HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19986, 29 June 1920, Page 6

HERE AND THERE.

The cost of living since 1914 has gone up 260 per cent in America 250 per cent in Britain, S3O per cent in hj ranee ;uid Italy, 1000 per cent in Germany, and 4000 per cent in Austria. The solar system, in its race to some such goal in space as the star Vega, according to Merschel does eleven miles ’in a second, and according to later authority from twelve to fifteen. In ten years’ time America will ho forced to buy annuallv from Great Britain fully 500,000,000 barrels of oil. this prediction was mad© by Sir E. Mackay Edgar. He declared Britain lias now cornered the world’s available ml supply,_ saying: “Apart from Mexico, it is almost a case of Britain first and the rest of the world nowhere.” Thoro are 18,279 schools closer! m the united States because of the shortage of teachers, and 41,900 schools are being taught by teachers characterised as “below standard, but taken mi temporarily in the emergency,” according to returns to I*. Claxtou, United States Commissioner of Education Irom State school officers. ' At the battle of Messines over a million pounds of explosives were fired simultaneously m nineteen mines, driven by eight tunnelling companies, with a length of passages under the earth of nearly five miles. Twelve miles away the people of Lillo rushed tut of their houses thinking the explosion was an earthquake. Sonic of the mines had been laid nine months before they were fired. It was the biggest feat in the whole history of mining. The message from Mars for which Ur i l . H. Millener, noted scientist in wireless, searched interstellar space rom his giant receiving plant near Cmaha, has not materialised. Jf there ivas such- a, message passing through, the ether lor the 50,000,000 of miles which separates the earth and Mars, it UlCi not come sufficiently close to the earth to bo picked up by the great receiving station which Dr Millener has • established on the banks of i.i„, I latte River. For nine hours Dr Millener and his assistant, H. L Gamer, searched space for the signals which Mars is thought to be sending earthward. I‘ifty years after the Napoleonic wars, jn which 1,000,0(10 of Franco's finest manhood were slain,.the average stature of the French soldiery was nearly a lull inch less than before the days of the Revolution and the supremacy of “Tho Little Corporal,” savs the Philadelphia “ Public Lodger!” Biologists investigating this decline, found that to' no other cause could ifbe logically ascribed than that tho wars had taken away so many of the physically lit, leaving the unfit to perpetuate- the race. This, together with the privations suffered during the war. was commonly accepted as the cause of the reduction in French stature. If the loss of 1,000,000 men reduced tho French stature about an inch, what will he the effect of the loss of 9.000. fighting casualties, to say nothing of the starvation affecting the millions of European mothers and children P Civilian flying across the Atlantic from America is increasing. For tne six months ended in January of this year, commercial and Measure aeroplanes made 35,930 flights for a total of 593,000 miles covered. These machines worked on tho regular LondonParis and channel routes, in addition to thoso engaged in regular flights about the United Kingdom. In this commercial flying 403 machines were used, this number including those in the regular service and the others held in reserve. Tho number of passengers carried and delivered to thoir destinations was (34,410, and these took with them a total of 67,1431b of baggage. For tho total of more than 35,000 flights a total of eighteen accidents occurred. F’our of these resulted in and in eight of the accidents those in the machines were injured. The record shows that in five of the crashes no one was injured, and the total score shows that 1960 flights we-re taken successfully for every- accident that happened. According to Amorcian motor-car manufacturers, the estimated average lifo of a car is 50,000 miles, or five years. Owing to the war, production and sale of cars for public” use during tho years 1916-17-1S were much restricted. Consequently tho annual replacement demand for theso years had now to be made up, and in addition there are tens of thousands of wouldbe owners awaiting to possess cars. The number of -passenger cars running in the United States to-day is roughly 6.000. or one to every 18 persons. Replacement demand for tho past three years is estimated at 3,000,000, and the would-be owners are put at half a million. Therefore there is an misapplied demand for 3.600,000 cars. if production of 2,000,000 cars is effected this year, there is still a carry-over of a million and a half, with the further increase iu the replacement quantity. Altogether it was thought that it was not necessary for the industry to worry about saturation until at least some 6.000. more cars, or one to eight of the population, had been produced. Claims of astronomers that the equation of tho years could not be accomplished by machinery are disproved by the clock completed hv "William Blanford, of Aurora, 111., who has recently died at the ago of eighty-two (says tho New York “World”). His clock was the labour of forty year's. The calendar is arranged for 10,000 years, even the double leap years being provided for. Tho equation of time, operating automatically, hasbeen accomplished. The astronomical dial is wound once in every sixtyeight years, or fourteen times in about 1000 years. During the first- thousand years tho clock is expected to operate without impairment or attention. The calendar registers tho number ami name of each day, each month, and each year. There is a dial or plate below the astronomical dial, which gives the longitude east and west at 127 of the principal cities of the world, showing the time at any hour of Hm day or night hi each. An improved compensation pendulum—a. device conceived by the inventor —is responsible to a largo degree for the accuracy of the clock. The pendulum is adjusted to normal temperature, and is aulonmtically controlled by expansion and contraction as the result of changes in heat and cold. Tho influence of psychology upon criminal impulse was touched upon to an interesting dc-rrco during the bearing of a case in the Brisbane Supreme Court (says the .Sydney “Morning Herald ”). Counsel for the defence vet up a plea of insanity and called medical evidence to support the line of reasoning, which based itself chiefly upon the mental after effects of an attack of influenza. Dr Ellerton, acknowledged to ho an Australian authority on diseases of tho brain, advanced the .view that the accused acted instinctively without being able to control the impulse. He differentiated between impulse and voluntary action. Ho held psychology had a most important bearing on crime, and suggested that many men had been sent to gaol when an asylum for the insane would have been a more logical destination. “ Your argument, then,” said his Honor, “is that the world ho? been sending poor devils to prison all these years when they should , have been confined to an asylum.” The reply was, “ Many doctors who have made a study of the subject hold opinions to that effect.” In answer to tho Crown Prosecutor, Dr Ellerton proffered tho suggestion that in cases similar to the one on trial a jury of experts would be desirable.”' TNo doubt you would take a- favourable new of that kind of jury, doctor.” re* marked tho Crown Prosecutor, “but I rather think the only person who would agree with you is yourself* 4 ’

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