HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19986, 28 June 1920, Page 6

HERE AND THERE.

Great Britain’s annual consumption or cigarettes is staggering. During ilie present year John Bull will convert into smoke an aggregate cigarette 1.140,000 miles long—so long, in fact, that it could furnish four ci"arettos which could be lighted in 'our omees for the man, in the moon to smoko—with a remnant sufficient to gudlo the earth at the equator nearly seven and a half times. Reindeer farming iu Canada- is urged hy Mr Stefansson, the explorer, as .a means of meeting the world’s meat shortage. The flesh of the reindeer commands a higher price in tho American market than beef. It costs 3s a head per year to herd reindeer, and ho knows of a reindeer that cost three dollars to rear being sold for forty-five dollars. Primitive people are in tho habit of making the performance of collective labour easier by singing, the joint effort being put forth at definite points of tho rhythm. One traveller tells us that certain African negroes do rather a clever thing in this'line. Five hundred of them are in the water, trying to get a vessel off a sandbank. They sing a melody; at the eighth har they •’all submerge; each continues to sing the tune mentally under the water; at tho twelfth bar they all give tho vessel a push, and at tho sixteenth they all come to the surface. hen Kew Gardena were formed in IiGO by. the German mother of George tho Third, a maidenhair tree was planted there from the Far East. Ginkgo Biloba is its name in its own. country. Other specimens have been planted in various parts of England, but, though they live well enough, not one had borne fruit till this year. Now after 160 years, the Kcw Ginkgo has produced four plum-shaped fruits with kernels that may be eaten. The last members of the Romanoff family arrived at \cuice recently in tlie steamer Semiramis, and; have taken up their permanent residence at Cannes, in a villa, they own. Thev number fifty-nine, among them being Mane Pavlovna ? Duchess of MeckJcnburg (aunt by marriage of the hue Czar; and her son, Andrew Vladimirovi ten, aide-de-camp of the Czar. Both were the last Romanoffs to leave Russia. and round them gathered manr I nnees, Grand Dukes and Grand Duchesses related to the German 'iimperor. 'When the Czar and the familv were murdered the Grand Duchess -Bane Pavlovna with her three sons, escaped from Petrograd to Moscow, and then when this city was taken over by the Bolsheviks she took refuge as a small estate near Odessa. She deliberately delayed her finad departuie * lOl,l Russia, as she was anxious tc rescue us many Princes a s she could/ Ihe Compulsory Labour Bill which came before the Bulgarian Parliament recent h j, calls upon all Bulgarian subjects nude and female, to work fortho State, ihe men become liable alter twenty, the women aftef eighteen. They will be called unon to work on roads and bridges, railways, canals, public buildings, tho lavino-. out of towns and villages, the* recovery of marshland, and on forestry in mines, factories and workshops! Compulsory labour is personal, and substitution will not bo 'permitted, i roiesaonal men and women, it is understood, will bo allowed to contribute then- quota of labour in tho form of professional services. No Bulgarian subjecu may leave the country or become a naturalised citizen of anotnbr I i at9 U i Qtl H bo tem of compulsory Jabour has been fulfilled. Regarding conditions of work, for men the term ot service will be sixteen months for women mght, the first three months of the term being devoted to preliminary training. Heads of families are exempted from halt the period of work provided under the law. The Bill lavs down that men will do their compulsory labour service in tire department of lesidenco or adjacent departments, and women m their place of residence. “We hear a lot and wo talk a lot about immigration,” said Professor David at a meeting of the Victoria League in bydney, “ but we want to F, u-°'l r ',' ho i e llearfc and soul into the subject—to try to get as many people t« tTL 0311 °/ the rr-T i - sllfc kind t«> come to this country. Think of us, only a lew millions, surrounded bv those teeming millions of Japan, liidia and China, It is a terrific menace. We mar, too, of tho demand to shorten the hours of labour. More power to hose who try to easo tho shoulders of at rn r ,° r i a ' rS . H° m their burdens. But a© must not forget that any country if R is going to hold any high p ace amongst the civilised countries of the 11-f 1 1 nUS , fc glve absolutely of ns whatsoever its hand finds to nnrf'Ji ■ tb , Wg t? the lltmost of ™rl r d , I , aimL H wo shorten tho leisure ° 1 //’i 1 )’ ant 60 acc J uire mme. t! v| +1,3 l \ d suggesfc , most strongly tlut the workers should hare wider opportunities lor education, so than no may have more intensive work If te tln/th Sl L° rten i Wc I,lust to it thm the change does not lessen production. Other countries are ahead Germany is organirincarefully. Wo who have woi victoScannot afford to rest on our laurels unless we give our best strength durf"ll back iMt “d of M. Duchesne, tho French naval artinery engineer, publishes a calculation ot the muzzle velocity that would haw f Projectile to make it eave tho earth tor ever. If there were 10 atraospheio the projectile would u.? St - rt 3(3 -- 74 ( feeb a second. But tho air offers resistance, not s» groat, however, as might bo supposed. ui,- mg n th ? P r °i ectil ° hurled bv the Big Bertha ” on Paris as a basis, M. Duchosuo says hj would have to be thrown with an initial velocity of 48 230 i feet a second to send it so far that it would never fall again. A slightly different calculation is made by Miss Isabel M. Lewis, of tho United States iSaval Observatory. She says that when the velocity with which an object is thrown from tho earth “ reaches live miles per second (26,000 feet) it leaves the earth entirely and becomes a satellite of the earth, moving iu a circular orbit with a, period of one hour twentvlivo minutes, if the velocity is increased beyond five miles per second the object continues to revolve round the earth in an eliptical orbit whoswidth increases.with the velocity unlit a. velocity of seven miles a second F recorded, when the object dies off o;t a parabolic curve, escaping the attraction of the earth and becoming a satellite of the sun.” Freed from other elements, oxygen has long been known to aid combustion and to maintain life. Animals which would die in ordinary air live long when shut up in glass vessels and given oxygen to breathe ; and human beings have been alive, when desperately ill. hy breathing the precious gas. Now Professor Barcrott has taken the place of tho animals in tho vessel. Lie has Ix’-en shutting himself up in a, glass chamber, to which oxygen, forming about one, half of the air. could tie admitted. There he stayed for six da vs and nights, pedalling the back whee! of a. lixed bicycle, writing notes on his condition, eating, sleeping, drinking. The air pressure was so manipulated as to represent, what the airman breathes when 16,000 feet up. and Mr Bareroft has been able to ascertain how much added oxygen the flying man must carry to make life safe at sucb a height.(. But that is-not the onlv thing ho has achieved. It i s claimed that by the aid of oxygen breathed in one of these glass chambers, gassed soldiers can be cured of their frightful injuries. The victim lives for sixteen out of twenty-four hours for five days in the chamber, breathing air which is from 40 to 50 per cent oxygen, and the result is that he becomes cured.