NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1694, 3 April 1917, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The giraffe and armadillo are voiceless, with no vocal cords. It is said that about 10,000 gross of pens are produced from a ton of steel. Two crops of potatoes are produced annually in the island of St. Helena. A sack of flour weighing 2801bs. usually provides ninety-two 41b. loaves. Arabic figures were not invented by the Arabs, but by the early scholars of India. The hair of criminals is allowed to grow for three months prior to their discharge from prison. Spanning a distance of two miles and 73 yards, the Tay Bridge, Scotland, is , the longest bridge in the world. Goldfish have scales of value and pedigrees like a dog or eat, the lion-headed fish being worth as much as £3O. Freshly ground coffee and camphor burned together make an effective and refreshing disinfectant in sick rooms. In a Downing Street waitiugroom Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington met for the first and only time in their Jives. The lightest and heaviest woods grow in the United States. The heaviest is the Florida ironwood, and the lightest is the corkwood of Missouri. Nearly all lions are “left-hand-ed.” A famous explorer says that when a lion desires to strike a forcible blow, it almost always uses the left paw. Cleopatra's needles were not erected by that Queen, neither do they commemorate any event in her history. They were set up by Raineses the Great. The town of Simla, India, is built on the side of a hill so steep that it is often possible to step from the threshold of one house to the i - oof of the next. In olden times saints’ days were regarded as lucky days, and were marked on the calendar with rod ink. From this sprang the term “red-letter day.” The. railway carriages in Russia arc 11n* most comfortable in Europe, and therefore the long distances arc not so tiresome a.- in various other continental countries. Widows in Corea never re-marry, no matter how young they may he. Even though they have been married only a month, they may not take a second husband. Life insurance dates from almost Ihe year .1080, and was the invention of the Chevalier do Mere, a Flemish nobleman, and the Abbe Blaise Pascal, the famous -Jesuit priest. Omnibuses first ran in Britain on July 4th, 182!). Two then began to run from (he Bank of England to the Yorkshire Stingo tun on the Now Road. They carried 22 passengers inside, hut none outside. Bradford, which derives a revenue of £OO,OOO a year from what was formerly the unutilised refuse of the city sewers, now makes £2 a week out of old tramway tickets, which are collected in boxes placed on the ears. A Russian officer who visited the allies’ western front was shown a remarkable road ten miles long and wide enough for four motor ears abreast, which-had been built in one day. Sixteen thousand men had worked on it. “Pledging a health” is a Saxon memento. The drinking-horn had to be raised in both hands, and the drinker’s pledge stood beside him with his sword drawn in order that no one should stub him while drinking. At Jensen, Utah, a perfect dinosaur, 135 ft. long, said to be the biggest discovered in the United States, was unearthed by Professor Earl Douglas, of the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburg. The neck is more than 65ft. long. ' The old 101st Regiment ({]}£ present Ist Royal Munster Fusiliers) were known as the “Dirty Shirts,” a name earned by hard service in India under Lord Lake, when fierce fighting, rather than personal cleanliness, was the order of the day. IVhen screws were made by hand live minutes were consumed in making one, and they were so expensive that wooden pins were used whenever practicable. Now, by the cold-forged process, a single machine will turn out five dozen in a minute.