From Many Lands

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 834, 30 November 1929, Page 19

From Many Lands

TABLOID READING F £.800,000 A NIGHT | reading in bed It is estimated that about £BOO,OOO i is spent every night of the year in electric light and other forms of illumination by people reading in bed be- ! fore they go to sleep. ROCKING BABIES happy suggestion effective method of rocking babies to sleep is claimed by Mr. Sanger, of Munich, who has invented a pram-pushing device, which, when connected up to the pram and the current switched on, moves the pram quietly to and fro, the hum of the electric motor serving as a lullaby. illuminated ELEPHANTS heads and tails It is stated that the Municipal Council of Candy, Ceylon, has recommended that every elephant should carry a head and tail light. This is a move in the interest of travellers against the trains of unlighted elephants that carry merchandise along the roads by day and night. It appears that the dirty grey of the elephant makes it practically invisible in the dusk. LURE OF LIPSTICK AN EXPERT’S ADVICE Beauty doctors have saved more marriages from breaking up than any other agency, according to Miss Frances Martell, of Chicago. She addressed the tenth annual convention of the National Association of Cosmeticians. She warned wives to beware of husuands who say they love them for themselves rather than for theii looks. “The woman who gets the most attention from her husband,” she said “is the one whose cheeks are pink whose lips are vermilion, and whose nails are newly manicured. Nine tenths of the husbands cited in divorce rases are married to drab wives.”

6,000,000 FLIES HOUSEHOLDER’S PROBLEM A Somerset family's war against (lies ended recently. Mr. W. H. Reynolds. of Chandos Lodge, Keynsham, and his household had been fighting sin million flies for nearly six weeks. Swarms of flies had poured into the house, and bedroom walls and ceilings became black with them. "I have not slept tor a month!” Mr. Reynolds said. “My family and I have undergone torture lying awake at night listening to terrible buzzings. We killed thousands of flies with swats; others we sprayed with poison; we used scores of flypapers—and still they buzzed. They were not ordinary house flies, and, being much smaller, were difficult to swat. “I thought dhe plague would never end, but at last, with the aid of experts from Keynsham District Council, and advice from scientists, we have won. I think we have cleared the house of them.” DOG MATHEMATICIAN “SAYING IT WITH BARKS” The story of a retriever dog that could do mathematics was told by Dr. William Moodie. of Islington, in a lecture to the National Council for Mental Hygiene. “His master,” said Dr. Moodie, “was a mathematician, and used to take a delight in asking the dog a simple question in arithmetic. It would answer by barking the requisite number of times. The dog would tell you what was the square root of nine, what two and three made, and so on. “This mathematician had no idea himself how he gave the dog the signal. and observers who watched him carefully could see no signal given. “The dog gazed intently into his master’s face and never failed to bark the requisite number of times. This dog, I am sure, had some method of communication which human beings could not appreciate.” iOMES OF THE FUTURE NOVEL FEATURES

A full-sized model of a wholly new type of house, “designed without regard to popular prejudices/’ was one of the novel features at the House and Building Exhibition recently held In the Forum. Copenhagen. The house is circular in form, with a flat prismatic glass roof. The entrance corridor leads to a cuintral hall, from which the other rooms open, following the course of the sun according to the use for which the rooms are intended. Thus the bedrooms and gymnastic rooms turn toward the east, and the parlour or general living room toward the south. On entering the corridor one steps °n a perforated rubber mat. the pressure starting an electrically operated *acmm underneath, which removes bust from the boots. , Here are some of the other novel features:— Beds, which are supplied with rubber air mattresses, are let into alcoves, and a radio apparatus is fitted into a niche alongside each. in the parlour is a glass-top table on steel legs, the top so adjusted that will revolve and bring to hand anything lying on the opposite side. The room is equipped with magnarox and television apparatus. Alongside is a suction tube connected with the local post office for reception and dispatch of letters. A circular over-room in the centre of the roof, reached by an elevator, Provides sleeping accommodation for the children and gives them direct access to the roof games. Antennae over the roof pick up Electric energy transmitted wirelessly the lighting and heating of the a °use, and pH sorts of auxiliary services. _

