All Sorts

New Zealand Tablet, 6 December 1906, Page 38

All Sorts

In 1875 the United States possessed a population •- between 40,000,000 and -15,000,000. It has doubled in . thirty years. The length of ,tinie elapsing between the issue of a~ Bank of England -note and its return, varies curiously A thousand pound .note's 'life' is fifty-five days'; the ltfo of a hundred pound -ten pound note., fifty-eight days, and of a five pound note i sixty-two days. New trigonometric, measurements in Nepal, India made by an English-surveyor, show that Mount "Everest is 29,142' feet high, or 140 feet higher than it'was supposed to be, and much the highest mountain in the world. Mount Everest is found to be north of the Himalaya range and not part of it, as has been sup■ppsed It is a member of a gftup of peaks that are/ not Himalayan. £. worth y bul, somewhat pompous 'member of" a » North Island school committee, addressing the pupils at s the annual breaking-up ceremony, said :—' My younei friends, let me urge upon you 'the necessity of "not only reading good books, but also of owning them, so- that you may have access to them at all times. Why, when* I was a young man- I used frequently to work all night to earn money to buy books, and then get up before daylight -to read them!' ' Among the Israelites, the delivery oE a shoe was _ used -as a testimony in transferring a possession A shoe was cliawn oil and handed to a neighbor ' ami that was a testimony in Israel. shoe on property was a sign of new ownership, as, '~lnto Mom will I stretch out my shoe,' Ps. ftx. 10. From " this came the custom in England of throwing an old shoe after a bride, as a .symbol that Ihe parents gave up a-11 authority over their daughter. -In Turkey after marriage a biidcgroom is pelted with slippers as he, leaves with his~ bride. - » "* . It is regarded by patriotic Englishmen as a grave reflection on one country's horticultural prestige that the highest piizes at the National Rose Society's Show at) Westminster should be cariied off not by •English, but by Irish groweis "{says the London correspondent of the ' Freeman's Journal '). The only now roses that gained the gold medal, the highest distinction in the rose-growing world, was the * Mrs Page Roberts,' exhibited by Messrs. A. Dickson ~and Sons, Newtownarids, and the ■« Mrs. Stewart Clark ' grown by Mr. Hugh Dickson, Belfast. The first was ' a.■ salmon pink shaded tea lose, and "the second a tea lose of a novel - magenta shade. It is evident that" there is something in the soil and climate of Ulster : especially favoiable to the'production of roses. ■ There are domestic fires burning in Yorkshire today which have never-been out for hundreds* of years At the old-fashioned farm-houses in the. dales of York-shire-peat is still burnt. The fuel is obtained 'from the moors and stocks >of it are- kept by the farmers in ' their stack garths. . The country round - -about is noted for Us 'girdle cakes,' which are baked from dough baked in quaint pans suspended over the peat fires. These fires are kept glowing from generation v to generation, and the son warms himself at the fire which warmed his sire and his .grandsire and his grandsn-e s sue. Tlmie is a fiie at Castleton, in the Whitby district, which has been burning for over 200 years The record, piobably, is held by a faVmJiouse ' at- Osmotheiiey, \n the'same district.«* This fir© has been burning for 500 years, and there are records to show that it has not been out for" three centuries. Dr. Schmidt, a German medical man who assisted at the last Olympian games in Athens, has published some very curious results of scientific observations made.-by him on that occasion. It, appears that he , examined the hearts of the German athletes before they engaged in the. competitions, and that, having found them to .be of abnormal size, he came to the —conclusion that they had •no chance *n- contests re- <_ quiring great energy and -endurance: His, conclusion proved to be right. Yet one cannot help remembering that when the greatest lacehorse ever known -Eclipse, was opened its death, 'it was found td " have a heart something like double, 'or more than double the size oE the hearts of the many competi- ' tors it -had beaten during its wonderful career. Dr Schmidt found that the American athletes had hearts - smaller than tho smallest hearts ever measured in a - Grerman hospital ; and the Americans . did well Dr Schmidt attributes the enlarged hearts of his fellow- - countrymen to a wrong _ system of training and iniuvdioioT»* living. . & J -