ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16712, 30 January 1926, Page 11 (Supplement)

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

FROM THE WORLD'S PRESS. Only one man in 203 is over 6lt high. ■ Greenwich Fair was abolished in April, 1857. The giraffe has a tongue almost eighteen inches long. An adder has been found in the stomach of a cow in Dorset. The Mace is a heavy gilt club, sucmounted by a crown.

The first expedition to the South Pole took place,in 1567. • Flour sprinkled on burning oil will at once extinguish it. The last use of shields in civilised warfare was at Culloden in 1745. In 1813 the £5 Bank of England note was worth only 73s in gold. Hudson Bay is closed by frost fo<? 179 day£ in .the year.

A mole will eat 20,000 earthworms in the course of a year.

The fee for a registered letter in England was originally 2 s 6d and after Is. Eton's playing-fields are the largest belonging to any public school. For every two men who attain the age of 100, there are,three women. A gold wedding ring was placed in a hospital gift box in West London. Sheffield (England), Watch Committee has decided to appoint policewomen. -:•

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded in 1824.

The oldest known English picture is one of Chaucer, painted on 'panel in the year 1380.

According to Fortescue, military bands were first introduced by the Crusaders.

It is estimated that one-third of the dweller's upon the earth are habitual users of tobacco.

Norfolk pays the lowest farm wages in England: 29s a week in summer, and 28s in whiter.,; The beech is less often struck by lightning than any other tree; 5i oaks are struck for one beech. The starfish has no nose, but the whole of its underside is endowed with the sense of smell.

The pay of an archer at the time of the battle of Crecy was equal t» five shillings a day.

Only sixteen stones remain upright at Stonehenge, (Eng.); only two of these belong to the inner circle. It is not true that the Mediterranean is tideless. The springs on the east coast of Sicily rise fully 4ft. ' Lundy Island, with a population of less than fifty persons, is not subject to either rates or taxes.

Red-haired people, it is stated, arc le'ss liable to become bald than those with hair of any other colour.

An American, at a motor-cycle meeting near Paris, has created a new record by covering a mile in 26 seconds. The jurisdiction of a county court extends only to cases where debt or damage claimed does not exceed £SO.

The salmon'is, for short distances, the swiftest swimmer of any fish. It can travel at the rate pi 25 miles aa hour..

The Prince of Walea received his Easter Communion on the Gold Coa«* from the hands of a native African priest. " . Wireless has been installed at at height of 14,900 feet on Monte Rosa, Italy to summon aid in case of accidents to climbers.

While ploughing on his farm an American farmer turned up a pot full of coins dating from before the War of Independence.

The "sea-swallow," a fish found in the Danube, makes a curious, grunting sound; and the maigre, a sea-fish, makes a loud purring. •

The deepest well in the world is situated in the village of Sperenberg, about twenty miles from Berlin. It has a depth 0f.4194 feet. A French company is to attempt to salve over a million pounds' worth of bullion from the liner Egypt, which went down off Ushant in 1922.

The first steamship of the Cunard Line, the Britannia, arrived at Bostoa (U.S.) on July 18, 1840, after a passage of fourteen days and eight hours. A machine for making tacks was patented in 1806, but not put into practical use until near the middle of last century. Now the world consumes 50,000,000 tacks a day.

A frog cannot breathe with its mouth open. Its breathing apparatus is so arranged that when its mouth is open its nostrils are closed. To suffocate a frog it is necessary to prop its jaws so that they cannot,shut. Scientists say that the orange was originally a berry, and that its evolution has been going on for more than a thousand years.

The average elevation of the earth's surface above sea-level is 966 ft. Of all the continents Africa has the greatest elevation.

In the fourteenth century armor became so heavy that many soldiers over thirty years old were deformed or permanently disabled by its weight. Experiments have demonstrated that defences of pasteboard have much, greater powers of resistance against bullets than have those of wooden planking. In Iceland men and women are in every respect political equals. The' nation, which numbers about 70,000 people, is governed by representatives elected by men and women. The standard gauge of British railways is 4ft BAins.; of Irish, sft 3in. There are, however, lines of nine other guages at present existing in Great Britain. These vary from lffc 11* in. up to 4 ft. The turquoise is the most treacherous of all gems, often losing its colour or developing white spots which, though at first only to be seen with the aid of a microscope, soon effect the whole stone. Dampness will revive temporarily a faded turquoise. In the temple of Mecca there is a square stone edifice which, by tradition, is said to have been built by Abraham and his son Ishmael. It is this part of the temple known as the, Caba, which is principally reverenced by the Mohammedans, and to which, they always direct their prayers. It has been positively ascertained by expert chemical analysis that rice contains more nutritive elements than any other grain. It will sustain life better and longer than any other cereal —a fact well-known among Eastern countries from, time. immeisonaLi