NEW ODD, INTERESTING.

Waipa Post, Volume VII, Issue 326, 26 June 1914, Page 1

NEW ODD, INTERESTING.

j Apricots aio very plentiful and in great variety in China. There are 13,000 different kinds of postage stamps in the world. Tlio term “hand,” used in measuring horses, means four indies. The only maritime country in Europe without a navy is Belgium. The oldest manuscript written on cotton paper in England is in the British Museum, and bears date 1049. In St. Petersburg no outdoor musical performances are permitted. Cyclists in Denmark are forbidden by law to ride faster than the ordinary speed of a cab through any town. There have been twenty-seven cases of insanity in the Bavarian it.aval family during the last hundred rears. The French law treats the frog as if it were a fish, and declares all fisliing for it by night to be poaching. The leaf of the Ceylon’s talipot palm, which grows to a lnindretl feet in height, is so wide that it will cover twenty men.. Violet-scented seaweed grows in the lakes of the Manyishlak Peninsula, in the Caspian Sea, and the pleasant odour therefrom scents the air for miles around. Tile common slang word “mash” is from a beautiful gipsy word, “inafada,” which means “to charm by the eyes.” Immense quantities of wooden shoes are made in France from the wood of Ihe alder, which are seasoned by fire before they are sold. The Egyptian used gold as money at a very early but unknown period, but first in the form of rings, wliidi opened and could be strung together.

Tradition says that locks were made in England in the reign of Alfred, but it was not till the fourteenth century that the craft was recognised as a distinct one. The invention of hells is attributed to the Egyptians, who arc credited with having made use of such percussion instruments to announeo the sacred fetes of Osiris. For a German woman marriage with a foreigner is a precarious business. She becomes a foreigner, and is - liable at any lime to summary expulsion from her own country. Throwing dice for cigars is a common practice in tobacco shops in Vancouver, and if the customer wins ho pays less than the recognised price for his cigar. People wink because the eye must be kept clean and moist, and by the action of the eyelids the fluid secreted by the glands of the eyes is spread equally over the surface of the globe, If nob absolutely the oldest, tlio Stora Kopparberget in Sweden is the oldest copper mine of which we have any official figures. It lias been worked continuously for nearly nine hundred years. Using mercury vapour lamps in her greenhouse, a Scottish woman horticulturist not only forces seeds to sprout and plants to grow in half tlio usual time, but also produces greater depth of colour in the vegetation. It is a curious fact that the fur seal was once a land animal. The baby seals are actually afraid of the water; they would drown if thrown into it, and have to learn to swim by repeated efforts. When once they have been jtauglit to swim, however, they soon forget to walk.