FAMILY FUN

New Zealand Tablet, 15 October 1908, Page 38

FAMILY FUN

An English paper recently asked its readers for an answer to the following riddle :—: — What does a man love more than life, Hate more than death or mortal strife ; That which contented men desire, The poor have, and the rich require; A miser -spends, the spendthrift saves, And all men carry, to their graves ? The answer was ' Nothing.'

The Force of the Breath:— This is an experiment well worth trying, and to the uninitiated seems something quite marvellous. When you tell your friend that you can overturn two dictionaries with your breath it will be nothing strange if he doubts your word. You can soon convince him of your ability by taking a long narrow bag made of tough paper, laying it flat on the table, placing a large book upon it on its edge, and balancing another book on the top of the first. Gather the end of the -^ bag tightly- in the hand and breathe' into it as you do when you blow into a paper sack for the purpose of inflating it to burst it. The air must not be allowed to escape, and generally one or twjo forceful breaths will cause the overthrow of the books. In placing the books on the sack see that both the bottom and top of the bag are free. The experiment is performed more easily if the open end of the bag projects over the edge of the table. - •