NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1865, 17 August 1918, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The Riio of CiUi'li lias offered to continue ■defraying the expenses of un Indian infantry regiment at an annual eost of £3(1,01)0. till the end of the war.

Damascus is undoubtedly the oldest existing city in (he world; Benares and Constantinople, exclusive of Chinese towns, come next in point of age. Mr Isaac Bonser, a retired collier of Swannington, Leicestershire, who died recently, spent the whole of his. ninety years in the house- in which he was born. In pre-war days one big British linn of biscuit-makers produced over four hundred different, varieties. To-day the number has been reduced to .lifty—all plain. Correspondence started by an address pencilled on an egg has culminated in the wedding in England of the soldier who received the egg in a French hospital and the girl who sent it. .Pupils at Reading Green (England) Girls' School have abandoned the uniform of coal-scuttle bonnet, cape, bib apron, and green skirt that made them conspicuous for nearly 300 years. A church book at North Mymms (Herts), containing names of charity recipients, has been in list; 102 years. It has been decided to re-bind it. with (rages to last another hundred years. Gas masks of the latest model have been furnished the police as protection against gas bombs in the expectation of air raids on Paris. The police have been warned to keep the masks within easy reach. Leon Trotsky, who has been prominent in Russian politics, was at one time, it is said, a moving-picture actor in America. He appeared in a Him entitled “My Oftieial Wife,” and his salary is staled to have been just live dollars a day —the days he worked. Mr Jesse Martin, of Hurstmoneeaux, Sussex, who is eighty-three years of age, and still does farm work, is the fallier of twenty-one children, and has one hundred grandchildren and several greatgrandchildren. To make one American shipyard (here have been driven in this evinter enough wooden piles to reach from Land’s End to John o' Groats and from Ipswich to Milford Haven; the whole length and bread!ii of Britain. No one in Germany will be allowed to have a new summer suit or dress this year unless lie or she returns to the Government authorities a last year's suit in sullieienl !y good condition to permit of the cloth being still used. A retired American soup manufacturer lias made a bequest of £2,200 for “homeless eats and dogs,” the carefully invested money, however, not to lie available until 2103. by when it is expeeled it will have increased to more than £40,000,000, The strongest animal exists entirely on vegetable food. An elephant is a match tor several lions, and is a vegetarian. The animals with most speed and endurance — the horse, the reindeer, I lie antelope, and others —are also vegetarians. The popularity of I lie easdy-ae-eessible wrist-watch was doubtless what inspired the production by Parisian jewellery designers of a ring watch. It consists of a tiny lime-piece mounted on a linger ring, and, if desired, embellished with precious stones.