GENERAL NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8046, 9 February 1906, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS.

The daughter of the President of America, " a clever shot with a ritle. * * • The King of Kiam is an expert cook. He personally prepares menus whenever a State dinner takes place. * • # The Sultan of Turkey objects to darkness and his apartments in the palace and surrounding gardens are well Hooded with light every night. " Signed " with 3,511 thumb-marks, a petition of the Sioux Indians will shortlv be submitted to President ltoosevelt at Washington. * « t A travelling pawnshop, consisting of a big red motor-oar adorned with three golden balls, is the latest development of American Turf enterprise. The liigbt Hon. Win. Gully, K. G., who bas resigned from the position of Speaker of the House of Commons, will receive a pension of £4,000 per annum. Formerly a Speaker's pension £2,000 per annum for two lives. One Speaker, however, who was without any children, wished that the pension should be £4,000 a year for one life—his own—and it has since remained at that sum. " Lord Curzon has decided to restore the famous throne of Delhi, and has written to the British Ambassador asking him to find artists capable of continuing the work which Italian artists began three centuries ago. The Ambassador entrusted the task to Mr. Bagot, who has found the man he wanted in one of the greatest Florentine artists in hard stones."

In the Island of Luzon, one of the Philippines, a lily of tulip with a black flower eight or nine inches across, has been discovered by an American. It flowers before the leaves appear, and has an odour of tainted flesh, which attracts insects to it for the purpose of cross fertilisation. It stands under a foot high, and grows in the shade of dense vegetation. Altogether it upsets our notions of the pure lily, and reminds us of tho obscene vulture among birds. A Itussian timber dealer has discovered a valuable mine of oak. It exists in a river of South Russia, in layers three or four feet deep, scattered ovor 150 square miles, and its most striking feature is its variety of colours supposed to be due to the variegated soil of the river bottom. Not fewer than twelve shades of pink, blue, yellow, and brown, have been noted, each log having its own uniform shade. The logs taken out have ranged from forty to 200 feet in length, and from fifteen to twenty inches in diameter, and it is estimated that more than 150,000, averaging seventy feet, remain.

In Polynesia, and tho Pacific islands generally, the outer husk of the cocoa-nut is braided into strands of uniform texture, known to the natives as sennit, and used by them for a variety of purposes. The framework of their bouses is held together by braided sennit, aud the strakes of their boats are united by it. It is the staple from which string is made to bind the adze blade to its handle, and to tie the different parts of their Implements securely together. In short, whatever things are nailed or screwed, or pegged or glued, in other lands, are tied together with sennit by the South Sea Islauder.

In the Japan Sea, about three nautical miles to the South of Iwo Island, a new Island made its apperance recently as the result of a volcanic eruption. The new island is about two and three-quarter miles in circumference, and 180 feet above the. surface of the water. There is a boiling lake at the northern end and a precipitous mass of rock at the southern end, covered with a thick layer of earth. On the highest point of the island a pole was raised with the Japanese fiag mid an inscription : " Xew place. Great Japan. Many hanzais." The discovery has been reported to the Governor of Lonin Island, who has named it Nushima.

Hone really got to the Pole he would, in common parlance, be utterly " at sen," simply because at the Tele there is no possibility of ascertaining one's whereabouts. Hiscompletely changed position would be accounted for by the fact that when stationed at the I'ole the direction to the north would be found to coincide with Ihe line to the zenith —that is, to the point, exactly above us. Hence an astronomical determination of the locality according to latitude and longitude is altogether precluded. The same may he said as regards determining one's bearings in any direction. The compass, too, will fail there, because its horizontal intensity is so slight as to preclude the possibility of its action. Worse than all the rest one cannot count the passing hours there. There is no criterion for determining the time of day.

■ Self denial is as important to financial success as it is to health. The man who has a Bound body and a sound fortune at fifty can ' trace both quickly to this same under lying and ever-active cause. Later success conies I from early saving, and the man who is going '. to win a large fortune, and, what is equally important, be able to l;eep it, must learn early what it is to have a bank account, and what careful investment means. The man who can save a tew pounds a year and invest it in the safest and most remunerative way has already mastered the essential character of the problem, and is further along the road to wealth than he may imagine. What you earn at the start matters little. The important question is '• How much do you save ? " Once you have established the saving habit, the rest will be ea6y and your fortune will grow. » • • . The man who is too lazy to work keeps out of Holland if he is wise, or makes his escape as soon as ho discovers that there, at least, a means has been found to make him work. When a prisoner or pauper refuses to work be is lowered into a cistern, which is provided with a pump at the bottom. A stream of water is turned on and the idler is left to his own devices. The capacity of the pump is but silghtly in excess of the stream Mowing into the lank, and to keep his head above water he must keep pumping. Asa rule, ho spends some little time before he linds that the water is slowly creeping upon him. He is not jrgedtogoto work, but presently he takes his (.lace at the handle and begin.? the task. By working quickly he is able to clear out the water after a short time, but he has to keep at work if ho wiihea to keep his feet dry. Men whuMiavcjlhriicrlu'.-.-hniihllicin. I'm■ meil of thexcollcnrc anil siiiuiilh.nilliiiK -Mialitk-s of ll«- -Kiwi" ra.-.nr-i. Han. mi even li;!ii|»'r, oxlraorilinai v keenness uf edge, ilo not vibrate when culling; inlo an extraordinary heavy beard, and give ymi a clean, luxurious >ii;i\.-. ran if um'iiavc the loucliii'M >kin. .Make me prove these. slatcmciiK 1 will change your razor as often as you like until v,m are salislie.d. KIWI is the name. tic-fit aid. Avery s, the place for men's sundry needs, Devon slreet.-KAuvi