3R THE WEEK-END. | CRUEL TO BE KIND BARK WORSE THAN BITE j A 17-year-old dog sacrificed his molars in order that his 80-year-old owner, Mrs. Francis Edwards, of Pittsburg, might not be deprived of his companionship. Police charged that the dog was vicious and had bitten two people. The aged woman pleaded in court for the life of her pet. The dog was her only companion she said. Judge Calloway ordered the dog to be restored to her —after his teetli had been extracted. A STRANGE HOBBY REMEMBERING BIRTHDAYS i The hobby of Mrs. Floyd Davis, of Webster Groves, U.S.A., is remembering birthdays, and she not only remembers these birthdays, but sends each person who is listed in her birthday book a card on the anniversary. Some days she sends as many as ten cards. Mrs. Davis says that even in girlhood it was very easy for her to remember natal anniversary dates, I and that at the present time she has a list of 1,000 birthdays. She only re- j grets that her list does not comprise every day of the year. There are 21 j days on her calendar that are blank. : She hopes, however, to have these spaces tilled before long, HE GOT HIS OVEN! HOTEL PROBLEM IN MADIERA The Madiera winter season is now in full swing. A London journalist visiting the island came across an instance of the trials of running a big hotel. An Italian chef had been engaged, and arrived at Madiera to take up his duties. But when he saw the kitchens he promptly threw up the job. “It is the stoves,” he told the surprised employer. “I can never do justice to my art with stoves so small.” And he returned to Italy without delay. The hotel immediately ordered the largest stove that had ever been made in Portugal. It duly arrived in Madiera, and for a day provided the chief excitement of the island. Capable of cooking dinners for 500 persons at one time, it was in two parts, each about 20ft long. Eight mules were required to drag each section from the quay to the hotel on the wheelless wooden floats which run over cobbled streets like sledges. The task of getting the stove into the hotel occupied a score of men for ten hours. Then the hotel manager cabled to the chef to take up the job. * si REPORTER’S MURMUR CLEARS THE HOUSE OF LORDS 1 .. Stories of 50 years in journalism ' were told when Mr. W. J. Murphy, . who has retired from the staff of the i Press Association in Lo.ndon, was 1 entertained by his colleagues. Once in the House of Lords Mr. f Murphy murmured aloud to himself “adjourn,” and the Lord Chancellor, thinking that that was the feeling of the House, immediately put the question and it was carried. He was thus the only man who had succeeded in adjourning that august assembly from the Press Gallery. A REVOLTSKI JUVENILE TSARISTS :> j -Treason” and counter-revolution i j among children in the public schools t have just been discovered and aas nouuced with a great alarm of drums 1 by “Kommolskaya Pravda,” official !, organ of the 2,000,000 organised Young • Communists in Moscow. 1 Underground societies of Tsarist supporters among the tiny tots. Antii Soviet propaganda in childish scrawls on the walls of school basements, s i juvenile "terrorists” and Fascists — X ‘‘blackshirts over the pinafores.” s 1 The disclosures of juvenile counterf i revolutionary activities are not lims 1 ited to any one school. Examples are drawn from schools in Leningrad. Kharkov, Voronesh, from village and | i city. In the town of TJrupinsk a j ■ secret society of school children was | raided. The culprits were found sing- j

in- Tsarist hymns. In several eity schools anti-Soviet groups were discovered. calling themselves Blackshirts.” “Fascists.” “Young Smugglers” and other high-sounding names. FAIRY GODMOTHER MUSSOLINI’S NEW ROLE Teresa Testa, of Tortona, is a girl who understands the art of making hav while the sun shines. She is a fair-haired, blue-eyed peasant girl ol on engaged to be married to a j oun„ workman, but lacking the means to buy herself the necessary outfit. Having read in the daily Press that Mussolini had given a sewing-machine to a girl at Pavia to enable her to earn her living Teresa sat down and penned the following letter to the Dl “T e am vouug, strong and healthy. I want to be married, but I have no money to buy an outfit, as I have lo work and help my parents, keep mj five little sisters. If you help me, 1 nromise you that I will always be a good wife and bring up niy 1 / I f? ren fo be good, healthy and honest. “stated 'by^Te^esa’proved to he tona who showed her a letter written “ b y Mussolini, containing these s“ that Teresa T.e.a b« me three days to corny ;