TIT-BITS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 104, 5 November 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

TIT-BITS.

One man in 203 is a "sis-footer." Flying frogs are common in Borneo. Bananas grow wild in Asia and Amenta. Cotton 6tockings were first made by hand about 1730. Prior to 1825 all women's shoes were without heels. In the time of Queen Anne soap was taxed £2B per ton. •Of the natives in India, about 2,000,000 can now read English. Asparagus is the oldest known plant that has been used for food. Windsor Castle has been used for a Royal residence for 786 yeare. The elephant is the chief beast ot burden in Siam and Afghanistan. An "elephant load"' is estimated at two tons. Tho Mohawk Indians will not allow so much as a blade of grass to grow upon the graves of their companions. The largest bronze statue in existence is in St. Petersburg. It represents Peter the Great, and weighs 1,100 tons. More than seventy halls in Paris are devoted to fencing, each presided over by a fencing master more or less famous. Every Chinese implement has its deity ; there is a god of knives, another of spades, another of hatchets, another of swords; every kind of animal has its deity. Parisian restaurant-keepers mix a littlo honey with their butter. This gives it an agreeable taste and flavour, and makes the inferior butter more palatable.

At the Mint is a curious copper mould bearing the design of the shilling of William 111., .which was found in the ruins of tne old chapter House of Beverley Minster.

The infant sea-otter, when removed from parental care, dies of either grief or starvation. So far it has been impossible to raise it to maturity by human hand.

Probably the largest species of spider known to entomologists makes its home in the mountainous regions of Ceylon. It spins a huge net of yellow silk sometimes ten feet wide.

The best way to ascertain whether coffee has been" adulterated is to pour cold water on it. If pure, it will colcur the water very slightly; if mixed with chicory, the water will take a brownish hue.

The invention of bells is attributed by some of the best campanologists to the Egyptians, wno are credited with having made use of such percussion instruments to announce the sacred fetes of Osiris.

The funeral of a workman in Japan cost* from 3s. 6d. to as. The coffin is supplied for Is.; for cremation, 3s. is paid, and the mourners cheer themselves with refreshments which cost about 6d.. and sometimes go as high as a shilling.

Japanese houses in the larger cities are of one general shape, two stories high, and put together by a curious method of mortising at which these people are adepts, not one nail beins used throughout the construction of the building.

A fleet of 100 vessels js engaged from January to August each year in the capture of sharks near Iceland. Only the livers are sought. That of each yield* five gallons of oil, which has medicinal virtues resembling those of cod-liver oil.

The licorice plant is chiefly grown on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, in localities where for thre.months during the prevalence of hot winds the temperature reaches 104 degs.. and for three months often registers 30 degs. below at night.

Every Japanese barrack has a gymnasium 1 and the Japanese fioldiers rank among the best gymnasts in the world. In half a minute they can scale a four-toen-foot wall by simply bounding on each other's shoulders, one man supporting two or three others.

Entomologists tell us that the smallest insect is the Alaptus excisus. Viewed tinder a microscope it is seen to be a slightly-built slender creature of such diminutive proportions that it would take over 6.000 of them, placed end to end, to stretch one inch.

The gilding In the throne-room of the Sultan of Constantinople is unequalled by any other building In Europe, and' from the ceiling hangs a superb Venetian chandelier, the 200 lights of which make a gleam like that of a veritable sun. At each of the four corners of the room tall candelabra in baccarat glass are placed, and the throne is a huge seat covered with red velvet and having arms and back of pure gold.

The finest tortoise-shell comes from the Indian Archipelago, and is shipped from Singapore, and much of it is obtained on the Florida. Coast of America, There are three rows of plates on the hack, called "blades" by the fishermen. In the central row are five plates, and in each of the others tour plates, the latter containing the best material. Besides these there are twenty-five small plates round the edges of the shell, known as '-feet'*

or "noses."