From Many Lands

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 956, 26 April 1930, Page 21

From Many Lands

TABLOID READING FOR THE WEEK.ENn.

THE RIGHT IDEA

CUSHIONS FOR STUDENTS Professor Baker Brownell, of the department of sociology and literature. North-western University, 1. .S.A., would take the backache out of education. He told a class in modern life and letter that he would like Morris chairs, upholstered window seats and plenty of cushions for them. A CHAMPION LINGUIST SPOKE 45 LANGUAGES Emil Krebs, who was attached to the German Foreign Office and who died at the age of 63, spoke 45 languages and understood 20 more. While he was dragoman at the German Legation at Peking, the Chinese received a letter from a rebel Mongolian tribe. No Chinaman could translate it, so it was handed to Krebs, who transcribed it easil3\ It is stated that Krebs replaced 30 specialists. RUBY LIPS ( COST GERMAN WOMEN £500,000 Germany imported last year 524 tons of lipstick. The cost of this grease for colouring the lips of German women carmine, sealing-wax, tera-cotta, or magenta, according to taste, was £350,000. Lipsticks are manufactured in Germany, and are so good that thousands of pounds’ worth are exported to England. It may therefore be assumed, pending the publication of further statistical material, that the actual cost of keeping the lips of the women in Germany red is in the neighbourhood of £500,000. v A WEEVIL ARMY PUTS JURORS TO ROUT An army of weevils, crawling out from cases of raisins and coconuts, which were exhibits in a trial at Sydney Sessions recently, looked at one time as if it would put the jury to rout. The weevils in scores climbed up the wall of the jury box and the jurors jumped to their feet and backed away from the invading army. In great alarm the jurors informed the Judge of the attack and his Honour hurriedly gave orders for the cases of stores to be removed to a position away from the jury box. After the jury retired officials, armed with pieces of rolled up blotting paper, made a vigorous onslaught on the weevils, which were moving in force toward the judge's bench. THE BENEFITS OF FURTING t SAVE WOMAN’S LIFE Because two boys flirted with her, Betty Wilson, of Chicago, is recovering from an attempt to take her own life. Angered because her husband had refused to take her to a theatre, she went to Lincoln Park, swallowed poison, lighted a cigarette and awaited death on a park bench. Two young men approached and attempted to flirt, “Go away,” she said, “I’m here to die.” The youths ran to the police, who took Mrs. Wilson to a hospital. “THE LAW’S A HASS’* A QUESTION OF EGGS An honest boy found 71 eggs on common land at Boness (Scotland) and took them to the police station. The sergeant pointed out that by law they must remain in the station for six months in case the rightful owner claimed them. He therefore told the boy to return in September and get them it they were not previously claimed. Meanwhile the police are preparing for eventualities and contemplate selecting alternative accommodation either for themselves or the eggs. A WEDDING BUT NO HONEYMOON Unless some way can be found to prevent it, a Melbourne girl is faced with the possibility of a term in gaol Immediately after her marriage. When she appeared at the City Court recently on a charge of shoplifting, a young man from the body of the court offered to marry her immediately. The magistrate, however, pointed out that the girl had been sentenced to seven days’ gaol previously for a similar offence and could not therefore be treated as a first offender. He could not let her out on bond, but would adjourn the case to allow the couple to get married. AIR TRAVEL CHEAPER FOR BUSINESS MEN Air-taxis, which can be hired at a fee as low as 5d a mile for each oassenger, avq becoming increasingly popular with business men and tourists who have to make sudden journeys to ail parts of Kurope. In the six years in which it has been open in London the air-taxi booking office established by Imperial Airways has arranged many such flights. Not only small air-taxis, but also large triple-screw Armstrong-Siddeley air-liners, capable of carrying 20 passengers, can be hired. Imperial Airways are operating the only multi-engined air-taxi in England, a Westland monoplane with three Cirrus Hermes engines. Business men have found that at 5d a mile a jourey to remote places in Europe may cost less than a boat and train journey, with many stops, involving hotel expense.

