NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1833, 30 May 1918, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

It is stated by the attendants at the London Zoological Gardens that no ape will sleep flat on its back, as man often does.

The Roman catacombs are 580 miles in extent, and it is estimated that from 5,000,000 to 15,000,000 dead are there interred.

About sixteen municipal tramway undertakings throughout Britain employ women drivers, Glasgow alone having 220 of them. There are only forty-two horses left at fire stations all over London. But for the war tile service would be entirely motor-propelled.

Sacramental wines are barred under the prohibition laws of Oklahoma, according to a decision handed down by a district court judge. The record wreck, so far as loss of life is concerned, was that of H.M.S. Victory, on October sth, 1744. Eleven hundred lives were lost.

A pound of parsnips gives only twelve grains of nourishing matter, while the same weight of skim-milk gives nearly three times as much. Mr Henry Ford, the motor-car manufacturer, is about to build a submarine destroyer plant at a cost of £200,000, near New York, duplicating the plant at Detroit. The Mayor of Harrogate (Eng.) has .received a “conscience” money cheque from a visitor who lined himself for infringing the lighting restrictions.

Enormous suras are expended annually in the collection of news by the daily and weekly newspapers. The New York Times’ newsbill amounted to about £50,000 last year. A surgical glove has been invented which will enable a man who has lost the use of the tendons in the hand to be able to write just as well as if he had those tendons there. A lock of Milton’s hair, formerly in Dr. Johnson’s possession, was recently purchased by Sir Chas. Wakefield for £ls. Five years ago Browning’s lock of Milton’s hair realised £l7O. Of 350 claims for Government relief for air raid damage in England, the smallest is for 5s for a doll’s dress, and the largest for £2OO for furniture. One victim claims for the death of a monkey.

Since Sir Arthur Pearson opened a campaign to raise £250,000 for a. fund to provide a weekly allowance of 5s until the age of sixteen for the children of blinded soldiers and sailors, nearly £20,000 has been subscribed.

“The Arabian Nights” was probably compiled between 448 A.D. and 1000, said a professor at the Royal Asiatic Society, and the adventures of Sinbad the Sailor were less marvellous than as they appeared in an earlier story.

Birds of different kinds havo their favourite trees. Blackbirds, rooks, and jays frequent oak trees, the ash shelters wood pigeons and thrushes, the hawthorn all kinds of finches, whilst the woodpecker’s favourite is the beech. 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 of the Thames.

In all parts of the world the cigarette is rapidly ousting other forms of smoking. Even Americans are giving up cigars, in favour of cigarettes. In this country no fewer than 50,000,000 cigarettes a day are manufactured and sold.

The funeral took place at Hornchurch, Essex, recently of Mr Thomas Medlakc, an ironfounder, who died at the age of eighty-eight. Mr Medlake attributed his long life, health, and energy to cold water, of which he drank a quart a day.

Proof of harm done by smokeladen air was furnished recently at Chicago chrysanthemum show, when a. large percentage of the show plants were blighted by smoke and fumes that entered the building during an intensely murky period. Mr Baker, United States Secretary for War, says : —“The satisfactory equipping of the army is. now assured. During the past 10 months of the war the United States has produced twice as many rifles as Great Britain did in two years, and a-half.”

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