NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1756, 6 September 1917, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Russia is freeing political prisoners sent under the former regime to Siberia. Fifty thousand sledges are said to he bringing the victims of Tsarism hack to civilisation.

In Kansas the cotton string of a kite touched a high-tension wire, and the man holding the string was severely shocked and badly burned, being unconscious for forty minutes.

The first name publicly mentioned in the press for a V.C. was Captain Francis Grenfell —November 17tlx, 1914, He helped to save our guns in .Belgium on August 24th, 1914.

Based on the assumption that an adult fly lays eighty eggs four times a summer, and reckoning those laid by its prodigy, one statistician puts down its entire family at over two millions.

An official census reveals the existence in a Courland village of a woman who has attained the age of 119 years. She was fourteen years old at the time of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.

A great many persons are insisting nowadays on the importance of learning to breathe. Efficient breathing is a good thing if we can keep it up, for one does not die as long as one breathes.

All over Canada, and especially in Nova Scotia, increased interest is being shown in sheep raising, which would indicate that there will bo considerable development along this line in the next few year's.

The common snail sets forth to ravage our gardens equipped with 150 rows of stout serrated teeth. The whole palate contains about 21,000 teeth, while a full-grown slug has over 20,000 of these silicious spikes,

Nickel is a modern metal; it was not in use or known till 1715. Its alloy with steel is superior in hardness and toughness to any other metal. Even when combined as low as 5 per cent, it prevents oxidation.

Microscopic study of coal Las led to the theory that the original vegetable matter was first decomposed into a liquid, and that then undceomposed vegetable \nattor became saturated with the liquid and pressed into fuel.