News Items

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4400, 20 April 1909, Page 1

News Items

The first iron wire was drawn] atNuremburg in 145 J . I The torpedo was the invent? I ion of Dr Busiinell in 1777. | Sixty per cent, of all the! sugar in the world is extraotedl from beetroot. ’jg|l The average weight of 'a] grown man is 1401 b. 60z.; tliei weight of his skeleton is only I 141 b. m The famous Niagara Ealls I were recently icebound and it I was possible to walk half way across. On the Alps is an hotel which, to save its guests the fatigue in lifting cups, plates, etc:,] makes these articles of paper mache . : 111 The word “ infantry ” was first used by the Spaniards ti& designate the bodyguard of jpgij “ Infante, ” or heir to the j Spanish throne. .The greatest depth to which a submarine boat is known to have decended under full controland without injury is 138 feet. An old Greek law provided that if a man divorced his wife he could not marry a younger woman than the discarded partner.

The letters delivered in Lon don on Monday are 30 per cent more numerous than those 5 delivered on any other day of the week. Jj| The Japanese governing authorities are devoting at# \ tention to the improvement of 1 their poultry. Experiments j have shown that Minorcas and j Andalusians are the best breeds suited to the Japanese purpose. | Thibet is beginning to show longings for the amenities of ; western civilisation. The tk forbidden city of Lhassa has 1 just placed a contract with aJ Calcutta firm to supply a , number of European band in* ; strumeuts. In Holland a woman is a I secondary consideration and a poor consideration at that. ■ No Dutch gentleman, when i walking on the pavement, will * move out of his way for a lady..; The latter makes way invari- j ably, however muddy or danger- jj ous the street.

Id many countries ' the rain* 1 i bow is spoken of as a great j bent pump or siphon tubo ; drawing water from the earth | by mechanical means. In i parts of Eussia, in the Don country, and also in Moscow 1 and vicinity, it is known by a name which is equivalent to J the bent water-pipe.’ Parochial registers of birth&s. and deaths were started in the | year 1538. •

Widows in Great Britain outnumber widowers by almost exactly two to one*.

Gold in transit across the Audntic “ sweats, ” no matter how tightly it migh be packed. '1 It is usually sent iu si out keys | and squeezed in as tight as 1 possible; but ther i> < regular allowance for loss b . ttrition | upon the voyage, an » in the course of years this loss to the % commercial world amounts to a 1 large sum. -■ • • The largest mass of ice in the world is probably the one which, fills up nearly the whole of the interior of Greenland, where' it has accumulated since before the dawn of history. It is be- 4 lieved to form a block 600,000 square miles in area, and to average a mile and a-half in thickness. /^\ ■