NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1833, 30 May 1918, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The latest returns show that there are 4,622,000 enemy aliens in the United States; among them about 964,000 men over 20 years of age. According to inquiries made by the Ministry of Reconstruction, 60 per cent, of British soldiers are having their pre-war jobs kept open for them.

An Italian wireless station has been established which can send out messages to the station at Arlington, Virginia, a “record” distance of 6,250 miles. Liquid oxygen has been found to be as effective as dynamite as an explosive, provided it is used within ten minutes of the saturation of the cartridge with it.

To render alighting from cars easier, a step has been devised which is automatically lowered when the car stops and raised as soon as the car begins to move. There are in the sky about as many dark stars as luminous ones, the former betraying their presence by their gravitative pull and by eclipsing other stars. It has been found that many diseases show themselves in speech peculiarities, and may be diagnosed by a machine which records graphically the voice vibrations. The London County Council recently apologised for the noise made by the trams at night, and explained that is was due to the difficulty of securing material for repairs. Of the nine men forming the crew of a Cambridge boat six years ago, seven have lost their lives in the war, and one of the survivors has been dangerously wounded. The State of Texas is the largest “corporation” farmer in America. Its agricultural operations' are conducted by convicts in the State penitentiary, and the area under cultivation on the different farms is approximately 65,000 acres. The sugar-cane crop alone brings in a revenue of £B,OOO, and the sale of hogs £IO,OOO a year. There arc, in ordinary times, 6,000 taxi-cabs in London, and 12,000 ’buses and trams. The trams, in an ordinary year, carry 846,000,000 passengers; the local railways carry 462,000,000, and the 30,-milo radius railways 250,000,000. This with the omnibuses, makes the total annual number of London traveller’s to be well over two thousand million.

Bird protection is being taken up by the Council of the Department, of Marine et Loire, Prance, who have decided that the book “Birds Necessary to Agriculture” shall be placed in all the public and private schools in the department. The object of the council is to prevent the destruction of small birds, which results in an incalculable yearly loss to fruit-growers, viniculturists, and other agriculturists. A boulder of jade, or nephitc, lias recently been placed on exhibition at the New York Museum of Natural History. It is the largest block of jade ever found; it weighs 4,7101 b., is 7ft. long, 2ft. wide, and Ift. thick. It is large enough to have furnished material for all the prc-historic objects of nepbite that have been found in Europe. As this huge block was dug from a quarry in Germany, there is no need to suppose, as has been done, that prehistoric man got bis jade from China or Burma.

The right to kill the King’s doer, which Lord Farrer recently instanced as the sole remaining privilege of a peer, can bo exercised only under conditions with which few members of the Upper House could readily comply. According to the ancient statute, the deer can be slain only by the peer himself, and only when journeying to or from the King’s presence in obedience to the Royal summons. The “bag” also, is limited to two deer, and these must be slain in the presence of the King’s Forester. If that official is not to hand, the peer is enjoined to blowseveral loud blasts on his hunting horn to summon him, before pursuing his quarry.