ODDS AND ENDS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18021, 9 November 1920, Page 3

ODDS AND ENDS.

WALKING IN LONDON. Pedestrian martyrs of London’s over-crowded streets might turn for comfort to the poet Gay's “Trivia,” which he described as “The art of walking the streets of London,” even a higher art in the early days of the Eighteenth Century than now (suggests the Morning Post). For the streets were hardly paved, the car-riage-ways were full of holes, forming deep puddles after rain, and the narrow footpaths were flanked in a diabolically inconvenient way by rows of posts. He who ventured to leave the sanctuary of' the path went in mortal danger from the traffic, and was sure of a mud-bath on a wet. day; whereas if he kept within the posts his passage met with so much resistance “as made his journey truly a warfare,” we are told. “How comfortless,” says an historian “must have been the sensations of an unfortunate female, stopped in the street under a large old sign loaded W’ith lead in full swing over her head and a torrent of dirty water falling near her from a spout ornamented with the mouth of a dragon.” Her hoop petticoat was an immense obstruction. We may be thankful for a fashion of scanty feminine clothing. BAG-SNATCHING IN PARIS. The Apache gangs that were harassing Paris so nervously before the war are, according to the Prefect of the city, again in evidence. Sandbagging is net so frequent as usual, but mean, petty thefts are so numerous and are a baffling problem to the entire detective force. As many as eighty complaints of bag-snatching from ladies are reported daily, and althought some cases have been traced to their perpetrators the per centage is small. Then, the restaurant waiter is a victim of their raids. The average waiter in a good restaurant carries with him a round sum In j tips when he starts homeward about midnight; what is more, he often lives in outlying districts of the city, wher e the rents are more reasonable than in the neighbourhood of his work. He is marked down, and beJ tween the last subway, station and his home Tie is attacked and robbed. The proportion pf cases in which waiters have been the victims has been curiously high, and in some instances the poor fellows have been seriously injured. The return of the Apache and street loafer from the i war has not brought unmingled joy 1 in Paris. I 'KINGS AND THE HIGH COST OF LIVING. I With the loss of royalty in many 1 of the war-riven countries of Europe, the new goveriigients will not have I to pay such salaries to heads ■of State. With the passing of the ; Kaiser the Berlin Government alone i will save some £1.000,000. The Emperor of Austria-Hungary found it hard to keep the wolf off the royal doorstep on £904,000, while the late Czar cost his children £1,000,000 at least every year. Czar Ferdinand cost Rumania for his “foxy” services £lOO,OOO, beside sundry other items upon which a Commission is at present investigating. The kings of German states having either been deposed or having abdicated, will save for that needy country some £2,000,000 in salaries each year. The Crotvn Prince of Germany lias already complained of the paucity of his income, which he fears will land him in bankruptcy unless he can devise means to dispense with his twelve servants, three gardeners, and other indispensable aids to his daily comfort of body and mind. With kings, or at least many of them, the question of the high cost of living does not mar their nights—the want of a. job is the nightmare with which they are afflicted. SONG IN THE BATH-ROOM. Professor W. H. Bragg, of the Royal Institution, London, England, has enunciated a new theory as to the bath-room. “Why do so many people sing in the bath-room?” asked the professor, and a juvenile audience broke out into laughter, remembering the impulse that seizes them to break out into song when they are having a bath. The professor explained that the note is struck for them by the running water. He also pointed out that, while the voice sounds resonantly in the bath-room, it is not half so fine or inspiring when a song is continued in the dressing-room. The same authority explained that the bubbles of steam formed at the bottom of a boiling kettle, nearest to the flame, tried to get to the top, and coming into contact with water of a lower temperature fell back again with sounds like tiny hammer strokes on a hard substance. FAR FROM SHAKESPEARIAN STYLE. How far ,the- English language, as written by officials and some journalists, has departed from the style of the days of Shakespeare is pungently illustrated by the following that appeared in a popular English newspaper under an “Answers” column: The man you inquire about is a “ham-bone,” and very “dud” at that. He is green at the game and has now, I believe, dried up. ... I wish you would warn your members against fit-ups and combinations, except those which are under recognised managements. In an educational report that was issued from Whitehall, London, the same week was found the following gem of perfunctory English:— The examination system has made ineradicable upon chief inspectors’ references, and the psychology of control, in its strictest sense, is imperious inquisitiveness involved to infinity upon the simplest saatement that filters to the microscopic section. THE GOLDEN TEMPLE OF THE SIKHS. Armitsar, the scene of the story of the shooting of 2,000 Indian rioters during the Punjab disturbances, is notable as the centre of the Sikh religion, and it is the site of the Golden Temple, the principal worshippingplace of the Sikhs. Ram Das, the fourth high priest of Sikhism, laid the foundation of Armitsar, and he also excavated the holy tank from which the town derives its name of Afrita Turas, or Pool of Immortality. It is upon a small island in the middle of this tank that the Golden Temple stands—so called on account of its copper dome which is plated with gold.

