HEBE AND THEBE.

Waipukurau Press, Volume 11, Issue 39, 12 August 1920, Page 4

HEBE AND THEBE.

The biggest motor ship in the world has just boon launched at Copenhagen for an company. The ship is caiiCcTthe Afric and is -145 feet long with a displacement of 14,000 tons. To be married in the chSrcli where a memorial service was held for him two years before was the novel ex periencc on May 5 of ex-1 lieutenant Coaton, at Burton-on-Trent.' Officially reported killed in France, two months afterward 1 ? his fiancee received news that no was a prisoner in Germany. After the armistice lie served voluntarily in Russia.

All the cordito. and nitroo-celluloso .powder stored by the Imperial Muni tions Board in Canada is being destroy cd. This material which Sir Joseph Flavcllc, the chairman, says is now valueless, cost between 4,000,000 dollars and 5,000,000 dollars to manufacture. JLt, is all being burned on a 200acre farm near Smith Falls.

The London County Council has di eided to offer a prize of £lOOO for flu best design of a tramcar which innovating genius can provide. The particular points selected for emendation are the staircase, the sealing arrangements on top, and the pitching motion which “many people find uncomfortable on a loong ride.

The money spent by New York for theatre-going is attracting attention, and it is .perhaps symptomatic of the general extravagance now prevailing. From information based on the amusement tax proceeds it is estimated that theatres in January and Fedruary.took in £3,000,000, is calculated would be sufficient to buy 1.000.000 pairs of high grade boots end 250,000 wellmade suits of clo’thes.

Houdini, the handicuff king, perfm'ms a new feat, which he calls the “Needle and Cotton Trick.” First he put 11 needles in his month, then one was push cd through his cheek. To ten swallow od another dozen needles, and after that a piece of cotton, knotted at one end. the other end he kept in his hand. When he brought te cotton out the 24 needles were threaded thereon. This 1done in London. Unfamiliarity with the white vest and running shorts of the harrier—-an unknown sight in many parts of Frimec --led gendarmes at Vincennes, near Paris, to commit a blunder recently. They arrested a dozen men who were running through the woods in this scanty attire. “You are insufficiently dressed,” they said. But the leader of the farriers [’roved that his party consisted of athletic young policemen from Paris, and the gendarmes retired, admitting that the breach of etiquette was theirs.

Speaking in London at a meeting of airmen, General Sykes said that since August 2’6, 1919, when internation al flying permitted, air ser vices had been established between Lon don and Paris and London and Amster dam, while a London Brussels service would shortly be inaugurated. He ’men tioned the remarkable fact’ that, throu ghout the winter months there had been only ten days during which the Lodon Paris service ad been interrupted. Gen oral Skyes gave to following striking figures as to the number of flights car ried out during the first year of the ser vices:—Civil aviation 38,952: approxi mate mileage flown, 734,209; number of passengers carried. 70,000, with only one fatality; weight of goods transpor ted, 11C,4981b. One hundred and font teen aerodromes had been licensed ami 519 machines registered to the eml of March. Th value of the imports ami exports transported by air amounted to £200,000.

Year by year the demand for sea birds’ Oggs iAicfoases, and those of gulls, shags, and puillemots are worth three limes their former price. Most people are aware that th' 1 egg collectors usual ly work in gangs, using ropes to drop from ledge to ledge. Cliff climbing for eggs is the most perilous of industries, and the man who engages therein car lies his life in his hands from the mo inent he goes over te rim of the cliff until he is hauled back. The first and greatest- source of danger is from the life line itself. All limestone cliffs on which the sea birds nest most thickly are rotten, and everywhere are loose ~ stones. If the rope, swaying, loosens a ’X. sttone, it is almost certain to fall upon the man at the lower end. either hilling outright or maining pirn. Some ledges arc covered with grass. These are the worst of all, for the herbage hides the flangers.. Terribly dangerous, too. is the furious gust of wind which roarin'; across the face of (he precipice forces a climber off his balance, and sends him dropping like a plummet, into the abyss below.

The old adage, “Familiarity breeds contempt,” originally appeared in the Sanskrit, but it is to be found in almost every European or Asiatic language having a literature. “Wheels within wheels” is a quotation from the Bible and it can be found iit the Book of 'Ezekiel, chapter x.. verse 10. “Din mond cut diamond,” was originally the writer of the “over’s Melancholy,’ wa sthc first use of this expression. The term “fretwork” is said to have originated from the Latin fretuni, a frith; in which the leather has eaten away the land. Thus, we get fretwork —raised work—but it means that the fretsaw eats away certain parts of the wood. The source of the term check mate is said to be from the Arabic; “Ee cheikh inmt,” meaning <T Tho Sheik (KTngl is dying!” Those who have been checkmated will appreciate the singular_sgiuficanee of those words.