MISCELLANEOUS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 6689, 16 August 1919, Page 1

MISCELLANEOUS.

Italy's aerial post already covers daily 1850 miles. j Previous to the war the. ewest flag j was tho Au-ifc.nlasinn. Fifty mUioiiarios recently sailt-d from New York for Turkov. Dominate i& said to be the Diitioiiu' game of the Esquimaux. 6,000,000,000 bushels of potatoes are grown annually in tho world. Twenty-seven Etonian generals were recently invited to the college to receive thanks for their services. Among them eon, and the Earl of Oavan. Technically, china-clay is known aa kaolin derived from Kaoling—"high ridge' s —the name of hills in China where the clay was first discovered and used in the manufacture of porcelain. To the Russians and all followers of the Orthodox Church, Easter is a considerably more important date in the religious calender than Christmas is to the English, St. Nicholas to the Duteh, or the New Year to the Scotch. One of the most difficult walking feats on record was accomplished by a well-known English pedestrian, who undertook, for a bet, to walk thirty miles backwards in nine hours. This he succeeded in d6ing with fourteen minutes to spare. Tigers were responsible for 1009 deaths in India in 1817, leopards lor 339, wolves and bears for 280, and 1 elephants and hyenas for 89. Of th« t59 deaths eaused by "other animals," 89 are assigned to pigs and 199 to crocodiles or alligators. The Siamete have a curious belief about sneering. They maintain that the devil keeps a large book containing the names of all people on earth. When«v« he reads through it, and ut«M ■ mm U* P*"°n who answers to it is obliged to sneeze. Englan dhas entered the beet sugar field. Exepriments before the war established the fact that sugar beet would grow as well in England as in Germany. At Kelham 5000 acres will be largely devoted to beet culture an da plant has been vuilt.

Statistics have proved that during the world war nearly 15,000,000 women actually were drawing pay for their services. More than 1,000,000 of them never had done a day's work in their lifes. The number of volunteers would add another millin to that total. One of the most curious of the innumerable varieties of fans among the Japanese is the iron war fan. This was ■invented in the eleventh century for the use of military commanders, either for direction of their soldiers or as a shield for defence. It is made of leather or iron.

Chinese gardeners sometimes plant statuettes of tiny men firmly in pots, just like real plants, and then, we are told, train live evergreens to grow up over these statuettes. The vines thus form a kind of robe for the statuette men—their white faces and hands protruding from the green leaves.

Among munitions of war turned to the use of peace are the lamp-standards of Waterloo bridge, London, fashioned from cannon used in "the battle of the same name.'' Some yews ago some vandal had them retaoved and standards of a more ornate patteren substituted, but the public outcry reeleg&ted the new standards to oblivion and the old "battle standards" were leplneed.

Of the devices designed to meet' the rat's cunning the most ingenious is an arrangement by which the rat walks into the house through the front door, whjeh immediately eloses. A savory smell entices him to .go up to the first floor, which eolkpSes through Ijis own weight, and precipitates him dowa i-a chute into a water - tank,: and at: the same time re-open# the front tot SSI friend.

Of the 17,500,000 aliens in the United States only 1,000,000 have becoitfl naturalised. ' What extravugance to biiy.yonr wife such un expensive ring.' 'On tho cos* trary; einee site got it she has bougU pnly half as many guM_«f gloves.'

A Whakatano telegram of August 7, states: Regarding the ease of a soldier who is alleged to have been unattended for a whole month while suffering from two broken arms, the Iocs! Beturned Soldiers' Association has received a telegram from the Commissioner of Pensions asking the soldiers' number for the purpose of identification. His name is Malcolm MeCreadie, and be enlisted at Whangarei in 1916.