All Sorts.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10, 12 March 1908, Page 38

All Sorts.

The 'increase in the British" national debt in 21 years was £51,.i'90,000. Lobsters, it is said, have a' great dread of thunder, and when pealsj are very loud, will swim to defcper water. Japanese florists have succeeded in cultivating a rose which looks red in the sunlight and white in the - shade. Oysters are such nervous creatures that a sudden shock, such as a loud " thunder-clash, will kill" many hundreds of them. The Australian Workers' Union has increased in membership from 30,000 to 39,000 in twelve months, while the balances of the various branches have greatly iiPcreased. • ' ~ . Mining in New. South Wales was' never so' 1 flourishing. The value of tne output for 1907 was £10,577,378, which exceeded that of the previous year . by £2,407,735. This brings the aggregate value of all the^ minerals won to the end of 1907 up to £183,137,7,60. •In the little village of Meavy, Dartmoor, is an old oak which was flourishing in the reign of King John," ami is still living, though supported by stout props! M. Cuvlnof, president of the French Comm)ission which is investigating the subject of workmen's . pensions, estimates that such a scheme would "cost his country £18,000,000 a year. A correspondent of the' • Daily Mail ' says it is not. true that the word ' limerick ' is merely a .corruption of ' Lear-ic,' from the name of the inventor of the frvVline jingle. The latter term, was first used, be- believes, some years ago by Father Russell, the accomplished editor of the ' Irish Monthly,' and brother of the late Lord Russell of Killowen. The word ' limei'ick ' owes - its origin to the refrain of an old drinking song. Sir Robert Ball has an amusing anecdote of a sunflower thoughtlessly planted within the Arctic Circle. ' As is well known, during the summer months in the extreme northern regions the sun never sets, but circles round the horizon all the twenty-four hours. The unfortumate sunflower, therefore, so-, the tale runs, twisting "- its head round, as is its wont, to follow the sunbeams was finally reduced to complete strangulation in its. , fruitless efforts to adapt' itself to the unfamiliar conditions. . v " . ' Chrdstmas day is only .three hours long in the Finnish town of Tornea,' said a traveller. - ' I spent last Christmas there. At sunrise I got up to see my presents and to read my Christmas mail, and night had fallen before I got through breakfast. Tornea,' ihe went on, ' has * a day twenty-two hours long in June. Pretty good, eh ? 'But that 'is nothing beside Wardbury. Ward- - bury is in. Norway, and has a day -that lasts fromMay 21 to July 22. And Spitsbergen's longest day lasts three and a half months.' After a long delay the Commonwealth Postal Department,is now in a- position to'call tenders for "wireless installations between the mainland and Pap,ua, and , also at Fremantle for communication -with mail ships. It is interesting to note that the number of wireless telegraph stations throughout the world totals lcso. - The stations erected by the various companies are approximately—Telefunken, 41 per cent. ; Marcoift, 20 per cent. ; Be Forest, 6 per cent. ; and other systems 33 per cent. Instead of boasting that trade is booming' and that national prosperity stands so high, better far (said Father Bernard Vaughan to the representative of a London, newspaper) would it be for us'" to hang down out heads and strike our breasts, confessing that pauperism 'is increasing, that it has -reached ' 46 in - the 1000 in ' London, and proclaiming to^our. /shame that the ./ragged army under sweaters is being daily, recruited far / more readily than the regular army of the .Kin£.;". Do nojb be easily taken in by imposing figures on balance shjeets.T - The famous dogs of the Sf. Bernard . Hospice are maintaining their reputation as Life-savers . in the Alps. Their first rescue of the winter season was that ■of three Italians, who lost their way in a -snowstorm • while crossing the St. Bernard Pass. _ One of the dogs, -Barry,' a descendant of the,, celebrated dog. of the samename, who established a records in. lifersaving, discovered two of the men, and ran back, to the hospice to warn, tLe monks. When the two /men 'had been taken to the hospice a search party sefbuV-for- their companions, __who were found buried under several feet 6t snow,/ '-