NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2791, 30 September 1924, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

Sweet peas have not yet been Vi own to yield both yellow and blue lowers: this peculiarity marks all blossoms. Among the best needleworkers in be world are the men of Japan, heir only equals being the women f Russia. Three-tenths of the earnings of t Belgian convict are given to him n the expiration of his term of imrisonment. Thousands of bees took pari in a ■attic recently in a Darlington gar'en. Among the “casualties” were •'ourteen chickens. Lincoln Minster now weighs a>out 700 tons than it did. This is •ue to the cement used in filling up even miles of cracks. “Flag days” in London have reulfed in a collection of over £L--700,000 since 1017; of this total, tearly £200,000 went in expenses. On the North American continnt the British possessions are birger by nearly 100,000 square miles than those of the United States. Hornets, which do a great deal of ’•image to trees, have recently ap,cured on Wimbledon Common for •he first time for twenty years. Roys and girls in American scho■ls are two years behind those of :lie same age in other countries, so far as Latin and Greek are concerned. Knowing twenty-four books of the Old Testament by heart is an ae.•omplisbhenl of a young Rabbi in Lodo'n. Tie is also proficient as a portrait painter.' That all drivers of public vehicles -fiiuiild go through a severe medical examination before receiving their license was tin* reeenf suggestion >f a London magistrate. Strips of New South Wales -damps in different values and dal - : ng hack In 1855, were rocenilv discovered in the Record Office, Lon-

don. Exports value 11mm at £!)(!(). Taking pari in ilio Wembley (Irnmmar School sports, Dulcic M. Mvliill, aged Hi, won nine out of the ten events in which she competed, and was second in the tenth. A halfpenny is exactly an hu h in diameter, and therefore is a convenient measure. Laid on an ordnance map of one-inch scale, tin* halfpenny .just covers 500 acres. If all the meat imported into London was received in the form of live hcep, there would he sullieient to arrive one every two seconds, night and day, all the year round. “Iteer that ignores waking”, is the phrase written on a piece of pottery included in the Egyptian exhibits recently shown at Burlington House. If dates back to l.'lOO B.C. The great British ship, the Olympic, weighing 40,000 tons, was recently towed into a floating dock and lifted a height of 40 feet out of the water. The operation occupied 3:! hours. The ice supply of the island of. Tenneriffe is obtained from a cave a hundred feet long by thirty feet broad and about twelve feet high. It is situated in the Peak of Tenneriffe, 10,000 feet above sea level. Steam at 212 degrees Fahrenheit occupies a space 1,642 times as large as the water from which it was generated; that is, one cubic inch of water is converted into approximated one cubic foot of steam.

Women’s hands; must be growing larger; the average size of a glove sold a few years ago was Of and 61; it has now increased to til and (iff, while the gloves themselves are made slightly larger in each side. Sir Flinders Petrie maintains that the signs forming our alphabet originated in many parts of the

world, as far apart as Asia Minor and Spain, and that they were gradually brought together by the nations dwelling round the Mediterranean. The Nightingale Fund Committee has decided to establish ns an experiment, a Traveller Fellowship for Nurses, the holder of which is to visit the United States and Canada to examine and inquire into mu - sing, especially in relation to pubic health. Many people near A sent recently witnessed the strange spectacle of newly-mown grass coming down apparently from the sky. The grass had been caught up by a whirlwind from a field near Bracknell. It was so high at first that it looked like a fleet of aeroplanes. An expedition from the American Museum of Natural History searching for rare specimens of birds in South America found penguins in the jungle. This was remarkable enough, for penguins were always associated with the ice wastes ot the Antarctic. But these tropical penguins bray like jackasses.

Mr Sidney Simmons, a generous benefactor to Okehampton, Devon, bis native town, lias left £IO,OOO for a new town hall, .Co,ooo for alms houses and £5,000 for annuities and grants lo inmates. Tie lias also left £I,OOO to Okehampton Congregational Church. Tn his lifetime he presented the town with a park in which he erected five almshouses. Annie Wootton, a confectioner, was recently fined at Grimsby for a breach of the Shops Closing Order by selling ices after 0 o’clock. She pleaded that ns the holder of a refreshment house license she was entitled to sell them until 11 p.m. The police contended that ices were not refreshment within the meaning ol Ibe Act. The magistrate accepted the police view. There is a “library’ ot sand in the Lewis Institute, Chicago. During a period of ten years nearly 300(1 bottles have been filled with specimens of sand from various countlies. These samples have belt collected as part of an exhaustive invstigation on cement and mortar. The data determined for each sample represents a mass of information the value of which is increased by the fact that it is immediately available in collected form.

Under daylight saving in Scotland, it is possible to play the game of bowls without artificial lighting ns late as 11.30 p.m., according to Mr T. N. Horsley, who has returned to Christchurch from a visit to the Old Country. One night while in Glasgow lie was writing a letter in broad daylight and looking at (lie clock, he found it was H).2:> o’clock. He believed that New Zealand was much more suited for day-light-saving. “I never hear a word uttered against daylight-saving in England and Scotland remarked Mr I-lorsley. “The people seemed to regard tiie alteration of the clock as tin natural thing to do, and everyone appeared to be thoroughly satisfied that daylight saving was a good thing.”