BREEZES

Wairarapa Daily Times, 12 January 1932, Page 4

BREEZES

“Asking for it.” Counsel (to witness): “And I suppose your father’s like yourself —just a lazy, worthless, good-for-nothing lounger at street corners, eh?” Witness: “Well, guv’nor, you can ask him yourself; he’s there on the jury. * * * * Tempted.

Attentive young man: Do let me give you a little of this trifle, Mis Belsize. Miss Belsize: Dear me, isn’t this dreadful. I’m trying to diet, and yet I’m dying to try it.

First Fountain. Pens.

The idea of a fountain pen goes a very long way back, and no-one man can be considered its inventor. Certainly a crude fountain pen was in use in England in the 17th century, but antiquarians go back a good deal further than that in their history. It is claimed that the' idea was Chinese — they were the inventors of ink —and fountain pens were in use in China hundreds of years before the Christian era began. * * * *

Very Powerful.

A young man from the country called on Henry Ford in his workshops, and the maufacturer, not knowing exactly what to show him, picked up a magnet and said: “This magnet will draw three pounds of iron from a distance of two and a half feet. There is no natural object on the face of the earth with more- power.” “I am not so sure,” said the country man. “I know a natural object, wrapped in muslin and frills, that draws me over five miles of ploughed fields every Sunday afternoon.”

* * * Society of Skippers.

How many people have heard of the Society of Skippers? I have not until I received a letter from Mr Anconeous Dell, who is its principal (writes a London Daily Express contributor). He enclosed a programme of a skipping demonstration. On it there is this slogan: “Life is rhythm-4-rythmic skipping makes life worth living.” There were nine events. Among them are open competitions for the oldest men and women skippers. In addition there will be a demonstration by the Society of Skippers. The items are called Dell’s Rhythm Skipping, the “Prance” and the “Goose Step.”

Life of Adventure,

Stories of the Crimea are recalled by the death, at Fulham, England, of Mrs Fanny Birt, at the age of 101. She was the wife of a doctor whom she accomvpanied to the Crimea, and at the birth of her first child Florence Nightingale, the nurse heroine, tended her. As a girl of three she had been kidnapped, with her twin sister, in the main streets of Bath, and was only given up when the town crier announced a reward. Mrs Birt went to Chile, and was in the bombardment of Valparaiso. She was put in a windjammed with another woman and rounded Cape Horn in a terrible storm. After an adventurous voyage, during /which the two women took turns to hold the binnacle lanterns over the compass, the vessel 'reached England. * * * * Time by Telephone. A telephone company in Rome has discovered a machine that will tell the time by telephone, without involving the services of girl operators, who at. present tell the time to 15,000 persons every hour. It works like a phonograph, except that instead of using records for reproducing the human voice, it utilises the magnetic registration of sounds by means of a steel wire. This wire, which is threadlike in its fineness, acts in front of the poles of. the telephone, and gives an exact reproduction of the hour and minutes as hitherto given by the telephone operator. A combination of a repeated clock and a talking machine, with photo magnetic registration, will in future report the exact time in a way that “engaged” and other signals are reported now. All you have to do in Rome when you want to know the exact time is not to look at your watch, but to dial the proper number on your telephone, and a clear, metallic voice will tell you the hour ajjd the minute. The name of the inventor is being kept secret.