News Items

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4421, 8 June 1909, Page 1

News Items

The London Fire Brigade guards over £l, worth of insured property. Miss Louise Wilkins, who owns a gold mine at Satsuraa; in Arizona, has lately retired at the age of only 34, with money enough to yield her £4OOO a year for .life. In France there exist superstitious to the effect that to turn a loaf upside down, to put the right boot on first, or to light three cigarettes with the same match means trouble.

Broiled whale, grilled whale blubber, roast Amazon monkey, boa •• constrictor cutlets, and baked Winnipeg porcupine formed the menu of the last annual dinner of the Canadian Camp Club. Of the 2507 horses bought for the British Army last year, 762 were purchased in the United Kingdom, 1605 in Ireland, 58 m the Colonies, 71 in Egypt, and 11 in Northern China,

The “Liberty Bell, 5 ’ most famous of America’s historic relics, which was rung at the old State House in Philadelphia when the Act of Independence was passed, is in serious danger of splitting in two. Recently, one of the crew of a steamer off Eureka, California, was injured, and a message, describing his wounds, was sent to San Francisco. Within an hour a doctor had replied prescribing treatment. At a recent ’cyclists 7 fancy dress parade one lady appeared ii as “ The British Climate,” her costume being festooned with small odds and ends of all kinds, to represent “ a little of everything,” with reference, of course, to the vagaries of th weather:

Champagne requires muck time and care in the making* Altogether a bottle of champagne goes through 200 different operations, covering a-p'olioT' of two and a-half years. And in addition, it is sometimes kept for two or three years longer in the vaults maturing. A Hindoo baby is named when it is 12 days old, and usually by the mother. Sometimes the father wishes for another name than that selected by the mother. In that case two lamps are placed over the two: names, and the name over whick the lamp burns brightest ts the one given to the child. The moment that a young crocodile breaks its shell, it. is to all intents and purposes as active as it is at any time during its life. It will make straight for the water, even if it be out of sight, and a good dis • tauce off, aud it will pursue its prey with eagerness and agility iu the first hour of its free existence.

Throwing shoes at weddings after a newly married couple on their departure for the honeymoon, originated in the old Jewish custom of handing to tilepurchaser of land an old shoe, as a token of surrender or ienunciation. The bride’s parents gave a shoe to the husband, or threw it after him, to ' signify they surrendered to him all authority over their daughter.