INTERESTING ITEMS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 374, 1 July 1911, Page 2

INTERESTING ITEMS.

Crab-pots, fish-boxes, oars, nets and other fishing tackle were usee to decorate the church at Port Isaac, Cornwall, for a service, of thanksgiving for the harvest of the sea.

In Russia photographers are in the habit of paying out any customei who refuses to pay up by hanging his portrait upside down in a conspicuous place in their shop.

The late Mile. Granjean, of Paris, ihas left a will bequeathing a small annuity during their lifetime to each of her 200 pets—l/ 3 a day to her logs and 7|d. a day to her fowls.

A match-cutting machine is an automatic curiosity. It cuts 10,000000 sticks a day, and then arranges them over a vat, where the heads are put on at a surprising rate of speed.

Accepting a wager of £2O that he "dare not propose to the lady cashier," a railway man in a restauranl at Lebean, South Dakota, won the lady's heart and hand after a courtship lasting 2min. 25sec.

A tombstone requisitioned as a iloorstep has been discovered in a lonely farmhouse situated near to Cassiobury Park, Watford. This ■tone, a fine piece of Portland, serves is a doorstep leading from the din-ing-room to the conservatory, and is lying face downward. Workmen engaged in carrying out certain repairs and alterations came upon this stone which bears the inscription, "In loving memory of , the beloved wife, etc." They were instructed by the owner, who occupies the house, to replace it, and the tombstone is again fulfilling its somewhat novel purpose.

The longest-lived trees in northern Europe are the pines of Norway and 3weden, but five hundred and seventy years is their greatest period. Germany's oldest oaks liV9 only a little more than three hundred years.

I love my dear country, and I feel the stabbing truth of what was told me by a superhuman whom I revere only a few days ago. He told me that a great German statesman told him that his countrymen did not hate England, but that they were convinced that England was hopelessly decadent, undisciplined, and given over to strong delusions. Therefore they ..wished to be in a position to have the first grab when she went to pieces.—Frank T. Bullen, in the "Express."

There is a struggle for existence for all plants and animals. None can be merely onlookers. Each individual has to hold his own against disease, heat, cold, and enemies. There is also a struggle between £roup and group. Associations of individuals exist for mutual defence. But each individual must be vigorous, and, according to the standard of the species, alert and intelligent. The incapables are got rid of by natural selection, or, more strictly speaking, by the environment, quite as effectively as if no association existed. There is no room for the inefficient, since combination protects only the strong and capable.—"Darwinism and Modern Socialism," by F. W. Hcadly. .