NEWS IN BRIEF

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1796, 2 March 1918, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF

There are 55G war charities registered in London. .-■Gladstone, Disraeli, and Bismarck were born on a Friday. Free notep.aper in Church Army, luitTeosts £15,000 annually. Scandinavians regard Friday as the luckiest day of the week. Lincolnshire and Yorkshire stand first among the wheat-growing counties. Nearly one-seventh of the population of the United States are foreign born. The longest, largest, and strongest bone in the human system is the thigh-bone. Australian soldiers in the field have contributed £IOO,OOO to the Commonwealth war loan. The salary of tfiSt Director-Gen-eral of Recruiting is £1,200, and that of the deputy-director £I,OOO. Boatmen aged seventy-seven and eighty-five respectively are going out with sea-anglers oft Brighton (England). When notice of a wedding is given at Charlton,- Kent, a deposit of 2s fid is made, and returned if no confetti is used. Nearly 20)000 British South African natives have been recruited for service behind the lines in France and Flanders, A prosperous Athlone merchant, who started work as a railway employee, has left among other bequests £IO,OOO to the Pope. The Malay States have contributed 1,000 officers to the army and navy, one Dreadnought, 30 to 40 aeroplanes, and £2,000,000 war loan. London Hospital uses annually 21 miles of catgut in sewing up wounds, and one and a-half miles of kangaroos’ tails for other purposes. If a man fell out of a balloon at a distance of five miles above the earth, his velocity at the last second would be at the rate of 4,053 feet per second. Mrs Maria Sa whins, aged 101, who has just been bulled at Deal, a few months ago cut two new teeth —one in the upper and the other in the lower jaw.

Altogether, Poland ineludes ten provinces, Cracow, in Galicia, being under the protection of Austria. It was the headquarters of the Ist Austrian Army Corps. Investigation of the sun’s heal proves it to be a variable star, and an expedition to a cloudless region in South America is to be made to gather furllter facts.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution have' voted rewards amounting to £957 for services rendered by the crews of the lifeboats of the institution during the last month. Though Lancashire, England, is erroneously supposed to be occupied by cotton and other mills, she has 5,46(5 small farms, with an acreage of not. less than 20 and not more than 50. The collection of hair among the women of Munich-, organised by the German Navy League, has realised over 3001 b. weight. The hair is used for driving belts in U-boat machinery. It has been ascertained that John D. Archhold, president of the Standard Oil Company, of New Jersey, who died last year, left a total estate of 41 f million dollars (about 8:1 millions sterling). Wild cats existed in England as late as the time of Richard II.; they are mentioned by name in a charter granted to the Abbot of Peterborough, permitting him to hunt game in the Royal forests. The highest clouds reach ten miles above our heads, and are the white, feathery forms which we see on a clear day. Although apparently motionless, they travel from sev-enty-five to ninety miles an hour. During the past twelve months the production and shipment of mica from the Province- of Quebec amounted to 482,1131 b., valued at fully £25,000, an increase of over 200 per cent., as compared with the previous year. Among the entries in the Council books in the time of Edward VI. is the mention of a grant from the King to the Earl of Bedford and his heirs male, of the Covent Garden, and the meadow ground called

'“The Long Acre.” One of the most costly varieties of fur coat this season is made of Persian lamb-skins. A number of Persian lamb-skins recently, changed hands in London at more than £4 each. A coat made of such skins would cost £250. One thousand two hundred miles by water were covered during the season by the first river postwoman in England in delivering / letters and packages to the bungalow and houseboat dwellers along the Staines reach. ' Deptford Dockyard (England) was first established as a Government shipbuilding yard in 1573, but was a private yard long before that.. In 1577 Sir Francis Drake sailed from there when he made his famous voyage round the world. The idea that every candidate for Parliamentary, municipal, and other State and public positions should be subjected to a phrenological examination has been put before the British Phrenological Society by Mr .J, M. Severn. Two of the world’s most famous diamonds have disappeared, and their whereabouts are unknown. One of these is named the Napoleon,: and was worn by the Emperor in the" hilt of his sword; the other is the! famous Great Mogul. In England and Wales there are 3,093 miles of canals; in Scotland 3 f-*3 miles, and in Ireland 848 miles —a total for the United Kingdom of 4,070 miles, or 3,822 miles for Great Britain. Of the total mileage, the various railway companies own 1.303 miles. The oldest bank-note in existence in the British Museum. , It was printed in China in the year 1308, thirty-two (years before Johann Gutenburg, the reputed inventor of printing, was born. It was issued 300 years before bank-notes were -irculated in Europe.

fn fce old ornamental lapesiry which hung over the Judicial Soali in (he Old London Court of Exchequer was originally a covering to oneof Queen Elizabeth’s state beds, and was sold by one of the domestics of the palace at that time, to the upholsterer then fitting up that court.