NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1803, 19 March 1918, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

A curved ladder lias been invented on which drowning persons can be placed and drawn into a boat without dangen of capsizing it. Appealing for women recruits at Glasgow, the Duchess of Atholl complained that women had notshaken off the tyranny of fashion. They were buying furs and jewellery, and also chocolates. Sir Thomas Beechara, according to the Drury Lane report, lost £l,000 every week on his month’s opera season at that theatre; his takings at Manchester were considerably more per week than in London. of fur coat this season is made of Persian lamb-skins. A number of Persian lambskins recently changed hands in London at more than £4 each. A coat made of such skins would cost £250. One of the strangest botanical curiosities in the world is the “Won-der-Wonder” flower, found in the Malay Peninsula. It is simply a blossom, without leaves, tendrils, or stem, and grows as a parasite on decayed wood. This extraordinary flower is a yard in diameter, and has a.globular cup in the middle, with a capacity of five or six quarts. A member of the army-general staff at Washington states that it is feasible to “mine” the air above fortifications against attacks by dirigibles and aeroplanes. The expert’s plan of defence is analogous to the mining of marine approaches to ports, and consisting of sending aloft each evening a large number of small captive balloons at varying altitudes carrying a sufficient amount of explosives to destroy the aeroplanes or dirigibles with which they come in contact. These balloons can be supplemented by a number of kites provided with long tails of malleable wire, designed to foul the propellers of any aircraft. The aerial mines could be reeled in at daybreak.