NEAR AND FAR

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 98, 16 December 1931, Page 4

NEAR AND FAR

Extraordinary Meraory The world's most extraordinary memory is probably that of Dr. Vincenzo Mggeini, a retired professor of physics in Italy. Once he' has read a thing he never forgets it. In recent tests he was able to give without a single mistake details of the most complicated Italian railway timetables. Investigators then asked Dr. Mancini for details of the population of hundreds of places, great and small, in Italy. Not one of their questions stumped him. He continued by giving : the name of every mule belonging to the artillery, by answering correctly every date which he was asked, and by naming the bandmaster and the regimental march of every regiment in the army. Feeling the Pmch A man went into a Hindu shop to purchase some fruit (says a Wanganui paper) . The paper bag proved too small to hold all the fruit. -The purchaser then asked the shopkeeper to put the remainder in another bag. "No," said the Hindu, "put them in your pocket; paper bags cost money." "It must be very hard times with the Hindus," remarked the purchaser as he stowed the surplus fruit away as suggested.

His Objection to the Dole "I have been offering eight shillings a day for farm labour and nobody wants it," said a Marton farmer to a Dominion representative a few days ago. The farmer said he could give employment without found at the rate of lone shilling an hour and a man could thus easily earn £2 a week. Unemployed men seemed to

prefer to take their chances of getting two or three days' work in the city, even if their weekly earnings did not total £2 a week. "As soon as the men who say they want work hear that the offer is one shilling an hour they retire," said the farmer. "With the prices I am getting for my produce I cannot offer more. I object to paying unemployment tax when a man turns down £2 a week." Dangerous Spiders A nest of eight katipo spiders with a dozen eggs, each containing three or four dozen katipos in embryo, was discovered in the garden of a private house at North Beach the other day, by Mr. E. C. Larsen. Two of the spiders (says the Christchurch Times) were captured alive and taken by Mr. Larsen to a chemist's shop in the city, where they were placed in a bottle of spirit. The katipos are fine female speeimens, of a brilliant black with the characteris- : tic red stripe down" the back. Mr. Larsen caught two of the spiders, alive by placing over them a bottle, into which they eventually climbed. A woman who wltnessed the destruction of the nest, said that she had seen a katipo on the beach a few days ago and had tried to catch it to show her children and warn them, but had been unable to do so. Another "Howler" Schoolboy "howlers" are not confined to primary school tests. The recent matriculation examination in New Plymouth produced a rather extraordinary answer to a question. The entrants were asked to describe Dickens' character Micawber. One bright youth stated: "He was a wild man, inclined to be savage. The Micawbers were a savage race who inhabited Ireland." Pigeon Post Homing pigeons are still used in some of the outlying parts of the Dominion, especially at election time. During the 1928 Maori elections the returns from Motiti Island, in the Bay of Plenty, were sent to.the returning officer at Gisborne by a pair of "homers," and on Tuesday the returns were again received on the mainland by pigeon post. Motiti Isj land has a launch service in good ! weather, but the results were sent by ; carrier pigeons in case the weather j might cause delay in the ordinary communications. Winter Holiday Resort Describing Norfolk Island as "an admirable place for New Zealanders whb wanted a winter holiday cheaply and in an ideal climate," Mr. C. P. Agar, of Christchurch, who recently spent 12 days there on his way from Australia, was greatly impressed by the easiness of life under comparatively primitive conditions. It was surprising, he said, to go to an island where there were not a lot of Government costs, and to find that the people lived quite well without any State services. The average store account for a family of four people was £2 10s a month, and it seemed that a retired man with a few pounds a week could hardly find a better place to go to. On the island people were isolated and dependent on themselves, for there was no telegraph, and no electric lighting or municipal water supply — in fact practically none of the things people elsewhere had come to regard as indispensable. Yet after a few days there a visitor began to wonder whether the speeding-up process of modern life was worth all the human energy and strain expended on it. Echo Answers! The humorist, with an eye to present- conditions, wants to know where is all that work Satan is supposed to find for idle hands to do! Caught! After the police had raided an hotel at Campbleton (Sydney) last week in search of starting-price bo'okmakers, several men entered another hotel where a man was having a drink. This man spoke to the strangers and remarked that the detectives would never find anything in his possession to" show .he was "a starting-pfice man." He then displayed a hollow wooden leg — a little cupboard" which held his beeting book and papers! He was immediately arrested by the strangers who were the detectives' who had raided the other hotel, *