All Sorts.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7, 20 February 1908, Page 38

All Sorts.

The Advances' to Settlers Department, since it was first started, has advanced £6,546,345 to 19,179 applicants, this being am average of £341 to each (borrower. ■'JWhat is the greatest danger encountered in running an automobile ? » And , without hesitation the chauffeur answered, * The police.' ' . Since the' Old Age Pensions' Act came into force in the .Dominion a sum of £1,771,780 has been expended. A sum of £335,000 was provided, last . year, but .it is expected the expenditure will be about £10,000 less. First boy : l Your father must be an awful mean man. Him a shoemaker, and iriakin' you wear .them old " boots.' Second boy : 4 He's nothin' to what your father is. Him a dentist, and your baby only got" one tooth ! ' • Ruth,' said the mother of a little miss who was entertaining a couple of small playmates, ' why don't you play something instead' of sitting, still and looking miserable?'' ' wny, we are playing, mamma,' replied Ruth. ' We're playing we are grown-up " women making a can. 1 At the beginning of the last century French was we language 'of 27 per cent, of the population of Europe; to-day it is spoken as a vernacular by" less than 50,UUU,UU)Cv On the other hand, German is the mother tongue of Hs,uuu,uuu souls in. Europe alone. Small Gilbert was watching the blacksmith shoeing his father's horse. When the smith began to pare the horse's hoof Gilbert thought it time to interfere. « Say, mister ! ' he exclaimed ; 'my papa doesn't want his horse made any smaller.' - When all the wheat-growing districts of Canada are under cultivation, it is estimated that they will produce more wheat than any other country in the- world. Only one-sixth of Manitoba's wheat lainds are at present cultivated, yet last year the N yield was 87,000,000 bushels of wheat— one-tenth of the entire wheat production of the United States. When all Manitoba's whea/t .lands are occupied, it will.be producing half as miucto wheat as the whole United States ; and Manitoba is the smallest of the wheat-producing provinces, Saskatchewan and Alberta being three times the size. To English eyes the wheatfields are of 'tremendous size, and to deal expedition sly with the crop all kinds of laborsaving devices are resorted to. Chartreuse, the right to the name of which- the Carthusian monks have just successfully contested in the Court of Appeal, like many other' famous liqueurs, was first made in a monastery as a cordial for the sick. It is said to be a most complex product, resulting from the " maceration and ' distunation of balm leaves and tops as a principal ingredient, together with orange-peel, dried hyssop-tops, peppermint, wormwood, angelica seed and root, cinnamon, mace, cloves', Tonquin beans, Calamus aromaticus, and cardamoms-. Others declare that in its manufacture carnations, absinthium, and the young buds of the pine tree are certainly used; ; but the ironks alone know the secret of its composition. Three qualities are made— green, yellow, and white— of varying degrees of strength, the green being ' the richest and most delicate in flavor. -The greatest forest of w^hich the human race . has any knowledge to-day, is-Hhat of. the Congo (says 'Current Literature '). It is a region of impenetrable mystery, concerning which accounts have been so strange that until within the past year or so they have been deemed incredible". But recent discovery has transformed scientific incredulity into a measure of' belief. - Thus, on* the" basis of Sir Harry Johnston's explorations of Uganda, a" ,giant ape, , larger than -the gorilla, is ai denizen of this tremendous 'forest region. • There, too, are animals of quite .unfamiliar kind, notably the okapi. " The forest seems to be -the resort of the five-horned giraffe," the tallest , mammajt,. in the world. . The hugest ele- % ' phanits, bearing tremendous tusks, are there. The-lar-gest fish found in -all Africa haunt 'the streams meandering through the recesses of this forest. Lions seemi not to penetrate into the thick growth of. 3he . jungle thereabouts; The forest Jeopards' ai'e • arboreal', catching monkeys .for their food. The curiosity of the' mighty forest is unquestionably the okapi, - discovered by 'Sir Harry Johnston.- In his books of travel Stanley told of an animal- of ass-like appearance existing 'in the %ense forest and which they caught, in pits; The occurrence of like a quadruped of the equine-sort in ithe thickness .of an impenetrable forest seemed so ' anomalous that no scientist of standing would credit the possibility..- Hence the determination- of- Johnston to investigate. " - . . '.•,-' :i '. -, j '; , ■;; j