ITEMS OF INTEREST

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19868, 16 June 1927, Page 12

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Wireless licenses in England numbered at the end of February, 2,235,000. This shows an increase of 329,000 in one year. Blind listeners have received 4400 free licenses.

Sunrays striking through goldfish bowls placed too near the window are now stated to have been the cause of fires on more than one occasion. The bowl acts as a burning-glass.

With a brilliant green hood, blue leather upholstery, and a body painted in red-and-gold stripes, a new car has been built in England for the Emir of Kane, a Nigerian chief.

Measuring five feet lOin. high by three feet two inches across, a volume of maps, presented to Charles 11. by Amsterdam merchants in 1660, is preserved in the British Museum.

Boilers, tall chimneys, and the use of pit ponies arc all to be cut out by electricity in a new pit in Warwickshire, where the pit-shaft is also to be sunk by means of electricity.

Tea was introduced to Natal from India, and rubber trees were taken from South America to the East through the instrumentality of Kew Gardens, London’s great botanical park.

Imports into Britain of Empire fruit in 1924 were valued at £10,140,000, representing 21 per cent, of the total value of fruit imports, and in 1925 £11,720,000, or 24 per cent, of the total.

Half-yearly medical examinations for business girls arc recommended by a lady doctor, who claims that only by this precaution can working women maintain a high standard of health.

Collars fray and shirts shrink owing to the presence of unknown bacteria. A scientist who has put forward this new theory states that the bacteria are more active in colder weather.

From London to Birkenhead an express train recently thundered at 92 miles an hour to make a new speed record. Behind the powerful engine 250 tons of steel made up the special train.

A new electrical device for indicating the results of whippet races has been tried at Liverpool. As the winning dog touches a thread at the win-ning-post its number appears on an illuminated board.

An oak canoe, nine feet long, and estimated to be from ten thousand years old, has been unearthed on the south bank of the river Tyne, near Ryton. It is in an excellent state of preservation.

While the worst cracks discovered in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, have not measured much above two inches in width, great fissures a foot wide have to be repaired in the restoration of Lincoln Cathedral.

Dogs may not roam about alone ii Birmingham after dark; this ii; reckoned from one hour after sunsefc until one hour before sunrise. The aim of this by-law is to prevent dogs barking and howling at night.

Wear a tight hat and cheap eyeglasses; grow fat and “prosperouslooking;” avoid vegetables and drink no water; never sleep eight hours. These are some of the best ways of becoming ill, according to one doctor.

Blocks of flats, nine stories high, are to be built by the LC.C. in North London. Three thousand people will have to be moved to admit of'thc change, but ultimately there will be room for 5000 on the site.

Only one complete team of horses came safely through the Great War. In 1914 they went overseas with a battery of artillery. Their last task was to draw the gun-carriage at the funeral of the Unknown Warrior, and they are now pensioned off.

Including poor law, workmen’s compensation, old age pensions, and health and unemployment insurances, the State social services cost Britain £3 18s 6d per head of the people. Germany pays £1 17s 6d, France 12s, Belgium 5s 6d, and Italy 3s 6d, for similar services.

A special train had to be employed to transport from Darlington to Middlesborough Docks two of the biggest bearings ever known to engineers. The bearings, which are 24ft. square and weight 300 tons each, will be employed to hold a span of Sydney Harbour bridge.