FORTY YEARS AND STILL FIGHTING. Sumatra’s war .-decimated population amounts to less than 3,200,000, most of which is not available for labour. Sumatra, in the Malay archipelago, is immense in area, and between its different sections there is little inland communication, that which exists being of a treacherous and warlike character. The whole of Achin is still in a state of warfare, which seems destined to end only with the eventual extermination of the resisting tribes. The first hostilities of the Achinese date back to 1599, but for the last forty years fighting has been continuous, costing more than 200,000 lives in the Achinese war alone. A guerilla warfare of surprises and ambushes has been going on in the .jungles, the determined resistance of the Achinese continuing undiscouraged, although their government has been deposed, and all their towns and strategic positions occupied by Dutch troops. CATCH YOUR BEEF AS YOU NEED IT. Columbia must be- an Elysium of cheap living. Senor Ernesto Ponce de Leon, reputed a lineal descendent of a great Spanish adventurer, has large ranch interests in the young Republic. He has just given some envious particulars of its social life at this hour, from which we learn that there is a craze for cattle-rais-ing among all classes of the community. “We have savannahs,” he states, “capable of supporting 200,000,000 head of cattle.” “Excellent sirloin I steak is retailed at 14 cents a pound. Wild cattle roam the savannahs by hundreds of thousands. The custom is for cowmen to go after them, perhaps taking three days’ journey on horseback, and bring back several hundred at a time for fattening in the grazing fields of cattle estates.” “The vaqueros use a leather rope which they are very expert at throwing and rope the bulls and drive them and the cows to some central point, whence the whole lot are driven into the estate. W’hile these cattle are free to whoever can take them, of course there is considerable expense in getting them. Yet they are so plenty that they have an appreciable effect on the price of meat in Columbia. WEATHER-LORE NOT ALL FAKE. The vagaries of the mythical “weather clerk” are not, in the opinion of D. W. Homer, writing in “Meteorology,” so undependable as is generally supposed. He maintains that the following rules are founded on facts although he withholds the main fact.—to which part of the world do they apply: “If rain commences before daylight it will hold up before 8 a.rm.; if it begins about noon, it will continue through the afternoon; if it commences after 9 p.m., it will rain the next day; if it clears off in txe night it will rain the next day: if the wind is far from the north-west or south-west, the storm will be short; if from the north-east it»will be a hard one; if from the north-west a cold one, and from the south-west a warm one. "If it ceases after 12 a.m., it will rain next day; if it ceases before 12 a.m., it will be clear next day. If it begins about 5 p.m.., it will rain through th e night. If raining between 8 and 9 a.m., it will go on till noon, and if not then ceasing will go on till evening.” JOHN WESLEY’S HORSEBACK READING. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, always carried with him on his long horseback journeys a miniature library. "“History, poetry and philosophy,” Wesley relates, “I commonly read on horseback, having other employment at other times.” Wesley maintained that this practice made for safety on long country rides. “I asked myself, How is it no horse stumbles when I am reading? No account can possibly be given but this: Because I throw the reins on his back. I then set myself to observe, and I aver that in riding about one hundred thousand miles I never remember my horse (except two that would fall over heels anyway) to fall or make a considerable stumble while I rode with a slack rain.” KOREANS INGENIOUS COAL SAVERS. When a Korean starts to build his house, however, he first lays down a system of flues where the floor is to be. From the fireplace the flues branch out like the rigs of a fan and end in a trench at the back of the floor space. This trench, in turn, opens into a chimney, usually built at some distance from the house. When the flues are completed the builder carefully covers them over with flagstones; he then cements the whole floor, and covers it with a sort of thick oiled paper, for which Korea is famous. The rest of the house is then built around the completed floor. The heating system works in this way: When it is time to cook the rice for the morning meal the housewife lights a little straw or brushwood in the fireplace in the outer shed. While the rice is cooking the heat from the fireplace passes through the flues, heating the stone flags of the floor and diffusing a pleasant warmth that lasts until it is time to prepare the next meali Two heatings a day generally suffice to keep the floor warm. WONDERFUL GIFTS FROM THE SKIES. The Old Testament story of Moses’ sojourn in the wilderness includes the Providential provision of daily manna. Modern history records other wonderful things that have fallen from the heavens. A mass of burning sulphur th e size of a man’s fist fell at Pultusk, Poland, Jan. 30, 1868, and was stamped out by a crowd of villagers. A shower of limestone pebbles came down at Pel-et-Der, France, June 6, 1890, falling like hail. A large, gritty, smooth, water-worn standstone cobble, reported to have fallen at Little Lever, England, was found in the heart of a beech tree. It looked as if it had fallen red-hot and had penetrated the tree at high velocity. Another large stone was found in 1855 in the interior of a tree in Battersea Fields, according to the Philosophical Magazine. At the foot of the tree fragments were found as if broken off the embedded stone.