GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.
A prospective purchaser from Greytown went into a Masterton shop the other day (says the Wairarapa Age) and priced a chair, which was quoted at 105 s, Going further up the line on oilier husi-’ ness he called at a shop in Pahiatua, and bought a. similar chair for 455.
It is estimated by Lloyd’s that as a result: of the action of enemy submarines and the diversion of resources normally employed in replacing losses and constructing new tonnage, the net reduction in the merchant shipping of the world during the last six years amounted to 3,510,000 tons, this figure being based on (lie assumption that the ratio of increase during the last six years would have been four-fifths of (lie average rate of increase during (he previous six years.
A man weighing eleven stone lias in him enough fat to make five pounds of candles, and enough phusprodus to put heads on 2,200 mutches, He has iron sufficient to make a one-inch nail, and lime enough to make whitewash to cover a small shed. As for carbon —black lead —there is in his body an amount equal to filling over a thousand pencils. There is also a spoonful of sugar, a pinch or so of salt, and nine and a-lialf gallons of water.
Aldershot has the distinction of being the first town to possess a school for training steeplejacks. All the pupils are young men between 17 and 21 years of age, and among them are youths who have just completed engineering or guilding apprenticeships, “Since I have started my school,” said Mr Ager, the founder, “I have been struck by the difference in temperament of the pupils. Some of ■them cannot master (he terrors of height for days, while others will scale a 130 ft. chimney stack immediately they see it. A man who shows no fear when doing what we call “straight (limbing’ often loses his nerve when (lie big tests are given him. These tests consist of a pupil climbing to a height of 180 ft. and swinging round the chimney on a platform suspended from the summit., The -most exacting test for (he young steeplejack, however, is fur him to run round the top of a chimney only I) inches in width. It is impossible to walk owing to the smoke and bases, and some times the chimney is too hot to stand upon.”
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MH19201221.2.27
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Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2218, 21 December 1920, Page 4
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402GENERAL NEWS ITEMS. Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2218, 21 December 1920, Page 4
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