorts of radio programmes from stations far and near. Why the well picks up broadcasts has not been satisfactorily explained.

Mrs. HFpe Hitchcock, of Mount Pleasant, New York, answering her neighbours’ third court action against her prize English sheep dogs, declared that since the court had told her to get rid of all but a “reasonable number,” she had sold 21 of her 40 dogs, and quietened the rest by bedding herself in their kennels at night. ' . ' ■ *

A small device which enables a physician to magnify the sound of the human heart 100 times and to tune in on the particular heart sound he wishes to hear, has been developed, making use of two new type vacuum tubes each the size of a peanut. The device was first produced to aid a medical student whose poor hearing prevented him from using a stethoscope. A needle and cotton were found inside an oyster opened at a fishmonger’s shop in Bognor. The oyster was in perfect condition. It is surmised that the needle and cotton were dropped on the

beach at a Kentish holiday resort during the summer and that the tide washed them away to sea, where they drifted on to the Whitestable oyster.bed and entered an oyster which was feeding.