NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1900, 7 November 1918, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Over £IOO.OOO is {riven away to London street beggar* every year. In eighteen months the Food Ministry has eirenlaled *2,000,000,000 forms. The two most populous eities in the British Empire are London and Calcutta. Exposing the pages of books to sunlight occasionally will prevent (hem becoming yellow. Over 70,000 alumni of American colleges are now in the war service, mostly in army or navy. To meet expected trade attacks by Germany after the war, a great dye combine has been organised m England. Under the new high rates, sleep-ing-cai business on most of the American railroads has decreased 25 per cent. Ten per cent, of the entire population of'Massachusetts, or 300,000 people, of voting age, are unable to read or write English. Receipts of the Internal Kevcuue Bureau show that, ms far as the war progresses, Americans arc spending less on travel and more on amusements. A New York Stale representative has introduced, a Bill in the legislature to include candy and chewinggum in the rations of the American soldier. Laverne W. Noyes, of Chieargo, has given £500,000 (o the University of Chicago for the education of soldiers and sailors and their descendants. Because a man fixed a lock for a neighbour and did not send her a. hill, she left him in her will £I,OOO that enabled him to leave a New Jersey almshouse. Claiming that one-third ot: the efficiency of coal mines is lost by the use of liquor, the mineowuers df Pennsylvania demand a dry law to speed up coal output. Newspaper publicity is fully appreciated by the Germans. Reeeutly German sympathisers published a full-page advertisement landing the German cause in a Nicaragua newspaper. President Chamorro immediately took steps (o suppress the advertisement, and issued a proclamation prohibiting luture publication of ‘ advertisements of this character. Hammersmith (London) town clerk lias prepared a scheme tor a small holding company to carry on one-man businesses, the idea being that the concern shall pay the profits as allowances to dependents, thus safeguarding (he interests oi small traders who are called to the colours. The Local Food Control Committee lias adopted the scheme in principle. Artificial meat is now being sold in Germany. It has been milled “millix.” and is sold in tins, each of which costs 3s (id. Nli 111 xis advertised as the best possible substitute for fresh meal. The* advertisement adds that millix should be well treated with pepper, salt, onions, and other tasty additions, which are apparently intended to hide its read flavour. To keep the American soldiers in ‘‘smokes'’ (he American Y.M.G.A. canteens in France require 200,000.01)0 cigarettes ami 4.500,000 cigius monthly. In a single order the Y.M.G.A. recently .-hipped 1337 tons of tobacco overseas, Kansas has an anti-cigarette law, hut its soldiers smoke. Any tongue but Russian is being encouraged by the Germans. Recently the German Government issued paper money in the occupied territories in Russia. The new notes bear inscriptions in German, Polish, Lithuanian, and Lettish, with no Russian, words. To eradicate 1 illiteracy among drafted men, the United Slates War Department has provided compulsory common school courses l or soldiers at the different camps. The first classes at Camp Dix, N.J., had 02!) pupils who could not read or write English. Officially dead for 50 year-, a man has just passed away in U.S.A. He was erroneously supposed to have been killed in one of the early bailies of the Civil War, and his name went on to a monument for dead heroes before he protested he was alive.