ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15353, 29 September 1923, Page 11 (Supplement)

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

FROM THE WORLD’S 7 PRESS. A. physician says singing wards, oft consumption. Frogs have been, discovered which bark like dogs. Blue eyes belong to people of -an enthusiastic turn of mind. Steam vessels are usually six times as long as they are wide. In Hull 60,000 people are dependent upon the fishing industry. It is estimated that 50,000 “prams” are discarded every year. An aero of tobacco plants yields about 700 tons of tobacco. The Paris sewers ace the largest and most complete In the world. Asparagus is believed to be the oldest known plant used for food.

The inscription on a Hampstead tombstone is chiselled in shorthand.

A penny changes hands 125,000 times in the course of a life-time. Gloves with separate fingers were unknown before the twelfth century.

The turtle can live for neatly a century, and the pike for about 175 years.

More than 250 people over 75 years of age are still at work in Hertfordshire.

A flock of 100 hens produce in eggshells about 1371 b of chalk annually.

In the reign of Henry II of England, monks were allowed thirteen courses at dinner. s

Whales measuring as much as 105 feet in length have been caught in the Antarctic. “Bassinette” is really a word of French origin, meaning a cradle made of wicker.

The first perambulator was built in 1870 for a daughter of the fifth Duke of Devonshire.

The famous church of St. Sophia, in Constantinople, now a mosque, was begun in A.D. 532. Young oysters enjoy only 48 hoars’ life as moving creatures; then they settle down for life.

During the first year of the war, nearly 1000 French guns were blown up by imperfect fuses. The most expensive chair in the world belongs to the Pope. It is of solid silver, and cost £IB,OOO. The hide of a cow produces abo*t thirty-five pounds of leather; that or a horse about eighteen pounds. The sea covers three-fourths of the earth’s surface, or a total area of about 145,000,000 square miles. During the six months from April to September, 1022, 38,763 tons of newspapers were carried to London by air. Using wireless amplifiers and a loud speaker to magnify the sound of heart beats is surgery’s latest development.

Only a hamlet with 277 inhabitants in 1901, Letchworih. the.famous garden city rose to 5324 in IWI, and in 1021 to 10,302.

Hertfordshire is the most rural of the counties bordering London; 16.7 per cent of its population are agricultural workers.

Finely-arched foreheads are often seen on stupid persons; the deficiency is generally apparent in the scantiness of their eyebrows.

One of England’s most famous flying grounds, the Dogger Bank, in the North Sea, is said to be falling off as a source of supply. Londoners may soon be able to go to the Swiss »Alps and back in the same day by a suggested new line of passenger aeroplanes. Seaweed found on the shores of Orkney contains a oertain chemical which, combined with coal dust, makes a very successful fuel.

Britain’s only diamond-cutting factory was established at Brighton in 1917, and in 1921 was employing 2000 disabled ex-service men.

Butcher-boys may now attend special classes at the London County Council continuation schools to learn their trade more thoroughly. .

A film has been prepared by Pathe Freres which shows the complete process of wireless broadcasting from the London Broadcasting Station.

In certain parts of India coco-nut trees, once almost lifeless in appearance, have been made to yield abundantly by placing salt at the roots.

When the Channel ferry from Harwich is running, experts say there will be a considerable quantity of milk imported Into England from abroad.

A large mirror erected at dangerous crossroads near Carlisle, to prevent accidents is also proving popular as a toilet glass among women motorists. C. J. H. Tolley, the Oxford golfer, recently made a drive of 310 yards—more than a sixth of a mile—the longest drive ever made in any championship.

A mysterious “army” of white ants has caused considerable damage in the South of France, and colonies of these insects have now been discovered in Paris.

Telegraphs in Uganda are not always reliable, as the natives covet and often cut down the copper wire for making into bracelets, necklaces, and leg-bands. A double pencil is the forger's latest “dodge.” One pencil is traced ovef the genuine signature, which is automatically duplicated on another sheet without a fault.

Children up to 12 years of age have been photographed standing on the giant leaves, six to eight feet wide, of the Victoria Regia water-lily plants in Kew Gardens (London),

The first successful contour map of a deep-sea zone has just been completed. It shows the submerged hills valleys, and cliffs over 34,000 square miles of the bed of the Pacific Ocean. The largest pyramid—that of Cheops of the Gizeh group—containing 89,000000 cubic feet of masonry, is 45ft high and the total weight of the stone has been estimated at over 6,000,000 tons. Among unusual census returns in one English county were the following occupations of women.—Sawyer, wireless operator, tinsmith, showman, and circus proprietor, undertaker, saddler, and dentist.

Round a falcon's nest on Great Orme’s Head, Wales, were discovered more than 1000 pigeons’ feet, the majority of them bearing numbered rings, indicating they had belonged to car-riec-iiistons. /