FROM FAR AND NEAR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2848, 19 February 1925, Page 4

FROM FAR AND NEAR.

lii Italy the refuse gathered in the streets is sold at auction.

* The average amount of sickness in human life is estimated at ten days per annum. Asiatic cholera is the most rapidly fatal disease known to medical science. Alii Indian regiments wear the turban except the Gurkhas, who wear a little round cap. The strength of a horse is equal on an average to that of seven and n-lialf men. It has been shown that the water of the Antarctic Ocean is colder than that of the Arctic. The largest sponge ever found came from the Mediterranean. It was over three feet across, and ten feet in circumference. Bats are most curiously constructed, the heart’s action being aided bv the rhythmic contractions of the veins of the wings. A woman’s corset, worn with only the average degree of tightness, exerts a pressure of forty pounds on the organs it compresses. No liumifn head was impressed on coins until after Iho death of Alexander the Great. All images before that time were of deities. It takes about three seconds for a message to go from one end of the Atlantic cable to the other. This is about TOO miles a second. Teapots were the invention either of the Chinese or tin Indians, and are of uncertain antiquity. They came to Europe with tea in 1610. It is a strange fact that the right hand, which is more sensitive to the touch than the left, is less sensible than the latter to the effect of heal or cold. A motion by the Mayor of Pahiatua, for a reduction in the size, of the Council from nine to six members was rejected, only the mover and one councillor supposing it. The Veddahs, or wild hunters of Ceylon, mingle the pounded fibre of soft and decayed wood with the honey on which they feed when meat is not to he obtained. In fifty years the average height of British men has risen an inch. The present average height of a man of thirty of the upper classes in Britain is sft. 8 Jin. Fully fifty feet higher, and more than twice as wide as Niagara, the falls of Jguazii. in South America, form one of the great wonders of that continent. Whales from 300 to 400 years old are sometimes met with. The age is ascertained by the size and number of layers of the whalebone, which increase yearly. One of the most curious plants in the world is the toothbrush plant, a species of creeper which grows in Jamaica. By cutting a piece of the stem and fraying the ends the natives make a toothbrush. In Denmark any person who at the age of 21 years pays to the State a sum of £6 10/-, is entitled if he reaches' the age of sixty-five, to an annuity of £l3. But if he dies before that age the money is forfeited. The value of fumigating as a means of destroying rats in ships was shown at Lyttelton recently. The Union Company’s steamer Flora had been sealed up and fumigated the previous night. In the morning over 400 dead rats were gathered. Bread is made from chestnuts by I he mountain peasantry in Italy and France. After the nuts have been blanched they are dried and ground. From this (lour a sweet and heavy cake is made which resembles the oaten meal cake so popular in Scotland.

Students of heredity assert Ilia children horn of very young fatli ers and mothers never attain so vi gorous a growth of mind or hod;

us those of older men and women, while children of odd people are usually delicate, serious and oldfashioned, manifesting a dislike for juvenile sports. There is at. Gibralter an ini cresting colony of Barbary apes, (lie only one in Europe. Only 20 of the animals are living. They are highly prized and carefully protected. 1 heir home is on the higher eastern portion of the famous rock, except at such times as they are driven down by cold winds. Queer methods of measurement, of time or distance still linger in out-of-the-way places. A recent visitor to Holland, mentioning that

the canal man still measure the distance they travel by the number of pipes they smoke en route, drew from another traveller Hie assurance that the h ill men of Assam have the same method of calculating (lie ground they cover. In the Rhine province the peasants frequently calculate the time for boiling an egg by repeating the Lord’s Prayer and allow lheir tea to “draw” for Hie space of a “miserere” repealed slowly.

The customers of one of Hie Chinese laundries at Auckland had an unpleasant surprise when they paid their weekly visit to receive I heir laundry parcels and ' deposit fresh orders. In stead of finding the obsequious Celestial they discovered a hard headed bailiff in possession. And what was worse, he could neither give nor receive collars a.nd shirts. He confided that the electric power had been turned off and that about 1,000 collars were lying in the shop. Judging by the number of customers entering the premises in the course of a few hours, the business appeared to have been in quite a flourishing state, remarks the Star.

The proposal that exhibition trains especially fitted up to display New Zealand goods should be run on the North Island railway lin-

es and on some section of the South Island system, was discussed recently at a meeting of the Council of the Auckland Provincial Industrial Association. The proposal originated with the executive of the Industrial Corporation. All the larger centres should he visited, it was explained, and a comprehensive selection of New Zealand manufactures would be carried. Exhibiting firms would he allowed to send their representatives on the trains. The exhibition cars would be stripped of all seats and other equipment, and provision would he made for the effective display of goods. A corridor would be left so that when a call was made at a town people would he able to walk right through the train. About a day would he spent in each centre, the train being shunted on to a convenient siding. It was resolved that the scheme be adopted, subject to satisfactory arrangements with the Government.