NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1786, 7 February 1918, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES.

Large pieces, such as piano-cases and the bodies of automobiles, are now varnished by immersion in tanks of varnish, the thickness of the coating depending exactly on the time of immersion.

Lifeboat davits are now made which are very long, reaching up from the water-line, so that when they swing out they carry the lifeboat far away from the vessel, making the launching far safer.

A Belgian physician declares that early baldness is frequently caused by excessive eating of meat. He asserts that he has often checked cases of falling hair by combining with local treatment a diet of milk and fruit.

That the war pensions allotted in some cases are fairly liberal is illustrated by the recent case of a widow with eight children under sixteen years of age. The husband (says the Lyttelton Times) enlisted, and in the course of training developed heart trouble, which eventually proved fatal. His widow is now drawing the sum of £2 a week and 10s for each of the children, making in all a sum of £0 weekly.

A gardener who was digging a Irench at the new quadrangle, near the School of Art at Canterbury College, a few days ago, unearthed a human skull and leg-bone, about throe feet beneath the surface. The skull has an excellent set of teeth, some of which are worn. It is believed (says the Lyttelton Times) that it belonged to a Maori, and that it has lain there for about 150 years. Before the City of Christchurch was built upon there were fairly high sandhills in that part of the ground now occupied by the college, and it was used by the Maoris as a burial ground.

As showing the remarkable development in wireless telegraphy since the Marconi system was patented in 1890, Sir Joseph Ward stated at the official opening ceremony of the Dominion Radio-tele-graphy College extensions in Auckland, that the first exhibitions of wireless given in England were over distances of eight or nine miles. Somewhat later messages were sent a distance of 200 miles, and in December, 1901, communication was effected between England and Newfoundland, a distance of 1,500 miles. It would doubtless surprise many people, he said, to learn that to-day messages from stations in Europe, America, Asia, and Africa could be clearly heard in New Zealand, Speed in transmitting by wireless had also been wonderfully developed, and between San Francisco and Los Angeles the Poulsen wireless system had been worked at as higth a rate as 300 words a minute by the use of a special transmitter operating somewhat on the Wheatstone automatic principle used in ordinary telegraphy.

The treatment accorded to a man drawn in a recent ballot by his employer, a business man in Christchurch (says the Press), is creating considerable indignation. The man, who is married, with one child, after being medically rejected two or three times when he volunteered for active service, was passed by the medical Board after he was drawn in the ballot. He was ordered to proceed to camp next Ajiril, over two months hence, but his employer, hearing thaUhe had passed the doctors, immediately dismissed him and filled his place with a foreigner. In the meantime the man is without employment until he proceeds to camp.

Says the New York Tribune:— “We are informed that England has enlisted seven thousand convicts in her armies, and that these are reported to have made good. The record of these malefactors showed some little time ago that. 530 had been killed in action, 49 had died of wounds, 13 succumbed to sickness, and no fewer than 1,530 of the remainder had been returned, wounded. Twenty of the criminals were mentioned in dispatches; 25 others received distinguished service medals, and the most highly prized Avar medal in the British service, the one that is harder to win than any other in the world, the Victoria Cross, >vas bestowed on three of the erstAA 7 hile derelicts. Surely a brave showing, and one of which any seven thousand men in the world might be proud.