NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1689, 22 March 1917, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

King Victor Emmanuel has awarded the Silver Medal for bravery to the Duchess d’Aosta for having nursed cholera patients and wounded soldiers under fire. She is sister to the Duke of Orleans. British officers may he said to make comparatively little use of their pistols during fighting. The officer’s most valuable duty lies in leading and directing his men, not so much in himself actually taking toil of the foe. In order to discover a new name for “Berlin" wool, a committee of wholesale warehousemen has been appointed to confer with manufacturers and others in order to agree on a new description satisfactory to all in the trade. Locusts abound in Arabia, and are eaten by the inhabitants. Porcupines, weasles, rats, and lizards also form part of their menu, while the flesh of the. camel, considered a great delicacy, is sometimes eaten on special occasions. The take of eggs of fake trout this season was the largest recorded by the United States Bureau of Fisheries. Its total was over 10/,000,444, exceeding the best previous record hy 30 per eenl. Ihe Northville (Midi.) hatchery and its auxiliaries were credited with 82,000,0000 eggs. Kelly's Post Office London Directory is one of the books that no paper famine, apparently, can lie allowed to affect. Since it made if-; first appearance, 17 years before tiic Battle of Waterloo, it has grown steadily, until at last if has attained the huge hulk of about 3,500 pages. As an infant in arms, Mrs Owen, who has just died at looting, was present at the funeral of Napoleon in the historic prison isle of St. Helena. That was in 1821. Later, in 1850, when the body was exhumed lo he sent to Paris, she helped to work the embroidered silk flag that floated in the stern of the eoffin-boal. There was more fog along the American coast hist year than at, other periods, according to figures compiled from (lovernment reports of the various signal stations. The greatest amount of fog was recorded /it the San Francisco light vessel, California, where it aggregated 2.221 hours for the year, or approximately 25 per cent, of the time.

Congress of Colombia has adopted ;i measure providing tor the appointment of a commission 1o investigate methods for promoting’ savin'’’ among 1 1 lit* people ol ( olombia. The commission is to work out a plan of organisation of public- ami school savings hanks, retirement funds, and societies tor mutual aid and co-operative bny-

A German who becomes a millionaire from making war profits has founded a i'Tanklurt institute for the study of the consequences of war, and is now publishing a monthly journal in the German and English language. In the last issue the total losses of men in killed, wounded, and slid; in all theatres ol war is estimated at about ‘20.000.000.

Ordinary people tain get on very comfortably with a vocabulary of 500 words, though in country districts 200 words sometimes carry a man through life. The most cultured students seldom use more than 4,000 words. Shakespeare employed 1(1,000 words, Aldton S,(K)O. To enjoy reading good books ami newspapers a knowledge of at least 2,000 words is essential. A telegram which was despatched from London to a resident of A diham, in Mssex, on January 22nd. 1000, has just been delivered. Il stuck' fast in a crevice in the tube; between the telegraph room and the counter at the local post office, and was not discovered until repairs were being executed a few days ago. The message contained a polling result in the general election which took place eleven years ago.

Concrete holds its own in the construction of our houses, our public buildings, our bridges, our monuments, and now even in our ships. Harboured safely in Norwegian water is an enormous thous-and-ton barge, built entirely of concrete: a 70-year-old skill of stone Jloats merrily on the waters of the River .Seine, while a concrete barge is daily towed up and down a certain portion of the River Thames.

The school children of Washington, D.C., following the advice of one of the newspapers there, have saved since the Kail term began over 150 lons of old newspapers, for which more than £SOO lias been received. This sum will be devoted to children’s playgrounds. In view of the present shortage of paper, children in other cities are urged by the Secretary of Commerce and Labour KedJield to effect a like saving.

In his third great fruitful journey of exploration in Central Asia, which ended last year. Sir Anrel Stein collected some specimens of a language spoken at Ishkashim, on the southern branch of the Oxus, hitherto known to philologists only by name. They were made over to Sir George Grierson, the distinguished conductor of the Indian Linguistic Survey, and he found them sufficient for the preparation of a grammatical sketch and a short vocabulary, which he will issue shortly. Well-10-do Chinese have long felt a desire for a model residence quarter—a ‘suburb of some city where they might enjoy all the ad-

vantages of modern life. One such project, which materialised neai Hong Kong, resulted in failure, but now another is under way. The plan involves the reclamation of a considerable tract of land, near Hong Kong, the construction of wide avenues and streets, erection of high-grade apartment, tenement, and similar buildings, and the establishment of a model sewerage system and other up-to-date utilities. Already a company has been formed for carrying out the project, and work is to begin at once.