NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1704, 26 April 1917, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

A hundred years ago there was not a single public baker in Manchester. Every household baked its own bread. A theatre sign 249 ft. long by 10ft. deep, just erected outside the Loudon Opera House, is said to be the largest in the world. The whole carcases of two tine bullocks were among the “loot" found in an underground German dug-out on the Somme. Germany’s soil is failing fw lack of fertilisers, including 800,000 tons of Chilian nitrates imported aunually before the war. Granite is twenty-live times as valuable for building purposes as is brick. After granite comes limestone, slate, and sandstone. The English sovereign was first coined in 1020. Previous to that date the noble, value fifteen shillings, was the most valuable British coin. With a subscribers’ register of 1000, the value of war savings certificates purchased by the Camberwell Committee amounts to nearly £II,OOO. Mr C. S. .Noble, of Nobieford, Alberta, claims to be the holder of the world’s wheat record, from 1,000 acres he threshed 54,395 bushels of wheat. Whist drives are now a very popular feature of the social life of the camps of France, where interregimental contests always afford great enjoyment. Downing Street owes its name to Sir George Downing, an unscrupulous politician who was Secretary to the Treasury in the days of the Merry Monarch. Whereas flowers were formerlygrown in parts of the camp gardens in France, all the available space will in future be used for the cultivation of vegetables. Seven hundred old boys of St. John’s School at Leatherhead,

England,'have up to the present joined the colours, and fifty-three of them have fallen in action. Excessive rainfall in the Thames Valley during the past four years has caused 874,687,000,000 gallons of water to pass over Teddington Weir —a veritable river record. According to the German papers, the Kaiser has sent the late Captain Boeleke’s father a telegram of condolence, deploring the loss “of my bravest and most successful air officer.” Cigarette smoking has become such a habit among women Avar workers that it has been seriously proposed to reserve ladies’ smoking compartments on certain London suburban railways. One of the oldest inns in Sussex, England, the Tiger, at Lindlield, has passed to the ownership of the local churchmen. The intention is to turn it into a church-house, possibly a clergy house. The Cross of St. Andrew, a Russian Order, has a remarkable peculiarity attaching to it. All who possess it have the right once to demand a pardon for a Russian subject condemned to death. Treacle is frequently used as food for cattle in some parts of Germany. Cows, particularly, devour their sweetened provender with great relish. The food is claimed to be both healthful and economical. A non-epmmissioned officer of a Welsh regiment, home on leave, says :—“The. other day, when he raided some trenches on the Western front, we found pictures of Mr Lloyd George in almost every dugout.” A young German infantry officer states that “ the. hardest thing” to bear in war is not fear or fatigue, but sudden responsibility when the subaltern hears amid (lying shot and shell that all his superior officershave fallen.

French and Belgian soldiers have become expert in the manufacture of rings of aluminium, in which are inlaid the (lags of the allies, and sometimes regimental buttons. These find a ready market among the British troops at Is 6d to 5s each.

A musical Belgian officer, Lieutenant Gilles, whose death sentence for alleged espionage was commuted to imprisonment for life in a Rhine fortress, has been summarily thrown into irons by his German gaolers for playing the “Marseillaise” on the organ of the prison chapel. Germany’s complaint to the effect that the supplying of arms and ammunition to a country fighting against her infringes neutrality is not a product of this war. She demanded in 1870, on the same grounds, that we should cease to supply France with munitions and coal. We refused her demand.

To such an extent has the dangerous practice of smoking in munition works grown in the North Midlands district that the magistrates, upon more cases being brought forward recently, suggested that the only safe course was the entire prohibition of smoking in any part of the factory area.

The first double-decked ship built in England was the “Great Harry,” constructed in 1500, by order of Henry VII. It was 1,000 tons burden, and cost £ 14,000 ( a sum worth more in those days than £120,000 now. At that time 50 tons to 100 tons was the usual burden of cerchant ships. The Great Harry was burnt by accident.

Mr Lindon, who bought (he Lew-is-Hill brooch in 1007, at a recent sale at Christie’s gave £7,700 for a necklace of 71 graduated pearls, and £0,500 for one of 79. A pearl collar of 12 rows for one of 79. A rope of brilliants with festoon centre, £2,250, a brilliant tiara of shell and scroll design fetching £1,020. Every infantry battalion of the line, with the exception of rifle corps, carries two colours as standards, called respectively the King’s Colour and the Regimental Colour, the latter bearing on it, the regimental “honours,” or the names of campaigns and battles in which they have been engaged. When steel is exposed to the action of sea-water and the weather, it is said to corrode at the rate of an inch in eighty two years; an inch of iron under the same condition corrodes in 190 years. When exposed to fresh water and the weather the periods are 170 years for steel and 030 years for iron.

Much interest has been aroused by the announcement that M. Auguste Rodin, the great sculptor, has been married to Mile. Rose Beurre. M. Clementel, Minister for Commerce and M. Dalimier, Under-Secre-tary for Fine Arts, took part in the ceremony. In 1914 M. Rodin, who is 75, presented 20 of his masterpieces, which have been in South Kensington Museum, to the Bi’itish nation.