THE CAT AND THE MOUSE

A GAME OF PATIENCE Recently the cat at the North Sydney Police Station, which runs down rats and mice while its masters run down law-breakers, chased a mouse from the building. The mouse scampered up a telegraph pole with the cat in hot pursuit. The mouse perched itself perilously on the end of a cross bar with the cat on another. All day long they watched each other and at a late hour that night were still at their posts. THE DEAD HAND A SHOEMAKER'S DISEASE Known as the “dead hand,” a strange disease is being investigated by medical officers of health in the county of Northampton. The disease is confined exclusively to men operating a machine called a “pounder,” which exerts a great pressure on the sole of a boot or shoe in the making. The operative's hand is normal as long as the machine is being worked, but a few minutes after ceasing work it goes “dead,” assuming a bloodless appearance and losing all sense of feeling. The disease had spread to all the Continental bootmaking centres. PLUCKY ACTION GIRL SAVES HER LIFE Gwen Robb, 16, of Nimbin, is an Australian girl who knows how to act when in danger. Walking alone in a paddock a mile from her home, she trod on a black snake, which coiled round her leg and bit her several times between the ankle and the knee. Knowing that she must act promptly she tore up portion of her underclothing for ligatures, and scarified the bites with the aid of a pin, the only sharp thing she could find. Then she limped a mile to a neighbour’s house, and was taken to hospital. Through her plucky action she escaped with only shock. BIBLE IN VERSE " ACHIEVEMENT OF AGED MAN The entire Bible has been rewritten into poetry, making 6,000 closely written pages, six sacks full of manuscript, by William Houston, 76 years old, a working man of Cincinnati, U.S.A. Houston’s Bible is a rhymed version of the historic Bishop Bible which dates back to 1537. He has studied all the old Bibles in the Public Library in Cincinnati and knows thousands of lines by heart. His verse is the old-fashioned “rhyme royal,” with stanzas of seven lines, and in the quaint English of hundreds of years ago, which he mastered by studies of Chaucer and Spenser. PERFECT PEARL VALUED AT £150,000 A pearl said to be worth £150,000 and the most superb specimen in the world, is now in possession of a London firm. It was fished by divers in the Persian Gulf and came by way of India. “Experts with the greatest knowledge of pearls say it Is the biggest absolutely perfect pearl they have ever seen,” said the secretary of the National Jewellers’ Association. “It is certain there is not another like it in the whole world. It Is one of nature’s miracles. There are pearls In England that are bigger, but in quality they cannot equal this one. The pearl is flawless, with a clear, lustrous beauty which excites wonder in all who see it, “NUDE SWIMMING** PERTH CROWD HOAXED “Come and see a swimming race in the nude!" bawled “spruikers” outside the Pavilion Theatre in Perth. Baldheads and young bloods alike elbowed their way to the entrance to pay their money. They were escorted down a long passage and into a room, in the centre of which was a table, on which was a saucer of water with two wooden matches floating on top. The crowd took the hoax goodhumouredly, as the proceeds were in aid of the movies’ entrant for the Queen Charity carnival, and they passed outside to assist in securing other victims. NO PAINT OR POWDERS GARB FOR FEMALE CLERKS In the future it will be unnecessary for any Rumanian gallant to address to any female employee of the Ministry of Agriculture the old query, “Where are you going, my pretty maid?” Her dress alone will furnish the information that she is not going a-milking, but is going to keep the records of milking and other agricultural pursuits. The Minister of Agriculture has ordered that all female employees of the Ministry shall wear black, apronlike dresses, tightly closed at the neck and extending to the ankles and to the wrists, where they must be tightly closed also.

Powder, rouge, lipsticks and other cosmetics may not be used by the female employees of this Ministry. Any detected disobedience will be punishable by instant dismissal. This order, in a city which proudly claims the title “the Paris of the Balkans,” seems to be a trifle hard, especially as certain members of the Rumanian Officers’ Corps are reported to be not entirely ignorant of the value of powder and perfume as aids to manly beauty.