Miscellany

• The cry of the ostrich resembles the roar of the lion.

• How wise the locusts are! They have never once thought of betting on the people who bet on them.

• A gambler in Australia wagered everything he owned, and when he found nothing left to gamble with, he gambled his wife — and lost her, of course!

• Princess Elizabeth, heiress to the British throne, receives — under English law — an annual grant of 24,000 shillings, but she lays her hands on nothing more than a meager allowance not exceeding four shillings a week.

• The ancient Greeks were the first to use poison gases in war, when they besieged the city of Megara in the year 470 B.C. and loosed upon it thick clouds of smoke from burning sulfur.

• The scientists who have examined Hitler's voice say that in calm moments it contains 228 vibrations per second, whereas an angry voice does not exceed 220 vibrations!

• Comrade Stalin has a small private wing in the Kremlin palace — the old fortress of the Tsars — but he prefers to it a small house in one of the suburbs, fifteen miles from Moscow; this residence once belonged to one of the Tsars' noblemen.

• Chauvinism is an old doctrine aiming at extreme excess in patriotism; it was originated by one of the commanders in the army of Napoleon I.