HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18013, 25 November 1926, Page 6

HERE AND THERE.

AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING. Twelve Million Radio Sat*. There are more than 12,000,000 radio sets capable of catching music from the air, says the electrical division of the United States Department of Commerce, basing its statement on a recent survey. This figure is conservative, it states, because it is more probable that there are 15,000,000 radio sets in the world to-day. Out of this approximate number there are more than 5,500.000. or nearly half, in use in the United States. k 55 £4O For Scottish Pearl. The record price of £4O has just been paid for a Scottish pearl found in Loch Vennachar. One usually associates pearl-fishing with the translucent waters and cloudless skies of the East, rather than with the cold northern streams and lochs, and yet here are few of Scotland’s rivers that have not yielded valuable pearls at one time or another. 55 « 52 An Outsize In Bookworms. The accustomed serenity of the Durban Public Library was disturbed re cently by the discovery of a giant python curled up in a comer below a case containing the EncvcJopaedia Britannica. How the reptile got tr. is a mystery. No harm was done, how ever, the intruder allowing itself to be transferred to a sack without pro test. It was 10ft long and 9in in girth. « « « Impressing the Natives. Boys took a very impressive part in a health exhibition recently held ii Bombay. Some of them were dressed as rats and gave a demonstration of how disease is carried by these rodents, while others, dressed as mosquitoes, showed how that insect inflicts its poisonous bites. It was hoped in this way to fix in the native mind the large part played by rats and mosquitoes in spreading <iisea c e. *•- •-• sc England’s Old Cottages The Royal Society of Arts, which has started a movement for the preservation of the cottage architecture of England, proposes to call a conference of all bodies and authorities interested in the subject with a view to raising funds and forming a separate organisation. The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings is co-operating, and already over £IOOO has been subscribed. 55 tt 52 Dispute Regarding Bagpipes. A settlement has been arrived at in an interdict action at the instance of More’s Hotel and others against the Highlanders' Institute, Glasgow, the subject of the action being the alleged disturbance of hotel guests and tenants by dancing and bagpipe playing at nights in the institute. According to the settlement, the institute guarantee that the dancing of Scottish reek, and the playing of bagpipes will cease at eleven o'clock in the evening during the winter; that they will deafen both exit door? in the lane adjoining the institute: that double windows will be installed in all the windows of the dancing hall: that all windows will be kept shut; and that the programmes for dances will l*e previously submitted to the institute. 55 55 55 Town Crier’s Strange Duties. Town criers, five of whom have been competing for the crying championship of England, have some strange announcements to make sometimes. In the middle of the eighteenth century the burgh of Lanark was so poor that it load only one butcher, who. before killing a sheep, made sure it would be sold by asking the town crier, or bellman, to cry the following in the streets:— “ Bell-cll-ell 1 There’s a fat sheep to kill! A leg for the provost. Another for the priest. The bailies and the deacons They'll tak' the neist. And if the fourth leg we cannot sell. The sheep it maun leeve and gaa back to the hill! ” 52 25 52 Immunity from Plague. “ The Diary," in the “ Evening Standard" of September 7. contained a paragraph which state*’ * “ The case of bubonic- plague reported from Liverpool reminds us how fortunate we have been in London, thanki to the efficiency Of our port sanitation administration There has not been a case of human plague known in Eng land and Wales during 1924 and 1925. nor have any plague-infected rat* been discovered during those years The im munity is partly due to the ure ot hydrocyanic acid gas. which has been widely adopted for destroying rats or. board ships. So effective has th*3 treatment been that two r,f the medical officers of the Ministry Health paid a special visit to the United States in order to instruct our American shipping friends on methods of fumigattion.”-