NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1724, 12 June 1917, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Imliii has 15,000 species of native plants. A bee can carry twice its own weight in honey. There are three limes as many widows as widowers. A traveller can journey round the world in fifty days. Light passes from the moon to the earth in lj seconds. There are nearly 2,000 stitches-in a pair of handsewn hoots. The Lord Mayor of London has an official salary of £IO,OOO a year. The first London theatre to he lighted by gas was the Lyceum, in 1803. Clogs are coming into more gen-

oral use in Great Britain among the poor. Ninety-seven out of every hundred Arctic explorers have returned alive. A Dover brewing firm lias put on the market a sugar substitute in liquid form. The belligerents have spent on the war the sum of £18,000,000,000 between them. The largest orchard in the world is in New Jersey. It contains (50,000 pear trees. Salmans, or “star-worshippers,” are now under British administration in Mesopotamia. Though white pearls are preferred in Europe, in China bright yellow pearls are most valued. The Hungarian Food Controller has fixed the price of butler in Hungary at 8s !)tl per pound. Bumbo pons still retain tlieir bold in India, where they have been in use for mure than 1,000 years. Britain is the only country which allows its historical Hags to go into the pawnshop or auction-room. A terrible famine swept across .Mesopotamia in 1871. and nearly 3,000 inhabitants of Bagdad died of starvation. The largest egg is that of the ostrich. It weighs 31b., and is considered equal in amount to twenty-four lieu eggs. It has been agreed among political parties in Holland that no parliamentary elections shall be held this year. Painting wood with water-glass or silicate of soda renders it practically incombustible. Three coats must be put on. - Six American doctors went over to assist the London Hospital, two of them working their way over as ship stokers. Afore than 150,000 packages, of a total weight of about 300 tons, are being sent daily from England to our men at the front. Cholera periodically visits Bagdad, and in 1831 no fewer than 4,000 people perished daily for several days from its ravages. Amongst the worst foes of the memory are 100 much food, 100 much physical exercise, and, strangely enough, too much education. Three hundred and twenty-live thousand pounds' worth of boots are made weekly in Northamptonshire, England, for the allied armies. The armour of a lirst-elass battleship represents about one-third of the cost of the ship, not including armament, ammunition, and stores. Oil painting was an art thoroughly understood by the ancients, hut was lost sight of, and only revived about (he end of (he 13th century. A man does not fully attain Ids growth until after the age of twen-ty-live, and athletic exercises extends the period of growth to thirty years. The French Senate has unanimously voted a Bill decreasing (he confiscation and sale of 1 ho properly of deserters and defaulters from the army and navy. The British War Office lias presented to. Colchester Museum a machine-gun which was thrown from a Zeppelin in the district, and also part of the wrecked L 33.