INTERESTING ITEMS.

Waikato Independent, Volume XXII, Issue 2579, 1 August 1922, Page 7

INTERESTING ITEMS.

/ 'Any sum of money paid on account :to show the good faith ,of the buyer is known as an earnest, and is a payment recognised by English law. Typical of this is the King’s shilling formerly given to soldiers on enlistment, and the similar coin given to domestic servants in Scotland. There are no national legal holidays in the United States. The women of Finland have had the right to vote since 1907. “Ostend” rabbits on sale again in England are. now coming from Holland. The rapid multiplication of insects is one of the dangers always facing the world. The first lady to become a doctor was a Frenchwoman, who took her degree in 1875. Black parachutes were used during the Great War for dropping spies behind the enemy’s lines at night. The largest insect known, but now extinct, was a dragon-tly, which had a wing-spread measuring two feet. At heights above. 23,000 feet above sea-level, mountaineers say that sleep would he difficult, if not impossible. During the first year of prohibition in the U.S.A. taxes and penalties against offenders amounted to some s?r million pounds. The doctor’s claim on the estate of a deceased patient ranks first in France. Shoplifters cost the shops and the stores of New, York about £250,000 a year for goods stolen. The collared lizard of New Zealand is already learning the art of walking on its hind legs. Elephants are afraid of mice, while they also have a strong dislike for pigs, or even the smell of them. An airship is being built with sleeping and dining accomodation for 50 people, the cooking to be done by electricity. Fifty-seven vessels of 227,010 gross tons, driven by motor-engines, are now being constructed in the United Kingdom.

Sea-lions, which are among the “performing animals,’’ are intelligent, and learn tricks easily ; they never sulk, and seem fond of going through their performance again and again.

The original recipe for the famous perfume, eau-de-Cologne, was discovered by an Italian living in Cologne in 1709.