All Sorts

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 14, 8 April 1909, Page 558

All Sorts

The average thickness of one of the hairs of the head is about a hundredth part of an inch, and its rate of growth is from, six to seven inches a year. It takes the tusks of three .'elephants to- furnish a complete set of billiard balls — viz., 3 billiard, 16 pyramids, and 12 pool. The Siamese have a horror of odd numbers, and havo never been known to build a house or temple with five, seven, nine, or eleven windows. It is a curious fact that the men attending the pans in salt works are entirely exempt from cholera, smallpox, scarlet fever, and influenza. Fungi give off carbonic acid Jike human beings, and not oxygen, as do other vegetables. This peculiarity is accounted for by the absence of green coloring- matter. ' Dicky,' said his mother, ' when you divided those five caramels with your sister, did you give her three?' ' No, ma. I thought they wouldn't come out even, so I ate one 'fore I began to divide.' In 1907, 536,000 persons were taxed in England on incomes between £160 and £400 ; 50,000 between £400 and £500; 28,000 between £50D and £600; and 14,000 between £600 and £700. Mamma — c Gracious, Willie, I don't see how you cau get so dirty.' Willie — ' Oh, it's easy. Come, out in the back yard and I'll show you.' Near the field of Waterloo a topaz seal set in gold was found in 1895, bearing the arms and motto of Viscount Barrington. It belonged to Ensign Barrington, who was killed at Quatre Bras, June 16, 1815, and lay undiscovered for 80 years. The world's steepest railway has a grade of 70 per cent, at its upper end, and an average grade of 66 per cent. This is a cable tramway up the side of a mountain in Southern Tyrol, Austria.' The length of the line is 945 feet. Pekin, exclusive of its unimportant suburbs, has a population of 693,044 persons, represented by 128,008 families. The children number 173,261, one half of whom aro of school age. The city has 183 schools for boys and seventeen for girls, with a staff of 1200 men teachers and 100 women teachers. The average daily attendance is -16,282 boys and 771 girls. Young Wife (rather nervously) — ' Oh, oook, " I must really speak to you. Your master is always complaining One day it is the soup ,the second day it is the fish, the third day it is the joint — in fact, it is always something or other.' r,r Cook (with feeling) — 'Well, mum, I'm sorry for' you. It must be quite awful to live with a gentleman of that sort.' Some months ago while a great battleship was at Malta one of the seamen divers went down to clear her propeller from some flotsam that had become entangled, and he i'ailod to come up. It chanced that the rest'of the battleship's divers were ashore, and grave concern was felt on the ironclad for the missing worker. Signals by telephone and life-line were sent below without avail. In the. launch above the throb-throb of the air pump' 4 cylinders "went on, but the attendants looked at one another in dismay fearing some strange tragedy deep down in those heaving green seas. The worst was feared \ when some big brushes and other tools came floating to the surface, and thereupon the navigating lieutenant sent ashore an urgent message for one of the other divers. The man came on board, dre,ssed immediately, and went below, only to come up, full of indignation. ' Why, - that, fellow's been asleep this time ! 'he said wrathfully. -It was true. The man ;had just had his lunch, and, finding the work much les3 I serious than he had thought, "he finished it in a few minutes and then sat comfortably on one of the giant blades of the battleship propeller and »\rent to sleep with inquisitive fishes swarming . around him, attracted by the dazzling searchlight on his breast. The officers were -•» much amused at the occurrence that no punishment was inflicted on the lazy one. . - , ' • ,

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