Believe it or Not.

Cue (NZERS), Issue 34, 31 October 1945, Page 39

Believe it or Not.

The bamboo flowers only once in fifty years or so, and in China there is a legend to the effect that this occurrence augurs some great national disaster. One explanation for this belief is that when the bamboo flowers fall to the ground they make good feeding for rats, which prosper and multiply and prey in turn on the rice crop, causing widespread famine. * * ♦ * A reindeer has been known to tow a man on snowshoes 150 miles in two days. * ♦ ♦ * The beaked chaetodoai, a small .fish, shoots flies with a spray of water from a distance of four feet. .

The Polish, German, French, Italian (and English) word for ’’coach” all come from ”Kocs”, the name of a city in Hungary where coaches were first manufactured. * * ♦ * An American married couple have not spoken to one another for nearly fifty years. The wife ’’got the pip” with her husband on the first anniversary of their wedding in the 1890’s, when he invited some friends for dinner, and she wanted them to spend the evening alone. * * * * Jem Mace, British bare knuckle champion, fought forty-eight years in the ring, losing only two fights out of 500.