FIVE QUEER PLACES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 166, 7 August 1909, Page 4

FIVE QUEER PLACES.

, Doubtless the most unique spot h Europe is the little village of Altenberg, , where on its borders four countries meet It. is ruled by no monarch, has no soldiers, no police, and no taxes. Its inhabitants speak a curious jargon of French and Herman combined, and spend their days in farming the land or working in the valuable coalmine of which it boasts. The little town of Stanley, in the Falkland Islands, possesses ' the mosl unique school ever known. Two travelling schoolmasters are provided by the Cm-eminent, who visit the dilVercnl. families where there are children and give instruction. The length of their visit depends on tin: astuteness of the i children, and they may spend days or weeks, as the ease mav be, at one bouse alone. A town boasting of a railway station which cost C-10110 to erect, and a dulyappointed stationmaster, and yet having no train service, is unique beyond dispute. Dundee, in Xew Jersey, is in this predicament, the inhabitants 'having actually no trains, although their line statioa is available for auv amount of traffic. The reason given'for this strange fact is that so long as the trains run through the inhabitants ought to be satisfied. There is a place in the middle of tile I'licilic Ocean, well known to mariners, where there is never anv Christinas Din-. This is owing (o its being in the ■ hundred and eightieth degree of 'ude and directly opposite to . Cie. .iwich, and therefore ,t>velvc bonis I ahead of Occnwicli time. In ;i journey around the globe the other twelve hour's would have to be marked out of the navigator's calendar, and if this point crossing the Antipodes is touched on Christmas Eve then there can he im Christmas Dav. In one of" the West India islands there is a ci.lonv of some 800 whites and blacks where '''"re are neither towns nor villages nor fresh-water supplies. In fact, there is such n scarcity of everything that the Government has to s-iiil food 1 and employment to the inhabitant,.; , to keen them from starving. Salt fish and sweet potatoes are the staple foods of the Anguillas, and the only wal-.' obtainable is brackish and tainted !;v the sea.