ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15894, 19 January 1924, Page 11 (Supplement)

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

FROM THE WORLD'S PRESS Aged 1500 years, a famous dra&on tree in Teneriffe is now in flower for the first time since 1823. Health .lectures are being .given in London prisons by well-known doctors. Housing in London decreased between 1911 and 1921 by 553 separate dwellings. The end of colonisation, t s estimated will be reached in about two hundred years' time.

Two separate programmes are being broadcasted in different wavelengths by one New ifork station. The worst cases of overcrowding in London on record are two cases of 13 persons in a single room. "Yatching tours" m ocean Liners are popular with Americans, trips to the Arctic even being proposed. In 1922 there were 30, 'M convictions for drunkenness '.n London, 6410 of these being against women. Market tolls in Covent Garden, London's fruit and vegetable market, have not been raised sinee 1823. Elastic boot and shoe laces, fitted with patent fasteners, enable the footwear to be removed without untying. Platinum, which is worth about £25 si ounce, has no hali mark, but gold, which costs' £4 10s an ounce, has. - The Grimsby herring fleet recently made the biggest catch for ten years by netting three million herrings.

The London County Council feas withdrawn the license of the hairdresser who overcharged a Japanese custimer.

lowFers for sick rooms should be carefully chosen, as red blooms eggravate fever, while bflue blossoms are soothing. Wrapped bread, which escapes handling and exposure to germs, is now sold by 42 of the largest bakeries in Lancashire.

A pearl discovered hi a freshwater mussel in the River Conway, North Wales, is said to form one of the Crown jewels. Some British labour .experts state that the unemployment number may rise as high as 2,000,000 by the'worst part of the coming winter. Duelling is regaining popularity ;n France, where, although it is illegal, it is "winked at" by the police, e.s long as it is not made too public. Training each air force cadet at Cranwell, Lines., costs £OSO, withOJt counting the actual expesses of flying training. There are 85 cadets. London is experiencing a shortage at children four and five years old; this is due to the abnormally low birthrate of the years 1918 and 1919.

Recruits for the British Army during a recent 12 months numbered 44,950: during the same period over 51,000 men were rejected for physical reasons.

Same manufacturers claSm it Is cheaper to establish factories in France and import their goods into England than to make them in the latter country.

Cabbages were sold in St. Paul's Churchyard (London) 300 years ago, '/hen the Cathedral clergy had the awkers banished on account of the oise they made.

Passengers on the London Underground arc not yet favouring the automatic ticket machines; out of every live tickets sol donly one is procured from the machines.

Out of 32 non-commissioned officers of the Regular Army who were chosen to go through a year's training at Sandhurst, 27 will shortly be gazetted as commissioned officers. •

The liner Empress of Canada has just broken all records by crossing the Pacific from Yokohama to Vancouver in S days ten hours. The ship travelled 4179 knots.

A great journalist and lawyer of Argentina, Dr Zeballos, recently died. He rose to be Foreign Minister and Ambassador, and built up a library of 60,000 volumes.

The discovery of a number jot plague-ini'estcd rats has lately saved Liverpool from being swept with plague. Two of the rats were found dead in a mattress among some cargo.

A French scientist has predicted that, in a Tew hundred years, the world will be in the grip of another ice age, which will come about because the earth is using up its supply of carbonic acid gas' faster than it is manufactured.

Four million cigarettes were distributed to sick and disabled ex-Service men still in Ministry of Pensions hospitals and other institutions last year, bv the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and the British Red Cross Society.

The stickleback is a very voracious fish, in spite of its small size. A captive specimen under close observation was seen to devour 74 small dace, each about a quarter of an inch long, in five hours, and 62 more two days afterwards.

Of the 220,061 tons of butter imported into England during the. year ended June 30, nearly 45 per -eat came from British sources. New Zealand supplying 63,010 lons. Soldiers at Aldershol. (Eng) are now to have ihe use of a tailors' i-nd shoemakers' shop, where, will ve. done repairs which are beyond the sooiw of the soldiers themselves. An electrical horsewhip has be?n invented, which gives the animal a shock instead ot a cut. A stnalt battery is embedded in the. handle and this is controlled by a yush-but-ton.

Ostriches in the London Zoo obtain all the thirst-quenching material they want from a diet of clover, chaff, lettuce, maize, cabbage, bones, and stones. They are nit supplied with drinking water. According to Hie opinion of Manchester experts, the motor 'bus is not a practical substitute for tramcars.. If the change was made fares world have to be increased by sixty-one per cent.

Twice within a recent month jatients with broken necks have been treated with success in a Hospital at Straten Island, America. 'hie patient was a liny of 12, and the other was thirty-live years of age.

Badges lor strips \n the Briii.V! Navy have been designed to illuslrai.Ihe vessel's nam,-. Thus, the Wakeful has a large blue eye, the Rocket a sketch of Stevenson's engine, an , the Vendetta a jlllood-stained das-