NEW, ODD, INTERESTING.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 7, Issue 378, 24 May 1918, Page 4

NEW, ODD, INTERESTING.

Fire la considered a sacred number Among the Chinese. A full-grown elephant can carry tfcree tons on it* back. One-fifth of the married couples in Vtance hare no children. A man of seventy has eaten in his lifetime about 58§ tons of food. *7Pt, with nearly ten million people, has only one lunatic asylum. Pear miles of an ordinary spider's thread would only weigh one grain. The chance of two finger-prints being alike is not one in sixty-four billions. In all countries more marriages take place ia June than in any other month. To form a rainbow the sun must not be more than 42 deg. above the horizon. , Thirty-nine per cent, of English lunatics recover, 42 per cent, of Irish.

Iron can be drawn into thinner wire than any other metal except gold. Petrograd possesses the largest statue in existence—that of Teter the Great, which weighs 1,000 tons. The female brain commences to decline in weight after the age of thirty; the male not till ten years later. Vesuvius and Etna are never both active at the same time: when one is most violent, the other is most quiescent. The Russian Empire holds the record of having under its sway sixtyfive separate and distinct racial groups. Nearly a million and a half different brands of cigars are made. Yet at the outside there are but 150 different kinds of tobacco grown. A coooa-palm in full bearing will yield as much as a ton of nuts in a. year, and the date-palm from lewt. to 4 cwt. of dates in a season. The cellar of the House of Commons is 200 ft. long, and can hold £4,000 worth of wine. Usually, however, there is only a tenth of this amount stored.

Japanese women wear sold pins in their hair until they reach the age of twenty-five; at thirty the pins are white; and at forty they wear plain shell combs. It is usually imagined that the electric light gives out very little heat. As a matter of fact, only 6 per cent, of its energy goes to make light, while 94 goes into heat. A doctor says that persons who attain their thirtieth year without suffering from any disease are likely —all things being equal—to live tiil they are at least seventy-three years of age.