NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1713, 17 May 1917, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Women justices have sat in court at Brisbane for the first time. The Dutch Government has purchased a German interned submarine. The death is reported of Signora Rosa Parglin, sister of Pope Pius X. A British passport covers the bearer’s wife and children under sixteen years of age. The military word “billet” is derived from “bill,” meaning a note, •as in “billetdoux.” A Methyr motor car, worth £l5O, blew up on a journey from Rhondda. The occupants escaped. During last year nearly £IO,OOO was saved in Newcastle by means of the small post office “sales.” In marching, soldiers take 75 steps per minute; quick marching, 108; and in charging, 150 steps. T( is officially announced from Sofia that the ancient capital of Servia, Nish, will be re-named Fcrdinandville. In Cherra Punji, Assam, 401 inches of water is the annual rainfall* and one day’s record proved to be 40.8 inch. The Franco-German peace treaty contained ten “articles” or clauses; the Russo-Japanese seventeen clauses. Out of 1,000 men who marry, 332 marry younger women, 579 marry women of the same age, and 89 marry older women. If is calculated that in moving about from one place to another, the people of England spend about £150,000 a day. 'fhe depth of water affects considerably the speed of steamers, which are found to move more slowly in shallow waters. No horses being available, the Berliner Tageblalt ha.s requisitioned elephants to bring rolls of paper into its printing house. It requires the workmanship of twenty men, and the use of much, cosily machinery, to make that dainty article, the thimble. A diamond stud was lately found in a turkey’s crop. It was a pure white stone, weighing almost a carat, and valued at about £3O. The first fireproof house seen in England was built by Mr David Hartley in 1778. Iron and copper plates were laid between double floors. Some 800 boy scouts are at present engaged in the cultivation of land for the production of potatoes in the neighbourhood of Leeds. We hear distinctly on a clear, frosty night, because the air is denser than on a dull, warm night, and therefore carries (he sound better. While (he First Lord of the Admiralty receives £5,000 a year and a “house allowance,” the First Sea Lord draws £1,500 with a house and naval pay. The title of doctor was invented for the especial benefit of the learned Inernius, of the twelfth century. The title was conferred by the Eniversity of Bologna. During a war more girls are born than hoys. Thini is directly opposed to popular belief. But the birth statictics of the European countries now at war are proving this out. Herat, in Arghanistan, is tire city which has been most often destroyed. ' Fifty-six times have its walls been laid in ruins, and the same number of times have they been erected again. Before big guns are tired on modern battleships every man on board has his oars stuffed with cotton wadding. The shock of the tiring sometimes jihatters every pane in the skylights. The number of wives and dejjendenls in receipt of separation allowances is, in round figures, 3,000,900, and the annual cost of the recent increases in such allowances is approximately £12,000,000.

In view of the (joining reduction in the output of beer, hop-growers ask the Government to prohibit the importation of foreign hops for ten years after the war, or to impose a duty of not less than 9d per lb.

When a .Socialist member can get up in the Reichstag and say the people demand peace, and mention a restored Belgium, and the Dardanelles in the possession of Russia, the German dream of dominating Europe is over.

The Kaiser is described by an American correspondent behind the Somme front as walking from his “long, lean motor car” to a review of his depleted troops “with a stride of long steps, lifting each foot high from the ground.” mb

A number of Newcastle, England, miners intend to help the nation financially by investing in the War Loan or some other Government stock, and then publicly burning the bonds in a brazier, which will be preserved as a memorial.

October 18th was an historic date for Greece, It was on October 18th, lf)00, that Venizelos formed his first Cabinet ; on October 18th, 1912, Greece declared war on Turkey: and on October 18th, 191(5, the new Cabinet was constituted.

After having been closed for six weeks by a great snowstorm, the main roads leading from Teesdale and Weardale into Westmoreland have been-opened out. The work had to be done by men with shovels, and some of the cuttings are 12ft. deep. The practice of numbering houses is said first to have begun in Paris, in the year 1512. Berlin, quite contrary to modern German love of system, originally numbered buildings entirely without regard for the street on which they stood. Three Surrey (England) schoolboys released by the Surrey Education Committee to work on the land, have been so successful with their gardening plots that they have disposed of the produce for £lO 3s 4d, which has been handed over-to war charities. From March Ist Dartmoor prison will be closed for convict prisoners and occupied by conscientious objector’s, who it is surmised, will be employed on the reclamation scheme initiated by the Prince of Wales on the Datmoor portion of his duchy estate. As one result of an exhaustive study of solar radiations by the director of the Smithsonian astraphysical observatory, it has been found that at the earth’s mean distance the heat of the sun’s rays is sufficient to melt in a year’s time a layer of ice 42(5 ft. in thickness. The amounts handed over to relief funds from charity performances held at the Stoll theatres throughout Great Britain since the beginning of the war now total £27,415, and Mr Oswald Stoll has, in addition, given more than £II,OOO out of his own pocket for charitable purposes.