GENERAL NEWS

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 28 February 1913, Page 6

GENERAL NEWS

THE CZAREVITCH'S SWISS TUTOR. It isjnt cresting news that Yverdon, in the Canton of Vaud, has provided tutor for the Czarevitch, The town, though' never the seat of a University, has a great educational reputation, for it was there that Pestalozzi set up his school —so poor a school, in a sen.se, that every scholar was required, every morning, to Hiring a log of wood for tho .warming of the building. The school L house, and the stovo round which the scholars huddled, can still be seen (by tourists. GIRL'S RIDE OX A PORPOISE. Whilst bathing at Ocean Park, near Lois Angeles, a girl, Miss Caroline Kimball by name, had a somewhat unnerving experience. With scores of other bathers, Miss Kimball was near the pier, when a large school of porpoises came rolling in. Not being quite sure a,bout the lisli, Miss Kimball swam for tho Jbeach, when one of the largest dived near her. She jumped, and in doing so (states the New York Herald) got in th e direct path of the porpoise, which carried her along on its back for a short distance. She screamed, and then fainted. Other bather's hurried to her, and she was . carried 'shore. When efforts to revive her failed, she was taken to a surgery, where she did not recover for nearly two hours. ANOTHER QUEER TRADE. The destruction of a billion blackbeetles in one week is a recent record of Ri firm of beetle-destroyers, a business which is worthy of a place in the list of London's queer trades. Mr B. Lewis Phillips, managing director of the firm, which sends men to every part of the world to wage warfare on beetles, has spent many years in laboratory experiments, evolving methods of killing beetles of every variety. "The common cockroach, popularly known as the black-beetle," he said, "increases in an alarming manner if left alone. I have found .millions in buildings that have been empty for only a short period." I CHAUVINISM AND OHATJYIX. An interesting discussion has been 'proceeding in the French press as to ■ the origin of the word "Chauvinism,'' , which is, of course, the rough French equivalent for our "Jingoism." It appears that there was a real Ciiau'vin,- whose Clli'istitui wa? Nicholas, born at Rocliefort, who •sGrvC' 1 all through the wars of the Republic "and the First Empire, received teen wounds, and was rewarded with a sword of honour, a ;bit of red ribbon, and a pension of 200 francs a year. He was the sentinel at the Emperor's door during the short sojourn at Rocliefort which preceded his surrender to England. When the Empire fell he carried off a flag, cut it up into a i pair of sheets for his bed, vowed that lie would die .between those loheets, and kept his word, j A BUFFALO SANCTUARY. , The National Park at Wainwright, Alberta, from which the Dublin Zoological Gardens is receiving a present of two 1 buffaloes, was Tecently set apart by the Canadian. Government as a sanctuary for the herd of buffaloes which was brought from a Montana man who had collected nearly all the bison which still remain on the American Continent. The park itself is one of the largest of the world's 'playgrounds, and the buffalo reservation inside its boundaries comprises no fewer than 165 square miles, enclosed by seventy miles of wire fencing. The Montana herd,' which numbered some 700 animals, cost the Canadian Cover nmost £4 a head, but not all were transferred across the American boundary. Some fifty were left in the .Montana "stamping ground," and these and rather more than 100' in the Yellowstone Park are the only reI presentatives left in the United States of what was once the characteristic species of American fauna.