GENERAL NEWS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 28 March 1913, Page 5

GENERAL NEWS.

LAUNCHING AEROPLANES FROM CATAPULTS. Captain Washington I. Chamber's, of the United States Navy, some I tie while back started the idea of: evolving a "catapult" for launching, aeroplanes 1 from warships, the. long, platform system being much of a, Peace concern, and, however designed,, bound to interfere with the guns (says, an English journal). The Chambers invention, in its perfected form, consists of a species of railway about thirty-five feet long, fixed on top of a turret in the centre. A car rtfns along this at very high speed with compressed air as its motive power. The aeroplane's floats rest on. the car, and so when the cso? comes to the end of its travel the aeroplane is shot into the air. There islittle doubt that a device more or less similar to this mil soon be an ordinary fitting to every big ship. The advantage of mounting on a turret is that the plane can be discharged in whatever direction may be most convenient. There is a long and interesting illustrated account of it in the current "Engineer."

DIVORCE IN BABYLON. That divorce with iflimony -was a common occurence in the year 2230 B.C. is the discovery of the Rev. Samuel Mercer, of the Western theological Seminary of Chicago, who has been devoting many years to completing translations of Babylonian cuniform inscriptions. According to Dr Mercer, many prominent citizens of Babylon in the reign of Hammurabi were granted divorces, and scandal and gossip were just as rife in those days as they are to-day. A Babylonian in 2230 8.C., having obtained a divorce, would pay liberal alimony to the wife, and proclaim broadcast that, should any one marry the divorcee, he would' not object. ''Marriage contracts," Dr Mercer is quoted by the "Telegraph" as saying, "made provisions for possible disagreement and divorce. If a husband deserted his wife he ivas obliged to pay; if a wife took a dislike to her husband she was to receive physical punishment-. In some contracts provision was ;made for t3ieloare of parents ; .by l .newly /marrfed couples."

SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON ONE FARM. Remarkable long-service records are to be found among the labourers on the farm of Mr F. 0. Falkner, at Dippenhall, near Farnham, on the Hampshire and Surrey borders (says the "Evening Standard"). The most notable is Daniel Wilkinson. He is eighty-five, and has been employed on the farm for seventy-five years. He is still at work there, starting at 7 a.m. every day, and keeps on until five o'clock in the evening. His father worked on the same farm and died at work when between eighty and ninety years of age. Asked if he had ever -lived anywhere else, Wilkinson replied : "No, I've never rambled about. I started here when I was nine years of age, and I've been here ever since. My wife (who is still alive) and I liave had twelve children. Ten of them are alive, and one girl has been at home with us for forty years, having been paralysed ever since she was-a child, now we have old age pensions, and wo are able to rub along." Another remarkable old labourer at Dipponhall is Sanvuel Lawerence, agen eighty-eight, who worked for Mr Falkner's grandfather, but he is no longer at work, having given up a few years ago, George Miles is seventy-seven, and has spent all his working life on the farw x A collection of rare mice, valued by connoisseurs at £ISOO, has been on view at Chicago under the auspices of the American Mouse Club. More than a thousand curious specimens of the small rodent were on view, the "Express" says. The ordinary domestic nibbler was, of cou' se, not represented, the collection consisting solely of freaks in colouring and size. On© of the exhibits, a specimen not much larger than a cricket,' of Siberian origin, .secured the first prize. Its owner was Mr Bernard -E. Smith, of Galveston.