HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17905, 22 July 1926, Page 8

HERE AND THERE.

AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING. Strikers and Th©ir Beer. Five miners were each fined 20s at Sunderland, England, lately for stealing a 36-gallon barrel of beer from a publichouse yard. When the barrel was broached scores of people carried beer away in buckets, baths, tins and other utensils. The defendants said that they acted out of devilment, and promised to refund the value of the beer after the strike. Names for Motor-Cars. The American craze for giving motorcars names has reached England. Two cars, both of the smart semi-raefer aluminium type, were recently* seen in Piccadilly with names painted on the outside. One car was called “Atta Boy,” and was driven by an obviously American young man, but the occupant of ‘‘The Nonsuch” was a pretty English-lookin^girl^ Seeds for English Gardens. When, in the early summer, English gardens begin to bloom and to scent the air.with their fragrance, millions of flowefs from Canadian seeds make an important contribution to the beauty* of the season. More and more England is turning to the rich soil and warm climate of Vancouver Island, off the British Columbia coast, for her supplies of choicest seeds. This market was first opened up years ago. It began with sweet peas. Vegetable seeds are now produced in large bulk, and there is an increasing demand for rare alpine and rock plant s^eds.

An “Asparagus King.” ‘‘The Asparagus King” is what Bedfordshire folk call Mr A. E. Course, of Biggleswade, who farms a thousand acres of land, of which a large part is devoted to asparagus. He is probably the world’s largest grower of this vegetable. "I began work as a farm labourer at four shillings a week," Mr Course said recently. "My first holding was a quarter of an acre in extent. I was struck by the high prices demanded for asparagus, and decided to begin planting it myself. Now I grow more of it than is produced in* the entire acreage of the rival county of Worcester.” >: x « Prince as Lorry Driver. If he had been anybody’ else the Prince of Wales would have liked to drive a railway engine during the recent general strike, for that is a job he already knew a little abqut. What he did do was to drive a milk-lorry to one of the poorest districts of London and help distribute the milk from house to house. This was in the early days of the. strike, before the organisation was perfected. The Prince said he felt sorry for the children and their anxious mothers, and thought that to help them could not be deemed "strikebreaking'' bv anv decent-minded man. m *r x Present-day Rationalism. Mr Joseph M’Cabe. who is greatlydiscouraged over the present position of Rationalism in the world, has been touring in Canada and America, but he has found very little to relieve his mind or to banish his gloom. Writing in a late issue of the “Literary Guide,” Mr M’Cabe bemoans the condition of Rationalism over the water, and is sad because the leading men of science there are representing science as almost the handmaid of religion. He complains that: "Professor Millikan, one of the most distinguished physicists of America, announces at length in one of the leading weeklies of the country* that he has never known a thinking man who did not believe in God, and that science forces us to be lieve in God. Professor Osborne pro claims that he is a Christian and that the age of scientific scepticism is over.” x « The King as a Cook. There are no more constant or welcome visitors to the London hospitals than the King and Queen. Recently the King made an informal tour of one well-known institution, and showed great interest in the kitchens which are attached to each of the wards. His Majesty stood by and watched a nurse preparing a special diet for a patient, and then smilingly* he said: "I can cook a chop— at least, I remember trying to.”