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Shannon News, 21 August 1923, Page 4

While searching on Rivertou beach (Otago) a young man found about £3OO worth oi ambergris, which was in good condition and quickly found a buyer. Attempts are to be made this summer to recover tho' £5,000,000 in bullion which was lost in the Lusitania, torpedoed by tho Germans in 1915. Forty per cent, of patients admitted to mental hospitals in the Dominion last year wore cured, 839 patients being admitted for the year. Household pets art; losing their popularity among children. Boys especially are now more interested in wireless and other mechanical apparatus. It is a domonntrable fact that Ayrshire eat.vie do well wherever they go. In tropic heal or Arctic cold they are able to adapt, themselves to their surrounding:'!. There was a strong spirit of opposition at the meeting of the Wellington Chamber.of Commerce to the Dairy Produce Export Council Bill on account of the compulsory clause, and a resolution was carried on theso lines. Tho ceremonial form of Chinese conversation is very amusing. Here Is an example given in "The Indiscretions of Lady Susan," by Lady Susan Townley, whose husband was at one time attached to the British Legation J'ekin: Q: "Distinguished and aged. Wu. what is your honourable age" —A. "Alas, honourable lady, I have wasted! 30 years!" Q.: "How many worthy! young gentlemen sons have you?"—; A.: "My fate is b'eggarly; I have butone little bug." Q.: "How is your Excellency's favoured wife?"—-A.: "Thank yon, madam! The foolish one of the family is well." When alluding to himself in conversation, though it may go against the grain, Chinese ideas of- politoness require that a man should malco use of such expressions as the above, and speaking- of his family he is bound to qualify them as "little," "mean," "stupid" or "cheap."

A curious typographical "correction" appeared recently in a city newspaper. It was reporting a remark of Mr. Furkort, chairman, of the Highways Board, who said that "the boundaries fixed were not like, the laws of the Medes and T'ersi'ans." The modern comp. who set up the '/copy" evidently thought that Mr. Furkert was a long way behind the times, and despising ancient autocracy and immutability, changed tlw Medes and Persians into "the Trades and Pensians," and so brought the proverb right up-to-date.

"We are told on every- side that the farmer is the backbone of the country," said the president of the Wellington branch of the Marine" Engineers' Institute, Mr. A. Basire, at a gathering of members, '' but if the farmer is the •backbone then the engineers the the legs on which the backbone is supported. -We freeze his goods and take them overseas to the great markets of the world and if it were not for the engineer the farmer would still be producing in pounds where to-day he produces in tons.''