NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3714, 8 November 1927, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

London’s birth-rate has fallen from 35.4 per thousand in 1870 to 17.6 last year. ■ln Napier 28 building permits, totalling £28,964 worth of work, were issued for building in October, compared with 27 permits, representing £10,929 worth, for the same month last< year. 1 What probably constitutes a record short letter was sent by a Ilawera solicitor to a wayward debtor recently. It consisted of the following: “Dear sir, —Re my account? Yours truly.” The desired result was achieved.

“Skipping is in!” And with it, this season, the latest style in the rope game (says the .Southland Times). School children have got the Charleston craze thoroughly, and on any day almost in any street in Invercargill, they may be seen “incorporating” the popular dance steps in their skipping exercise.

Three Lyons raged through the ranks of Broadway’s cricket team at Marton on Wednesday. Two of the Lyons, playing for the Colts, disposed of Broadway for 36 runs —II. Lyons 6 for 26, T. Lyon 4 for 10. The latter scored 29 and 38 with the bat, while H. Lyon hit up 62 not out.

The Dowager Countess of Jersey, speaking at the Council of the Primrose League, disclosed the origin of the word “flappers.” She said she found the word in “Gulliver’s Travels,” where flappers were persons who were armed with bladders filled with peas and attached to sticks, whose function was to stir up lethargic, inobservant men. Lady Jersey hoped that women politicians would follow the example of those flappers. The smallest newspaper in the world is “The Daily Pilot,” published at Thursday Island. Mr. John Horne, who recently visited the Island, forwarded a copy of the issue of June 18th last to the Levin Chronicle. It consists of a single sheet, 12 inches long by six inches wide, on which is printed two col-, limns of matter each nine inches long! On days when “pressure on oui- space” prevails, the Pilot runs to three columns. The news embraces current shipping items and an intimation that the band o H.M.A.S. Sydney will play outside the picture theatre that night. Absence of cable news is explained by the brief statement that “No telegraphic messages had come to hand up to 3 p.m. to-day, time to go to press,” a simple way out of a difficulty that will be envied by all othei evening papers. On the advertising side there are announcements of the picture palace, the sports club, the local tobacconist, a travelling costumier from Cairns (Queensland), and a children’s fancy dress ball. The rate of subscription is one

shilling weekly paid in advance or sixpence a copy. “If anyone grumbles at paying for their Chronicle, show them this,” remarked Mr. Horne, when handing over the copy of this interesting unit of the world’s press. He added that when the late Lord Northcliffe visited Thursday Island, he and the proprietor of the “Daily Pilot,” were photographed together as representing the two extremes of “the mighty lever.”