HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17180, 25 October 1923, Page 6

HERE AND THERE.

} AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING,' J BOY CATCHES 1200 MICE. ; An offer made by Thrapston (North* amptonshirei Rural Council to pay a. halfpenny each for mouse tails resulted in a local boy catching 1200 mice. ARAB DENTISTRY. 1 An interesting glimpse of dentistry as practised by the Arabs, is given by*, the Rev. S. P. H. Statham. While in. Cairo, it was part of Mr Statham s duty to ride through the slums. On. several mornings he heard screams coming from a particular house, but was told not to Interfere. One day. however, he went in the house and saw an Arab trying to extract a fellowj countrjunaris tooth with a gimlet, art I iron nail, and. a mallet. | “ HELLO! ARCTIC SPEAKING.*' Wireless messages from the Arctic* | may be heard by British listeners-m during the autumn, and winter. Donald Macmillan’s expedition, which has left for Ellesmere Island, northwest of Greenland, will attempt to communicate bv wireless with the outside world. BORN WITH TEETH. AT. Bolard. a surgeon of Bordeaux. France, recently reported to the local medical, society a case of twin boys, on«# or other having cut a tooth twelve day# after birth. This is a very rare occurrence, of which only about fifty cases, have been recorded in medical literature. It used to be regarded as a. portent that the child would grow up with exceptional strength or mental ability., King Richard ITI.. J,ouis XIV.. the great philosopher Bigot, and Boyd the poet were born with teeth : Louis XlVhad two teeth at birth “ IMPROVING ” ON NATURE. 1 There have been some disastrous experiments in the direction of “ improving ” on nature. For instance, when rats became such a nuisance in Jamaica, the East Indian mongoose was introduced to rid the island of the pest. But to-day the mongoose is a greater nuisance, than the. rat, and being bigger and hungrier, and quicker on its feet, it is worse than the thing it was introduced to destroy. A settler thought he would make home in a. strange land more homelike by introducing the British sparrow, which, hitherto had been unknown on the other side of the Atlantic. Mister Sparrow liked his new quarters, and quickly made himself at home, with disastrous results to crops and native birds. And what shall be said of the colonist who brought a pair of rabbits from English fields, so that they might breed and supply him with his favourite rabbit-pie? There are enough rabbit# in Australia to-day to make rabbit-pi# for the entire population of the earth. The authorities have spent, millions ot pounds in efforts to exterminate them, but they still go on breeding, and eating the the sheep should have. A 11C)THER*S PRAYER ANSWERED. To recover the body of a. 12-year-old crippled child for his widowed mother, the whirling waters of Yuba River. California, have been diverted at a coafc of over £4OOO. When she was prevented from jumping into the rapids to find the body, the mother fell on her knees and prayed that God would let her hold the boy in her arms on*’* more before she let him go. For fourteen days hundreds of men, assisted bv the engineers, threw themselves at the hurcuiean. task, brought the body ashore, and placed it in his mother’s arms. To accomplish their work they had to divert a portion of the river into a channel, and to pump out the 30ft of water under which the bo}' was pinned to the rocks below. COUNTRIES WITHOUT SNAKES. Irish people are fond of boasting of the immunity of their island from snakes. It is true that Ireland does not possess any of the three kinds of British snakes, but she is by no means the only country so blessed. There are no snakes in Xew Zealand, and very few; poisonous insects. New Zealand has a spider which is rather poisonous, and, of course, it has its mosquitoes, but on tho whole it. is remarkably free from venomous reptiles or insects. Canada as a whole is free from snakes, especially of the poisonous variety, but this is the more strange because the rattlesnake is quite common in the northern part of the United States. Here, and there hi the ranges of British Colombia a few stray rattlers may be found, but as a. rule the border line between the two countries marks the .northernmost limit of this deadly reptile. Patagonia is another snakeless country. There are no snakes in Iceland, while Japan and Tasmania are also places where reptiles afe very rare. TUNES ON POCKET-HANDKER-CHIEFS. A piece of tissue paper and a comb j have Jong survived as instruments of music—or of torture! The latest development in the manufacture of music is that of the pocket-handkerchief. It is claimed that, a, pocket-hand kerchief or a pillow-case can be converted into an instrument of sweetness by a. simple process of immersion. The patentee of this remarkable development claims that it. is possible to impose eleven new tunes on the same piece of material, and that an inexperienced man can turn out a dozen of the new records in less time than it takes an expert to produce a gramophone record of th© ordinary type. A silk handkerchief, on which a well-known piece of classical music had been played, was taken from the machine, thrown across the room, jumped on, replaced on the machine. and made to repeat, the tune smoothly and distinctly. A portion of a linen pillow-case was made to give forth a. striking reproduction of per-ectly-blended stringed instrument*. The new records are almost indestructible. do not need any special protection in transit, and can be packed into the smallest possible space. COMPLAINTS CAUSED BY CLOTHES. j Silk is such a popular material that ! it must be very inconvenient to be subi ject to “silk sensitiveness.” Yet caaea I have been known of |>eople who could j not wear silk because it was the cans© I of an outbreak of nettle-rash on any ! portion of the skin that came in conI tact with it. In one particular ease, where the patient- owned a silk blouse, she had only to put it on to immediately develoo an outbreak of wheals on J arms and neck. Upon being injected J with an “extract” from the silk a j violent outbreak of nettle-rash occtir- ! violent- outbreak my sneezing and j coughing, and watering of the eyes, i This sensitiveness is rare, but a similar sensitiveness in. the case of horses and I dogs is quite common. “Horse xai thma.” and “ horse nettle-rash ” ar© common complaints, and even a horse hair mattress is sufficient causs for their development Nowadays doctors have to assure themselves that patient* have no particular aversions of this kind before prescribing for them, as even such articles of diet as shellfish, milk, and eggs can produce, snch__a ro* action.-! uncertain people, _