From the Evening News, July 9, 1904: SOME 3,000 Chicago school children were recently required to write answers to this question.

Louisa M. Alcott's juvenile classic "Little Women" headed the tabulated list of replies and "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was second.

SIR Hiram Maxim, speaking at Southport yesterday, said that it was only a question of going fast enough to enable a flying machine to be perfect. He did not say that a flying machine would ever cross the Atlantic, but he aspired to go at the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour and return to a starting point and this would revolutionise military warfare.

From the Evening News, July 10, 1954: ALARM among Lancashire cotton firms at the increasing volume of cotton cloth entering Britain from India will be expressed in the Commons by Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke, Conservative MP for Darwen, in an adjournment debate on Monday. Telegrams of protest reached the President of the Board of Trade yesterday from the Cotton Board's Standing Conference on Overseas Trade.

THE National Savings movement is firmly established in Bolton. This week Ald James Parkes, the deputy Mayor, received a letter from the chairman of the National Savings Committee, Lord Mackintosh of Halifax, congratulating him on the fact that Bolton is one of 39 constituencies in England and Wales which has a group membership of more than 20 per cent of the population.

From the Evening News, July 10, 1979: MORE than 2,000 people crowded into Moss Bank Park, Bolton, to get the annual Family Holiday Week off to a flying start. The most successful event was the disco dancing competition, which attracted about 250 budding John Travoltas. Novelty events including welly-throwing and sack racing for dads, a rolling pin throwing contest and a hoop race for mums.

VICARS' wives work long hours for no pay and live in comparative poverty. The Rt Rev Cyril Bowles, the Bishop of Derby, says in his diocesan news that they have to be cook, cleaner, receptionist, messenger and adviser.are nearly 1,200 savings groups in the town. He says the church and the nation need to take note of the special contribution of wives whose chief place of work and community service is their home.

From the Evening News, July 10, 1994: COUNCIL chiefs are to step up security at the vandal-hit car park at Horwich Leisure Centre. They have been inundated with complaints from sports centre users who have had their cars broken into or damaged. A report will recommend that 24-hour security is provided.MEMBERS of the Bolton Breakers' Club took a break from the radio airwaves to cycle 48 miles from Bolton to Blackpool. Riders who have been nicknamed "Blobbys" - because of podgy features built up during hours of CB inactivity - hope to have raised nearly £500 for the Princess Anne special care baby unit at Bolton General Hospital.