All Sorts

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 2, 28 February 1907, Page 38

All Sorts

Cassava starch, more popularly* known as" tapioca, is the chief element of the gum on the" back of all postage stamps'.

Father (who has helped -his son with his hom»- > work) : '/What did "the.- teacher say when equ showed him the sums'? '

'He said I was

.Johnny . every 'day.' The banrboo is not a tropical plant, as commonly supposed. It grows- in regions- where the snows are

so heavy that "they soften break down the young ' stems . and where the . thermometer drops to 15 degrees P. . below the freezing point. The blue ribbon of the shipbuilding world, .which

Messss. Harland and Wolff, Belfast, held for two years,- has passed to Messrs. Swan, Hunter, and Co., NewcastleMan-Tyne, whose output was 126,921 tops last year ,'as compared with 85.111 by the Irish firm.

The searchlight on board the battleship .' Dreadnought ' is of quite a "new type, being double-ended to throw powerful beams of light in exactly opposite directions to facilitate semaphore signalling. Each light is of nearly 50,000 candle-power,, and,* being placed on a high manipulating platform on the top. of " the tripod mast, will be visible" twenty miles away.

The largest distance-, ever compassed, by human vision is 183 mile's, being the distance between the' Uncouiparghe Park, in Colorado, and * Mount Ellen, ,in Utah. This feat * was * accomplished by the surveyors of the. United States Coast 'ami Geodetic Survey, who were engaged, in conjunction, with representatives of other nations, in maMng a new measurement of the earth.

- Bowling is one of the games that originated in the middle ages. The exact date of its introduction „is .obscure, but it has been clearly traced to the thirteenth century.. The first bowling greens were made in tenglanjd. Jn_ bad weather these cotild not be used to "advantage" and this led to the construction of covered bowling alleys.

Newfoundland's cod fisheries gave employment to 70,0.00 persons in l!) 05, during which year 38,037,328 pounds, valued at £241,386, were shipped from Labrador to Europe. That represented about two-thirds of the catch on the Labrador coast, the .remainder being taken to Newfoundland for curing. A Chris tahurch lady who complained to hermilkman of the quality of milk he sold her received - the ioilowing explanation : , ' You see, mum', they don't get enough -grass feed this veiy dry .weather. .Why, them -cows 6' mine are just as sorry about it as I am. ' I often see 'em crying, regular crying, mum, because they feel as how their milk don't do 'em credit.' ''Oh,' responded his customer, 'but I wish in Juture you'd see that they, don't drop their tears into

A French writer, searching a Paris directory, has

discovered that Napoleon and Boileau keep .cafes, Ro- - bespierrp makes brick fuel, Racine sells hay and corn, ,, XJ Jtfoliepe'is a t a Mor, aaid Hugo a dentist. Frtomj the 'London Directory ' lie learns that Oliver Cromwell lets furnished apartments, Luther keeps., a restaurant, and Shakes-peare is a coachbuilder, and a cabi-net-mafoer. In! Berlin?, he . says, Go^he, is a 'barber, and Kant keeps a registry office. Had He- consulted a New Zealand directory he would have found ..that Julius Caesar fio/ljlows the pe&peful pursuit of , farming in this - Colony: - An illuminating report on ' the condition of the women chainmakers in the Black Country has. been issued -by Mr."~~T. Sitch, the secretary of the newly-formed ChaiHi-iu&kers' and- Chiaijn-s tinkers Association. Mr. Sitch, who) lately has been devoting a- considerable portion of his time to investigations, states : ' I found ■ such a scandalous state- of things as was simply astounding.' As to the earnings of the women, he says some of them made about 4s to- 5s per week- as an average for a week of hard work and long hours. A lew made 6s or 7s, and a still smaller number, who made superior qualities of work, got as' much as 10s. • Ifo1 f o- my- mind,' he adds, .'..the "most painful- part is I found that "some of these poor souls were making this work for persons who profess""to be Christians, and many of them taking part in religious observances. 1