NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1728, 21 June 1917, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Bell-metal is usually four purls of copper to one of tin. Linen was first manufactured in England in the year 1,253. No more potatoes are to be issued to prisoners of war in England. America will shortly establish an important naval base at Pearl Ray, Hawaii. Salaries in connection with the British Ministry of Munitions now total £837,000 yearly. Sage and rhubarb contain the greatest number of medicinal properties of any plants. The juice of the banana being strong in tannin, makes an indelible ink and shoe-blacking. Parma violets were recently sold in Covent Garden (London) at Os a bunch wholesale. The population of Bagdad is uncertain, but the best authorities estimate it at about 150,000. At flic time of the Norman Conquest the whole population in England was only about 2,000,000. It is estimated that a million acres of oats will be sown in Ireland this year, says Lord Mayo. The number of Americans engaged in making munitions for the Allies is estimated at 5,000,000. The Archbishop of York is going to release 100 clergy for national service with the Y.M.C.A. The first meerschaum pipe was made by Karol Howater in 1723. This pipe is still in Pesth Museum. Russia's absolute refusal to pay any war indemnity nearly broke down with the peace negotiations with Japan. It is-said that only two kinds of birds arc absolutely peculiar to Britain. These are the red grouse and the coal tit. The Fulton (the first warship to be propelled by steam) was built at New York by Robert Fulton in the year 1815. A recently patented sanitary shaving brush has a sponge instead of bristles, and the handle is made to contain soap. At most of the camps in France large models of the regimental crests are artistically laid <mt in stones and coloured glass. - It is likely that the foolish waste of rice at weddings in Great Britain will come under the ban of the Food Controller. The Showmen’s Guild of Great Britain has now added Birmingham to the list of (owns to which it has presented motor-ambulances. A large portion of the famous Royal Rt. David Golf Course at Ilarlich, Wales, is to be ploughed up for potato and vegetable cultivation. Andover (Hants) Guardians are congratulating themselves on saving £4O a year by cutting down the workhouse inmates’ tobacco allowance. A ring given by the Baroness Lchzen to Queen Victoria on her wedding-day, and so inscribed, was sold for £35 at Christie’s Red Cross sale. The Peak Cavern, in Derbyshire, England, is entered by a natural arch 42ft. high and 120 ft. wide, which penetrates the mountain for nearly half a mile. At the head of the American Admiralty is a statesman styled the Secretary of the Navy. In France, Italy and Russia the naval chief is a Minister of Marine. There are supposed to be nearly 50,000 dentists practising upon people’s teeth in the world. A dentist’s case nowadays contains between 300 and 400 instruments, Bagdad is known in ancient history as the capital of the mighty Saracen Empire, over which the descendants of King Nebuchadnezzar ruled for many centuries. Of a lady who died at Bradford recently at the ago of 90 it is stated that a period of 108 years had passed since-the death of her brother a few years before the Battle of Waterloo. About 3,400 post office sorters and 0,700 postmen have been withdrawn from the London postal servicedfor military or naval service, representing approximately 84 and 86 per cent, of the men eligible in eacM class. The attachment of a special telephone instrument to machinery has enabled several large factories in England to dispense with overseers, a variation in the speed of any individual machine being automatically reported to the instrument-room.