NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2671, 13 December 1923, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

There is a fascination in the collection of threepences and the amount that can be saved in this way is startling. One man who is saving threepences for his boy, says that he banks £3O a year. By the time the boy is 20 years of age, compound interest at the rate of four per cent., will have brought his bank balance to very nearly £I,OOO —and the father never misses the threepences.

A : mechanical bricklayer worked by electricity, or petrol that will lay 10,000 bricks a day, promises to revolutionise the building industry. It is called the “K” erector. Bricklayers lay only a few hundred bricks a day. The “K” erector requiresthree men to work it, but it lays as many bricks as a squad of 20 men, supposing they lay 500 each. Estimates of the number of bricks that bricklayers lay in these days varies from 300 to 750. The erector has been manufactured by Sir William Arrol and Company, Limited, of Glasgow, and is at present employed on a large housing scheme in Glasgow. Its inventor was engaged for five years in perfecting it. “K” looks like a travelling overhead crane. The apparatus that lays the bricks and mortar moves backwards and forwards along a cross-beam which can be moved over the whole site of the house. The difference between the Englishman and the American as regards sociability is so well knownthat a few remarks made by Mr. C. Rhodes at the Auckland Rotary Club Luncheon in illustration of the point gave rise to a good deal of laughter. “The American,” said Mi’. Rhodes, “is cheery, breezy, and as merry as a sandboy. This is especially noticeable in the hotels, but I was at an English hotel, for nearly three days before anyone spoke to me. When men spoke in a whisper it seemed remarkable, and it was quite a relief when a waiter dropped a dish on the floor.” He could not help being reminded of the clubman who indignantly asked the porter the identity of the gentleman sitting next him at the table. “That is Lord Castlereagh,” was the reply. “Well, remove him,” snapped the clubman; “he has been dead for two days.”