NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1715, 22 May 1917, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

A woman verger has been appointed at St. Alban’s, Acton-green.

During five months Canada shipped 250,000 sacks oi ! potatoes to Cuba.

A live monkey is the nmseot of jin allied aviator on the western front.

If is estimated that the war has cost Germany up to date £3,000,(U)0,000. Summer time for Holland began on April 10th, and ended on HcjJtemher 17th.

It is an offence against the army regulations to make a disturbance in billets.

Employment of .school children in the fields of Franco is giving satisfactory results. in Denmark the sale of all spirits and other liquor has been temporarily prohibited.

During the war trade disputes have been reduced to one-sixth of the pre-war average.

European peace treaties usually begin: “In the name of the Most Holy and Indivisible Trinity.”

A live snake, 30 inches long, has been found at Derby, in a consignment of bananas from Jamaica.

There are no longer Admirals of the Red or Admirals of the Blue. The rank was abolished in 1804.

£7.0,400,150 was paid in through the sale of stamps in respect of the Insurance Act up to December, 101(5.

Canada exported 25,000,0001 b. of bat-on last year, compared with a negligible quantity in the few years before. Xinely animals sold at (he ShirtHorse Show realised an aggregate of £8,082; one animal fetched .1,275 guineas. The Emperor of Japan has given 100,000 yen (about £10,000) to the Allied Relief Funds through Prince Tokugawa, An exchange telegram from Cairo .-ays that the Egyptian Government is spending (.450,000 on irrigation works. Over 3,000 lons of shipping’, it is estimated, will be liberated by stopping tin- importation of ornamental feathers. The South African Director of Recruiting is raising 2,400 Capex-ol-oured boys for service in France as transport drivers. A champion bull, at the Birmingham Shorthorn Show, was sold for 000 guineas for export to (he Ar-

gentine. Nearly 50,000 distinctions and decorations have been awarded for service in the army since the beginning of the war.

Barbardos has decided to present to the Mot lu-r Country a furl her war gift of £40,000. The gifts from (lie colony now amount to £BO,OOO. \

In Germany the use of turnips in tile preparation of bread lias been authorised. The proportion of turnips must not exceed (50 per cent. For a single-row pearl necklace, Whe property of the late Eir George White, of Old Sneed Park, Bristol, £7,700 was paid at Christie's sale.

Holders of Foreign Office passports to France must have (hem vised at the French Consulate-Gen-eral in London before leaving England.

Fifty German aeroplanes have been brought down by the French Army Aeroplane Squadron No. 55, since its organisation in August, 1916.

Over 40,000 people in England and "Wales die each year from cancer, the death-roll of that disease being greater than that of consumption.

220 pairs of khaki socks have been knitted for the troops by a Belgian woman refugee at ' Richmond, Surrey; the 100th pair were accepted by King Albert, and the 200th by the Prince of Wales. Salmon find (heir way from far at sea to their chosen rivers, by some chemical peculiarities of the water. In a similar way herrings are influenced by variations in seawater, and run in favourable localities;

In America a huge aeroplane of 1,000 horse-power has just been constructed. It Ims two wings fifty yards long, and will be able to travel at a speed of over 100 miles an hour. It will be capable of carrying thirty passengers and eight machine-guns.

A very interesting and important discovery is that the sun is a variable star. The beat emitted by it instead of being constant in intensity, change's from day to day and year to year. It is believed that this has a direct bearing upon the climatic conditions of the earth.