NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3630, 26 April 1927, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

The formation in Masterton of an Optimists’ Club is the latest enterprise. Mr. J. H. Coleman, of Napier, has donated £IO,OOO for the erection of a ward at the Napier Hospital.

The cucumber usually has a tem - perature one degree lower than that of the surrounding atmosphere. Hence the expression “Cool as a cucumber.” A house at Russell Hill, Purley, was burgled without the occupants knowing anything until a detective called bringing back a silver cigaiette box. Professional men head the ust ot clients of English banks who have the largest numbers. Farmers come next. An orchard of 70 fruit-trees is being planted on top of Adelaide House, .London’s big office building, where there is already an 18-hole golf putting course. The destroyer Sybille, ot the Yarrow (R) class, which has been serving in the Nore Resene fleet, has been towed away from Sheeruess and wi'.i be broken up. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” is true, because modern science says this fruit contains juices which enable us to derive the best value from other foou we eat. The far tiling is really a “tourtiling,” |Oi’ fourth part, Saxon pennies had grooves cut m them m the form of a cross, so that they could be broken at will into torn four* kings. • The “Two Brewers” Inn, forest Hill, London, a 400-year-old refreshment house, said to have been a favourite haunt of Duck Turpin, is to be replaced by an up-to-date building. The Chinese can tell the time fairly accurately by looking at a cat’s eyes, the pupils becoming more perpendicular as noon approaches and dilating gradually as afternoon wears on. With a total population of about 100, Leavenkeath, a village in Suffolk, has 80 bachelors, most of whom profess themselves as well content with their state of single blessedness. The first corduroy material was corded from silk and manufactured exclusively for kings in France, who wore it while hunting. From that fact it derived its name of “Cord du roy.” “The kingfisher looks pretty and innocent and we are apt to spare him,” said C. A. Whiney at a meeting of the Auckland Acclimatisation Society, “but he is strongly condemned by fishers at Home for the destruction of salmon fry. He is a serious menace to our trout.” William Maxwell, aged 88 years, who has died in the Wisconsin State Prison, claimed to be the oldest life convict in the world. He started to serve the 55th year of a life term on October 25th last. Maxwell was sent to prison for killing a man in defence of a woman in a dance hall. - Patrons of the dance had tried to lynch him, and when the police arrived they had to cut him down. Maxwell, however, said he never regretted the act. He was a model prisoner and could have had parole years ago, hut always refused. A London cable says that Reece has discovered a new stroke to circumvent the rule restricting long runs of cannons in his recent match with Inman which the latter won by 8000 to 5527. Early during the afternoon session of the championship heat, when Inman was 1347 and Reece 854, the latter worked the balls in four strokes to the jaws of the right top pocket, where they jammed. This is not a recognised anchor position which is played alternatively on either side, because Reece was able to touch the cushion before reaching the legal limit of 25 cannons. He continued to score mechanically, apparently as long as he pleased. Occasionally he rested by changing the cue into the other hand. Experts promptly nicknamed this the “pendulum” cannon. Reece’s procedure was to hit the cushion and just skim the object balls. At 1141 an imperfect stroke

dislodged a white ball from the jaws of the pocket and Reece failed to regain position, but reached points and the break ended at 1151.

The Elephant and Castle, London, Ambulance Station is to he rebuilt at a cost of £1,650. It is the busiest of the thirteen London County Council stations, and in 1926 dealt with 5,804 calls. Someftscientists consider petroleum is the result of purely chemical action on inorganic substances, others that it results from animal remains, and others that it comes from vegetable remains.

Measuring sft, lOin. high by 3ft. 2in. across, a volume of maps, presented to Charles H by the Amsterdam merchants in 1660, is preserved in the British Museum. It is moved about on a trolly. A French farmer at Font an, on the French frontier, has been compelled to take out passports for his whole family for production every time they pass to their vineyard, which is only a hundred yards over the border.

Ruby Snow, a little girl at Appledove, who has been in bed for over a year, has held a bazaar in her room, with the help of three other children, at which they sold small things and made £3 12s 2d for the lifeboat Service.

The office of Master of the Rolls dates from 1275. In his custody are records running from Domesday Book to the present time, including the proclamation with which the Great War opened and the famous “scrap of paper.” The peculiar Greek method of voting, fpr some 2,500 years, consisted of having an urn to represent each candidate. The voter tossed in a white pebble if he wished to vote for the candidate, and a black one if he wished to vote against him. Old St. Paul’s Cathedral was 600 ft. long, and the spire destroyed by fire in 1561 towered to a height of 520 ft. The length of the present cathedral, including the portico, is 515 ft., and the height from the pavement to the top of the cross is 305 ft. ' Of the magnificent buildings ot the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley, Ceylon is now a London coach-building factory; Nigeria is a garage in Preston; Sierra Leone, a restaurant in Ireland; and Palestine is to become a laundry in Glasgow. -