IN OTHER LANDS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 548, 8 March 1913, Page 3

IN OTHER LANDS.

BOY'S MARVELLOUS MEMORY. An imbecile boy of ten years with a most marvellous "almanac" memory has just been introduced to the Viennese Psychological Society. Armed with calendars of various years and kinds, the scientists plied the boy with questions on dates, covering all the centuries, from the tenth to the twentieth. Without a moment's pause, and always carrect--1 , the boy answered such questions as : When is Eastsr Sunday in 1917 ? What day of the week did the 14th June, 1808, fall on ? When is Ascension Day, 1')23 ? How long is the carnival reason in 1924 ? Besides al". this, the boy could give right off the patron saint of any day in the year., Doctors from the idiot asylum where the boy is an inmate said it was impossible to explain-, his extraordinary memory. The hoy himself said he used the exifting mathematical tables ascertaining' past and future dates, but the doctors said this was clearly not the case, as the table he quoted could be used for years after 2000, whereas his memory - was absolutely bounded by that period. Of dates before the year 1000 or after 2000 he teemed to have no knowledge.

A NOVELIST'S WORKING DAY. Mr. Eden Philpotts,, the novelist, teplvirig to a reviewer's reference to ;' s "fatal facility" in the production of l.t:raiy work, says : . "The giants are dead, and it is aot now the custom of serious ;iv se writers to produce generously ; hut those who love work and have much to say must not be tlamed for their activity. . . . "I write 1000 words a day of my Lest—and ac more. Is that fatal facrity ? It is a day's work that your accomplished staff would laugh at. It is nothing for a man,; and it leaves many hours for thought and reading, and the activities of (.he mind and body proper to an aitifct. . . . "Believe me, there is no ' fatal facility.' If the genius of a Balzac and a Dickens could pile their mountains of noble work, then surely it may be permitted to us hop-o'-my-thumbs of this generation to produce of our best at a higher rate of production than one book a year."

Statistics just published in Berlin show a remarkable decrease in the vclume of German emigration. For the first time on record the number of Germans leaving the Fatherland to live abroad has fallen below 20,000 for the year. The actual figures for I'oß are 19,883. What this means will be realised when it is stated tut in 1881 the number was 220,901. Since 1871 the number of German emigrants has been 2,750,000. Of la;t year's emigrants by far the greater part went to the United States, which received 17,951 of the total. Only 280 went to Canada.

Bathing at the seaside proves most beneficial when indulged in about two hours after meals, and bathers should remain in the water not longer than thirty minutes.

Last year there were 399 important disputes between workmen and their employers, of which more than 65 per cent, were settled by compromise.