NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1759, 13 September 1917, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The Bar is literally the barred-off part of a law court in which the lawyers may plead,'or in which the accused sits or stands, but the word has been transferred to legal proceedings or the legal profession generally.

America may not bo feeding the world, but she is Feeding a goodsized portion of it. In 191.5 about £200,000,000 worth of food left for foreign parts, nearly three times as much as was shipped in 1913, the year before the war.

Paris has a population of 1,807,044. Marseilles and Lyons come next, with 550,619 and 523,790 respectively, and then there is a big drop to Bordeaux, with 261,078. These figures exclude any regard to w 7 ar increase or decrease.

Only two Englishmen remain in the Foreign Legion of the French Army —one a major, who has been decorated with the Legion of Honour, and the other a private. The rest have been transferred to the British Army. “Christmas Day” were the Christian names of a man w 7 ho claimed exemption at Kingston. He explained that ho was given them because two men named Christmas and Day were visiting his father’s house when he was born,

In a motor accident which occurred last week in South Dunedin acar in which wore seated the owner and a chauffeur, swerved and smashed through an iron fence with a concrete foundation lOin. thick. Both occupants escaped serious injury, but the ear was badly damaged. Strange to say, the tyres came through the battering without puncture. We may talk as much scandal as we like about Queen Elizabeth, but not every nation permits such freedom of historical criticism. A-So-cialist in the United States has been sent to goal for six months for libelling George Washington, and it is not long since a woman was sentenced at Vienna for casting aspersions on Maria Theresa. But no country is so particular in this matter as Japan, where a few years ago a man was imprisoned ■ for speaking disrespectfully of the Emperor Jimmu. His Majesty reigned about the year 665 B.C. “We arc now to some extent operating with the French troops,” writes Efim. Yates, in a recent letter. “They are splendid men, and we get on well together. They would divide their last: crust of bread with us. ... I saw a German aero-

plane shot down last night. It tumbled over and over like a huge piece of paper. I saw another cut in two by shell fire, the fore part bursting into flames, and came down ■with a terrible crash. Both pilot and observer were killed. . . I witnessed a certain place bombarded with high explosive shells for a whole day, at the rate of four shells per minute. Huge trees were hurled about like flaxstieks.”