NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1746, 30 October 1917, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Spiders live two years. The apple tribe are varieties of the crab. The average depth of the English Channel is 110 feet.

A square foot of honey-comb contains about 9,000 cells. A single crow destroys 700,000 insects a year. Plant life rarely thrives under yew or ash trees. Madrid has the highest altitude of any city in Europe. Physicians assert that reading aloud is one of the best exercises.

The shadock, citron, orange, and lemon are improvements on wild lime.

Briton Ferry (Wales) has one allotment to every 25 of the population.

The leaves of the hawthorn are an excellent substitute for Chinese tea.

Manna is a natural product of the ash and larch in Sicily, Calabria, etc.

The number of teeth at maturity is thirty-two, or sixteen in each jaw. London paupers now number 75,768, a reduction of 23,903 on the pre-war total. Bird-lime is prepared from the berries of the mistletoe and the bark of the holly. Bathing-vans at Llanfairfechan (Wales) have been converted into poultry houses. ‘

Keys, watches, rings, and brooches increase the danger of b.eing struck by lightning. Few know the meaning of sealevel. It is half-way between the high and low water marks.

Australia contains more unexplored territory in proportion to its size than any other continent.

A camel can travel 40 miles a day for 12 or 14 days without water, and carrv a load of 4001bs.

The heart of the vegetarian beats, on an average, 58 times in a minute; that of a meat-eater 75.

Over 1,000 bicycles have been stolen in the London metropolitan area during the past few months. One and a-quarter million women are stated to be engaged in men’s places on the British railways. Switzerland, in proportion to its population, spends more on poor relief than does any other country.

The water of the natural brine springs of Droitwich (England) is twelve times stronger than seawater.

In the British Museum there are on exhibition books written on oyster-shells, bricks, tiles, bones, and ivory. German cigar manufacturers are now obliged to deliver 75 per cent, of their output to the military authorities.

In some parts of Ireland a belt made of woman’s hair is placed about a new-born baby to keep evil spirits away.

• An elephant works from the age of 12 to the age of 80. He can haul 15 tons, lift half a ton, and carry three tons. In many countries the belief is held that babies born at precisely twelve mid-night are endowed with occult powers.

For short distances the salmon is the swiftest swimmer of any fish. It can travel at the rate of 25 miles an hour.

The majority of colour-blind people belong to the educated classes, of whom no fewer than 4 per cent, are thus afflicted.

An ordinary healthy man in the prime of life should be able to lift with both hands 2361b5,, and support on his shoulders 3301b5. The cost of working the Tower Bridge last year was £15,276. The bascules were lifted for the passage of vessels on 3,354 occasions.

Hindus and Moslems in India are now buying in the United States the turbans Great Britaih can no longer furnish owing to the war. The small colewort is the origin of the cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower. Sea-kale and asparagus were insignificant marine plants. A wireless telephone has been invented that can be used on a motor-

ear, even though it is travelling at forty or fifty miles an hour. Of the 5,300 Etonians who have been on active service, 800 have been killed, 1,000 wounded, whilst honours gained include six V.C.’s.

The price of -bread in llngland in 1855-1856 was IOJd to lid per 41b. loaf. In 1867 the price was 10d to lOid, and in 1872 9Jd to lOd.

Lightning conductors are made of copper, that metal being the best conductor, not easily fused, and less liable to injury by the weather. Everywhere, and always, more boys than girls are born into the world, the proportion approximately being 1,040 male infants to 1,000 female. A farm worker who has died at Rushington, New Forest, England, at the age of 94, was for 87 years in continuous employment on the same estate.

Returns from 160 wood-pulp mills in the United States show that last year they used 3,419,000 cords of wood in making 2,229,000 tons of pulp for paper. The jar in which the first wheat was sent over from Spain to Ecuador was recently sold for £BO in New York. It is a blue and white Chinese vase.

Tarring and feathering was once a legal punishment for theft. It is to be found in the statutes of both England and France about the time of the Crusades.

The Madras Presidency is making a bid for the lead-pencil business almost monopolised formerly by the Teutons. The industry is thriving and certain to succeed.

An eight-year-old child at West Baldwin, Maine, seeing a hawk about to raid the hen-yard, ran to the house, got his father’s shot-gun, and succeeded in shooting the hawk before it could do any damage. Russia is growing more food, it having been decided to use the large open vacant spaces of some of the towns in Russia for the cultivation of beetroot to produce sugar, and to turn flower gardens into kitchen gardens. Slim policemen arc required in San Francisco to handle the Chinatown beat. It is claimed that a slim man cannot negotiate the secret passages, narrow doorways, and win .lows and small cellars of the Chinese quarters.