News Items

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4371, 9 February 1909, Page 1

News Items

Eight olive-trees on the Mount of Olives,, near Jerusalem, are known to have existed in 1099, over 800 years ago.

Out of 1000 men who marry, 332 marry younger women, 579 marry women of the same age, and 89 marry older women.

In England professional runners arid boxers may play as amateur footballers ; but professional footballers cannot box or run as amateurs. t

Over 19,000 applications have already been' made in England for small holdings, of a total acreage of more than 300,000 acres. 7 t N,

During the past seven years ■ accidents have caused ithe loss \of about £2,000,000 worth of | British ships of war, including i guns and naval ordnance storefcjj 1 Our mercantile marine, which forms more than one-half of the : whole world’s shipping, brings i Britain in about £90,000,000 ! every year.

An egg expands when frozen to such an extent-that its'increased bulk breaks the shell. Apples, on the other hand, contract to a very noticeable degree. •

According to the best statistics available, 77 per cent of actual crime go js unpuuished, While 40,000 persons are at large known to be thieves, receivers of stolen goods, or otherwise under suspicion of the

police. All the flags for British ships of war, except the Koval standards, are made in the Government dockyards, and the enormous number required may be judged from the fact that at Chatham alone about 18,000 flags are made in a year.

Housewives in Florida scrub their floors with oranges. They cut the oranges in halves, a!nu rub the flat exposed pulp the floor. The acid in the' oranges does the cleansing, and the boards are said to be as white as snow after the applica-_ tion.

In Switzerland they are mak- 1 ing clocks which do not need hands and faces. The clock merely stands in the hall, and you press a button in its stomach, when, by means of the 1 phonographic internal ments, it calls out “ Half-past six ” or u Twenty three minutes to eleven,” as the case may be. ; An average working - class family consumes in a week the following quantities of selected commodities : Tea, 61b ; sugar, cheese, fib ; butter, 2lb; potatoes,,l7lb; flour, 101 b; breid, 221 b , milk, 10 pints; meat, 6|lb ; coal, 2c wt,

Gold in transit by sea sweats, however tightly it may be packed. It is usually sent ia stout kegs, and squeezed in as tightly as possible; but there is a regular allowance h-r loss bv attrition upon the voyage, and in the course of years this loss to the commercial world amounts to a large sum. Royal Commissions are now sitting for the pu'poses of inquiring into the Four Law, Canals, Mini rs, Vivisection,' Ohureh in Wales, Lind Tran *» fer, and Ancient Monuments.