INTERESTING ITEMS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 337, 15 February 1911, Page 3

INTERESTING ITEMS.

; There are 3", 040 motor cars in London, while 157,402 people hold licenses to drive. The two brothers Vunneutelli, both cardinals, have just celebrated the golden jubilee of their priesthood at ! Rome. ! Luke Spitfire confessed at the Blackburn Police Court that lie had ' been in prison more than 1000 times. , Newcastle-on-Tync Post Ofnce broke . previous records recently by selling £25,000 worth of stamps at the h?ad office in one week'. About £17,000 has now been received at the Mansion House towards the fund for providing a memorial in London to King Edward. I The Governor of Mauretius reports I to the Colonial Office, that there were j 27 cases of plague in one week the j number of deaths being 18. An order of some ,£420,000 for artillery for the Chilian Government has been placed with Krupp and Co., reports the American Consul at Valparaiso. Boring operations which have been carried on near Bridgewater for some time at a cost of £6OOO in the hope of finding coal, have been abandoned. Mr James Lynch, of Ballinclare House, Comolan, County Wexford, left property valued at £20,837, of which £ISOOO goes to various charitable institutions in Ireland. The population of Russia in Europe and Asia, which was 74,536,300 in 1858 was 160,095,200 on January Ist, 19D9 according to official statistics just published. Thousands of sheep all over France are suffering from a terrible epidemic which is killing them off in entire flocks. There will be practically no lambs at the end of next month. The Board of Education has decided to reduce its grant to the London County Council from £50,000 to £40,000 for non-compliance with certain of the Board's demands. According to a statement made by Mr Herbert Smith, of Toronto, there are 21,000,000 horses in the United States—a record number —and prices have never been so high. With symptons of strychine poisoning, six dogs have recently been found suffering from illness at Merton Park, near Wimbleton, where there have lately been several burglaries. According to the census which has just been taken, all the large towns in Switzerland show an immense increase during the last ten years, and in some it is as high as 25 per cent. About seventeen suffragettes spent Christmas in Holloway Gaol. They were allowed to receive Christmas hampers of turkey pudding and cake and to wear their ordinary clothes. Four children oc one family, named Luesby, at Gosberton, Lincolnshire, have attended school without a single absence, one for seven years, two for six years and one for five years. Only 21 per cent, of the population of 116,505, 500 in European Russia can read and write, it is stated in the official statistics, just published, of the population on January Ist, 1909.

Two million children, it is reported, die yearly in the fifty provinces of Russia before reaching the age of twelve months, and the mortality in the villages is as high as that in the cities. The King will shortly present the Edward Medal "for valour in the mine," to those brave miners who risked their lives in the vain attempt to save their comrades imprisoned in the Bolton colliery. In the last three years 840 locomotives have been withdrawn from service on the Russian State railways, and it has been decided to fix the maximum life of a locomotive at twenty-five years for the future. Divorces to the number of 224 were granted by the Scottish courts during the past year, as compared with 195 last year. Wives were granted divorces in 138 cases, and only five petitions were refused. A doll was produced in a London court, a woman being charged with stealing it, when the magistrate, examining it, accidentally pressed a spring and the doll exclaimed "Mamma." It was stated at a meeting of Carrick-on-Suir Board of Guardians that only two of sixty inmates of the workhouse entitled to old-age pensions, ! were willing to accept them and leave ]the house. ! Thomas Bennett, a comedian, who ! was lined -10s at Willesden for traveli ling without paying his railway fare, ! told the magistrate that his humojris- | tic propensities got him into all kinds ; of trouble. | It was claimed at the half-yearly i meeting of the Yarmouth Hospital ! that the institution was the most i economically managed in the country, ! the cost per head per week being from I 5s Gd to 5s l Jd. The cost per head in | the local workhouse is 7s a week. ! It is stated in a pamphlet issued by j the London County Council that three ; Prime Ministers—William Pitt, Earl i of Chatham ; Edward Geoffrey Stanley, | Earl of Derby ; and W. E. Gladstone — ! lived at Id, St. James' Square. The "Petroleum World" says that i the first shipment by the Sew Zealand Government has been made of | 25 barrels of petroleum, sent to Loni don with the request that it shall be handed to the naval authorities for j experimental purposes. | A thanksgiving service for the removal of the pauper disqualification for old-age pensions will be held at I Browning Half, Walworth, shortly when, Sir John Simon, the SolicitorGeneral, will deliver an addrses. The Liverpool 100,000 hot pot ; dinners were distributed as usual to ! the ticket holders, and many a poor j family rejoiced in a right good Chriat- > ina3 meal, as each of the hugj 100,000 i hot pots is sufficient to serve ten perj sons.