All Sorts

New Zealand Tablet, 20 September 1906, Page 38

All Sorts

Nearly forty per cent, .of the population of Siberia •*are Russian exiles. ' .. g * Some time ago, a party of friends travelling by a tramcarhad occasion to ask the starter on a certain line how often the cars ran, to which question he made the following reply: 'Quarter arter, half after, quarter to, and at.' . There are a good many things of which even the - very poor may get more than is sufficient. A tired and weary man fell from utter and sheer — faintness by the roadside. A crowd gathered round immediately, when an officious individual hurried forward, shouting ; Stand hack ! Give 'him air ! ' The fainting man rallied and sat up. "Air !' he gasped. ; Give me air. Why, gentlemen, I've had nothing but air for the last fortnight.' When Princess Alexandra left Denmark forty-three years ago to become the bride of the Prince of Wales the Danish people, determining that their idolized Princess should not go dowerless to her Pvoyal husband subscribed 100,000 kroner, which they presented to her, ' as ' the people's dowry.' By the Princess's own wish | 3000 thalers were set apart to form the dowers of six Danish maidens of the poorer classes who became brides in the same year as herself. There is now at Sandy Hook proving grounds the biggest cannon ever turned out in the world. Not even the Krupp gunworks of Germany have ever dreamed of making such a gun. The weapon referred to is 20yds. long, and weighs 13 tons. The projectile discharged by this monster is 16in. in diameter and sft. long, and weighs 1£ tons. The charge of smokeless powder is of 10001 b weight, and when the projectile leaves the muzzle it is travelling at the rate of 2300 ft. a second. The cost of each shot fired is £300. The heavy demand for alligator skin has been such that it is estimated that from 1890 to 1900 3 000,000 alligators were killed in the State of Florida alone. The result is that the alligator is rapidly becoming extinct, and with a view to keeping up the supply Mr. H. I. Campbell, the famous sportsman, has established an alligator farm in Arkansas, where hundreds of the saurians, ranging in size from babies iust hatched— scarcely longer than lizards— to 15ft. patriarchs, 200 years old, may be seen and purchased. A curious plan is adopted ,by the public schools of several Continental cities for the inculcation of economy. In Brussels the children are requested by their teachers to pick up on their way to school such apparently useless articles as empty paint tubes, scraps of metal, tin cans, bits of tin foil, etc. In eight months the following amounts were collected : Tin foil, 1925 pounds ; old paint tubes, 220 pounds ; bottle capsules, 4415 pounds ; scraps of metal, 1221 pounds ; total, 7781 pounds. The whole of this apparent rubbish was disposed of, and the proceeds were applied so as to clothe 500 poor children completely and send 90 invalids to hospitals and convalescent homes, and there still remained a considerable balance, which was distributed among the sick poor of the city. The Manchester and Salford Savings Bank have hit upon a new means for encouraging thrift. They propose to loan to their customers substantially • made steel safes, with a slot arrangement -which permits of the deposit of all sizes of coin, but prevents its removal except at the bank. The customer, in short, has the safe, but the bank keeps the key. The safe will be loaned, at a rent of Is per year, to any persons depositing ss, credit for which will be given in a pass-book. In consideration of. loaning the safe the bank expects a deposit of savings about once a montlu The idea is that people who hesitate to go to the bank with small amounts will drop their coins into, the safe whenever they can spare them. * Now, sir,' said the cross-examining counsel, ' answer "Yes" or "No." The Court does"' not want to know what you- supposed. I - supposed that I had my watch in my pocket .this morning,- but as a matter of fact I had left it on "my dressing-room table. The Court wants facts, sir, riot supposition.' -The witness did not quibble any more, and the case ; went quietly on. But when the lawyer arrived home , that evening the wife of his bosom said to him :— - h ' You must have been anxious about your watch to send four men after it— one after the other.' ' What ! ' cried the lawyer, as a suspicion crossed his mind: ' Did you give it up to any of them ?' 'Of course ! ' she said. • I gave if to the first who called. Why, he actually knew where you left W