NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1736, 10 July 1917, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The Franco-German War cost £310,000,000. Esperanto was invented by Dr. Zamenhof in 3887, The first Olympic (lames were hold at/Elis, Greece, 1453 B.C. America’s typhoid fever bill is more I ban £54,000,000 a year. The first execution by! electricity was in Yew York, in 1800. The first transfusion of blood in man was in France, in 1007, There is a shortage in Birmingham of from 15,000 to 20,000 houses. One-fifth of the earth’s surface is controlled by the British Empire. Ipswich is fighting a rat plague by paying a penny for every rat captured. The swordfish has been known to pierce timbers to the depth of ten inches. All the blood in a man’s body passes through his heart once in every two minutes. More- than 100,000,000 War Savings certificates have been issued in fourteen months. The Mississippi with the Missouri, is the longest river in the world. It is 4,200 miles long. An old lady of seventy-one acts

as barber to our soldiers at a village in Northern France. The United States imports £500,000 worth of waste rags annually, just to make writing-paper. Over 0,000 artificial limbs havq. been supplied since the commencement of the war, states the Pensions Minister. In days of peace, keeping patients in Bucks Asylum cost 7s 9d per head a week. Now they cost 12s 3d each. For the loss of an arm by an accident in a printing machine, £350 was awarded to a boy in the City of London Court. In the last twelve months 208 civilians have been court-martialled in Ireland, of whom 183 were connected with the rebellion. Admiral Sir David Beatty, G.C.8.. K.C.V.0., has accepted the vicepresidency of the British and Foreign Sailors’ Society. A bride in Korea must not speak during the first day of her married life. The next morning, however, she may give free rein to her tongue. The one and only sate and sure mode of reducing weight is to reduce the quantity of food .and drink until the intake is less than the output. The blood of animals giv.es albumen, an indispensable factor in many industries. From it most beautiful buttons and other articles of adornment are made. Byron wrote his celebrated poem of the “Bride of Abydos” in one night, and without mending his pen. The pen is yet preserved in the British Museum. The rocking-chair is suggested as a remedy for indigestion, A wellknown physician asserts that the slow, rocking motion after meals stimulates the digestive functions. Mortality among lambs in Scotland is greater, than forTrfty years past; lambs arc being fed with whisky and hot milk, and many titled landowners are acting as shepherds. The freedom of Berlin having once been presented in a gold .snuffbox to a Prussian officer, a French writer said (here was ample room in the snuff-box for all (he freedom (here was in Berlin. It is difficult lo credit that table jelly has actually been extracted from oid hoots and whisky derived from refuse which,- converted into glucose, is turned into spirit by a. pa.lent still. Leprosy is increasing alarmingly in India. In that country there are over 500,000 sufferers from the disease. They exist in absolute loneliness, being considered unclean and accursed by their own people, On condition that they place all their catches on (he market, the amateur sea anglers may obtain permits from the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries lo fish within the same limits as professional fishermen. About 7,000 pipes have been collected by the Metropolitan Kaihvay staff, and, after being cleaned by high pressure steam at the company’s works, refitted where necessary, and polished, have been sent to soldiers in hospital. The Crown of England contains one large ruby, seventeen sapphires —one very large—eleven emeralds, four rubies, 1,303 brilliants (diamonds), 1,273 rose diamonds, 147 table diamonds and 277 pearls, four of them drop-shaped. Among the pictures purchased for the National Gallery last year were “Madonna and Child,” bought for £O,OOO from Canon Sutton, and “La Collating” by Pieter do Hooch, purchased for £3,000 from Messrs Goodstikker, Amsterdam.