NEWS AND NOTES

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2963, 17 November 1925, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES

Of the samples of milk tested by the British Ministry of Health recently, no fewer than 4772 out of 62,133 were found to be adulterated or below standard. This represents a percentage of over 7-1. When a case full of Treasury Notes was retrived from the lake at the British Empire Exhibition, the owner was able to prove his claim by giving the numbers of all the notes. He was a Scotsman, In view of a crowd of onlookers a young man attempting to rescue a dog from the River Thames at Temple steps fell into the water and was drowned. A few minutes later the dog was rescued by a police boat.

Bank notes recently circulated by the Riffs were printed in three languages. First came, in English, “State Bank of the Riffs,” then an Arabic inscription, followed by a statement of the note’s value in both English and French. According to the Mohammedans and the Cabbalists, or interpreters of Jewish tradition, there are seven heavens, each rising in happiness above the other, the seventh being the abode of God and of the highest angels. To be in the seventh heaven, therefore, is a phrase indicating the greatest possible happiness.

The two Houses of Parliament in Italy, the Chamber of the Senate, have now been connected by telephone wires so that the speeches made in one house can be clearly heard by everybody in the other 1 .

An East London man who was before a magistrate recently, on a charge of vagrancy, said he earned his living by taking babies for an airing in 4he parkfs. The unique excuse was accepted, and he was allowed to go. Imports made even partly of silk, such as woolly toys with silk whiskers, handkerchiefs and postcards embroidered in silk, and the silk name-tabs on coats, even dolls’ eyelashes, must all be assessed for the British silk tax.

Speaking at Hull lately, Dr. W. A. Daley, the Medical Officer of Health, said he had heard of one rat catcher who stated he made £IOOO a year out of rat catching, \yhen asked how he managed it, he explained that he had retaining fees from several big shipping companies to keep their vessels free of vermin.

A recently completed census places the population of Edmonton, the capital city of Alberta, at 65,378. In 1921 when the last federal census was taken the population of the city was 58,000, so that there has been an increase of 7378 in four years. The publication of the first “Bradshaw” was vigorously opposed by the railway companies on the ground that a time-table would make a punctual start necessary. Mr. Bradshaw eventually overcame this by investing heavily in the companies concerned. “House for rent” and “apartment for rent” signs have been so rare in Paris because of the great demand for quarters that the Carnavalet Museum, which preserves things which are passing from the life of the city, has gravely accepted specimens for exhibition. Electricity is playing a great part in modernising coal mining in America. Of the seven million horse power of energy used, nearly half is now electrical. Thousands of mules have been replaced by electric locomotives and two hundred thousand miners use electric handlamps. In one small town in South Africa where the Prince of Wales stayed for the night the entire population went to his hotel in the morning, and after waving good-bye to His Royal Highness paid the proprietor a shilling a head for the privilege of viewing Ike Prince Y bedroom ‘‘-just as he had left it.” There are living in Elingshire, in Scotland, four sisters whose aggregate ages, total 367 years. Mrs Annie Young is aged 96; Mrs Eliza Young, 94; Mrs. Porter, 93; and Mrs Legg, 84. Mrs Eliza Young has had 11 children, and there are over 100 grandchildren, 32 great-grand-children, and two great-great-grand-children. Scientists propose to sink a shaft into the earth twelve miles deep in order to discover new minerals and chemical elements. The deepest hole at present in existence is a mine at Morro Velho in Brazil, which-is a mile and a-quarter deep. It would take 50 years to sink a 12mile shaft, and the expenditure would be £20,000,000.