ITEMS OF INTEREST

Waikato Times, Volume 98, Issue 16174, 27 December 1924, Page 11 (Supplement)

ITEMS OF INTEREST

FROM {THE WORLD'S PRESS ;J

The Habeas Corpus Act "was passed in 1679.

The Eiffel Tower is no longer broad-i casting wireless concerts. The condor can go without food fo*! forty days with ease. Gold is brought x to the London Mint in ingots weighing eaeh about 80. ounces. *' . ; >

Japan's exports for August weroi valued at £34,700,000, an increase of £9,000,000 on those of July. It was at Frankfort (Germany},, in 1615, that the first newspaper was started. I .'. -'" :V,. ,:.....'■..,.■

. The first story ever published serially was "Robinson Crusoe." It ran for a year in the London Post.

Oscar Hultgren, a Swedish captain who has served under the British nag. has sailed round the world 19 times. A large deposit of smokeless coal ■has been discovered at ~ Shantung, 'China.

The microscope is said to have-been invented' by Jansen, in Holland, &bout 1590. '. ;;; ... ::,:: •'

A one-minute silence "was observed in. Tokio, Japan, to mark the anniversary of the great earthquake of 1923. A law has been passed in Brazil requiring any hospital with over, 100 beds to maintain a research tory.

It is estimated that by the end of this season. 300,000 American tourists will have spent over 65 million pounds in Europe. ;

An old lady writes to The Times that she danced over eighty years ago with a marquess who had danoed with Marie Antoinette.

Public speaking and pulpit oratory are the newest aids to beauty for women, as advocated by one of America's leading women orators. A fish-market, since Anglo-Saxon times, Billingsgate (Eng.) as it is known to-day was founded.in 1874 and is about to celebrate its jubilee. When it is 12 o'clock noon at Greenwich (Eng.) (ordinary, not summer time), it is 7.15 ajn. in Qnebeo (Canada), arid 9.40 at Melbourne. . An Ordinary healthy man, in ;he prime of life, can lift with both hands 2361 b, and support on his shoulders, 3301 b.

The name "Nonconformist" was taken by the Puritans when the Act of Uniformity came into operation on August 24, 1662. ( A juniper tree at least 3000 years old, 42 feet high, and 7 /feet ,6 inches' in diameter near the ground, has been found in Utab, U.SA. In 1804 Thomas Andrew Knight founded the Horticultural Society of London: —the means by which our modern flower shows began.

The unification of Germany was accomplished in 1871, when the King of Bavaria invited William of Prussia to assume the Imperial crown. . When the P.' and 0. liner Malaya was reecntly on her way to Australia, some fifteen birds dropped on the deck exhausted, just before the vessel reached Gibraltar.

Forty-five American children .of Swedish parentage have recently returned to New* York, having visited about fifty places of interest during two months in Sweden.

The distance of the farthest object known in the heavens, has been measured, and, in round figures, the space between it and the earth is about a million of light years, or nearly six trillion miles! j

Galvanised iron sheets weighing a total 39,000 tons are to be used as barriers against locust swarms in Northern Argentina. The sheets will be issued to farmers for use when the swarms appear.

A combined clockwork, and handplayed carillon of 15 bells is to be installed at Oshawa, Canada, the playing barrel having been made on Ludgate Hill, and the bells in Whitechapel (London).

Many dishes, such as the hastlet of Lincolnshire, buttermilk bread, popular in Ireland, and Lancashire potato cakes, are unobtainable in London restaurants, although foreign dishes are made a speciality.

The difference between rising at five and seven o'clock in the morning for. the space of forty years—supposing a man to go to bed at the same hour at night—is nearly equivalent to the addition of ten years to his life. .

One of the most durable woods Is sycamore. A statue made from it, now in the museum of Gizeh, at Cairo, is known to be nearly 6000 years old. Notwithstanding this great age, it is assert that the wood itself is entirely sound and natural in appearance.

Foreign experts are beginning to speak of malnutrition as the "American disease." There are said to be four million children of school age suffering from it. Much of the trouble is due to diseased tonsils, adenoids, and bad teeth.

Waves travel faster than the wind which causes them, and, in. the Bay of Biscay, frequently during the autumn and winter in calm weather a heavy sea gets up, and rolls in on the coast twenty-four hours before the gale which causes it arrives, and of which it is the prelude.

In wood there are a great many small holes or cells. Some of these have a little moisture in them. When the wood gets hot this moisture turns to steam and bursts the cells. The makes a noise like a small explosion, and a great many such noises together; make the crackle of the fire.

Among the old by-laws of London, are decrees that: "No man shall shoot in the street, for wager or otherwise"; "shall dig any hole in the street, except he stop it up again;** "shall keep any rule whereby outcry could be made hi the still of the night, as beating his wife or servant, or singing, under pain of 3s 4d."

It is a whole day's work for two men to fell even the smallest mahogany tree. On account of the spurs which project from the base of the, trunk, a scaffold' has to be erected, and the tree cut off above the spurs, leaving thus a stump of the very best wood from 10ft to 15ft high. Many people claim that their corns warn them, of weather changes, but probably the corn is merely registering change in the shoe leather. This varies with he amount of moisture in, the air. A 2 per cent change from, normal either way is all the average foot can stand without discouitont.