ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17220, 1 October 1927, Page 13 (Supplement)

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

FROM THE WORLD’S PRESS. Over 200 British agricultural stud* ents are working at the Canadian > harvest. Three thousand tons more of candles will be made this year in Russia than was made last year. A subscription of £SOOO has secured Bridgewater Square for the use of the London public for ever. The Duchess of Hamilton has entertained 500 children in East London at a “Be Kind to Animals” party. A Boy Scout jamboree was recently held near Stockholm, and was attended by the British Chief Scout. English girls are now from 61b to 91b lighter, in proportion to their height than the girls of 40 years ago. According to a return prepared for the London County Council, the debt of London amounts to over £120,000,000. Silver and bronze coins do not cost their face value to make, so there is-a handsome profit for the Royal Mint, London. Cheques bring an annual revenue of about £3,000,000 to the British Treasury through the twopenny stamps they bear. Seats may now be booked, on the theatre plan in Royal Scot, Welshman, Manxman, Ulster Express, and Lakes Express trains. The Isle of Wight Chamber of Commerce has proposed to the County Council the making of a road tunnel under the Solent. Gold wire has been drawn so fine, that it weighs loz. to 3500 yards, and makes human hair look coarse and thick by comparison. The saving habit is strong in Canada, where the deposits in banks work out at £3l per head of the total population of the Dominion. People in Great Britain consume, oo an average, 110 eggs every year for each one of the population; of these more than half are imported. London’s own Spa is at Streatham, within five miles of Piccadilly. Here, la an old well-house built in 1659, people can "‘take the waters.” There arc now 3000 schools in wireless communication with London and Davcntry. Nearly 400 more schools have lately come on the 8.8. C. register. The Prince of Wales recently made his third descent of a coalmine, when he spent half an hour in a pit which runs out two miles under the sea at Whitehaven.

It has taken,the Indian Government 25 years to decide in favour of a proposed railway bridge over the Irrawaddy, near Mandalay. It will cost over a million pounds.

Men’s institutes, maintained by the London County Council provide means of education for men over 18 years of ago.. Battersea has 1100 students and Bethnal Green nearly as many.

Special prayers for the use of the Navy were introduced into the Prayer Book in 1661, but there have never been any special prayers in the Prayer Book for use at Army services.

The frozen bodies of three Alpine climbers who were lost in a snowstorm some months ago have been found near the summit of Mont Blonc. There was plenty of food in their knapsacks.

Built right in the heart of a ship a beautiful little chapel is installed on a new French liner which recently made her maiden voyage. The priests’ to officiate are drawn from among the passengers.

Over 20 languages are spoken in the diocese under the Bishop of Fulham: it spreads over North and Central Europe, from the English Channel to Moscow, and from North Italy to the North Pole.

Seagulls’ eggs, similar in size and shape" to hens’ eggs, but dull seagreen in colour, with brown splashes, are imported into England from Denmark. They find a ready sale among hotels and restaurants.

There are more (than 207 people in America who pay tax on net incomes o? over 1.000,000 dollars (£200,000). Of these 06 are in New York. Tfuwe women reported incomes of from £600,000 to £300,000 each. With only five skilled workmen and the assistance of his parishioners in their leisure time, Father Higley, of Limehouse, London, is building a new church 140 ft long, 45ft. wide, and capable of seating GOO people. Explosions and “gob” fires in mines, and the best way to handle them, a”e to be studied at a new research station built in Derbyshire (Eng.). Covering 400 acres and in an isolated position, this station was u'sed for testing guns during the war. There are 300,000 Jews in Britain, but only one Jewish theatre, and that is in London. New York has a Jewish population of 1,250,000, who are catered for by fourteen Jewish theaires and eight Jewish music-halls. The wills of Shakespeare and Nelson, which are preserved in Somerset House, London, are often asked for by visitors, while American tourists are especially interested in the will of Wilburn Penn, founder of Pennsylvania. Thirty pictures can he taken at once in the new studio which is to be established in the Paiace of Engineering in the old Wembley Exhibition (Eng.). There is also a restaurant where 300 people can be catered for. Herbs are regaining favour for medicinal use. They have to he gathered from the countryside, as very few can be cultivated, so that men and women with the necessary knowledge are finding themselves well employed.

One of the stations, Tooting Broadway, on London’s uewest Tube railway is believed to hold the world’s record in booking passengers, 600 of whom book at each of the four windows in half an hour during the morning business rush.

Having purchased a shilling’s worth of eggs imported from Egypt, a Leicestershire farmer, Mr B. Mollor, of Billesdon, placed the eggs in an incubator. When hatching time came, instead of getting chickens, he found four alligators. The remaining eggs were infertile.

The recent eclipse in England was perfectly reproduced on the famous three storied Strasburg clock made by Isaac Habrecljt in 1598 and now in the British Museum. One of the dials has a hand with a disc representing the sun on its extremity. The other lias a representation of the moon. The “moon” covered the “sun” exactly at eclipse Urns,