NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1926, 14 January 1919, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

According to a paper read at a recent American convention of paint manufacturers and allied interests, oil made from sunflower seed can be used as a satisfactory substitute for linseed oil. In the first six and one-half months that elapsed after the l-n----ited States entered the war, there were but eight fatalities in connection with the whole training programme for America’s big air army. 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 ben warned to keep the masks within easy reach. Cod-liver oil three limes a day is the regular custom in Norway now in order to minimise the hardships resultant upon the shortage of butler and margarine. Mr Isaac Bonscr, a retired collier of Swaimington, Leicestershire, who died recently, spent the whole of his ninety years in the house in which he was born. Prussian Stale railways in 1917 paid £2,850,000 compensation for property lost or stolen in transit, compared with £200,000 in 1910. St. Thomas’ Hospital, London, is represented in the army by over I, past and present students, 188 of them being mentioned in despatches. A young woman in Cheshire, England, has been appointed actingsurveyor to a local rural council, to take the place of her brother, who is a soldier. After having been under construction for six years, the pier at Yokohama, Japan, has been completed. It is 1,200 ft, long, 138 ft. wide, and the depth alongside has been increased from 20 ft. at low spring tide to 35 ft. Not long ago a worker in an industrial jdant in America was overcome with ammonia fumes, and since no pulmotor was available, an electric fan was effectively used Inforce a current of air into his mouth and nostrils. The idea that every candidate for Parliamentary, municipal, and other State and public positions should bo subjected to a phrenological examination has been pul before tho British Phrenological Society by Mr J. M. Severn. ' The United Stales is facing a serious shortage of lenses for aeroplane cameras similar to that which Great Britain experienced at the outset of the war, and to meet tho emergency the chief signal officer at Washington has issued an appeal to private owners of lenses to place them at (he disposal of the army. Specimens of twenty-one out of twenty-nine medals issued in Germany during the present war have been presented to the British Museum. They include a large cast-iron medal representing an air attack on London in August, 1915, with Zeppelins over the Tower Bridge. The American Government is erecting, “somewhere in Prance,” a cold-storage warehouse in which 10,009 tons,of meat and produce for her soldiers can be kept. Several large packing concerns in America have co-operated with the Government in planning the details of the plant. War Savings Associations have been started among the employees of two large linns in Sheffield for the purpose of investing in War Savings Certitieates the 12A per cent, bonus granted by the Ministry of Munitions. The Workmen havij agreed to invest all the bonus each week in certitieates. Eor a very old reason the Norfolk Regiment goes by the name of the “Holy Boys.” Their badge displays a ligure of Britannia, and when, in the Peninsula campaign, our Spanish allies beheld this emblem for the lirsl time they mistook it for a figure of the Holy Virgin. Nearly one thousand people working about machinery iu factories, etc., in Great Britain were killed last year through wearing loose sleeves and lies that got entangled. Tho collection of hair among Hu,women of Munich, organised by the German Navy League, has realised, over 3001 b. weight. The hair has been used for driving bolts in LTboat machinery. British scientists engaged in industrial research are reported to have discovered the secret composition of several optical glasses which were previously made only in Jena, Germany. Proposals are under consideration at Birmingham for the establishment in different parts of the city of entertainments for the education and instruction of children. The British Army Council stales that discharged soldiers entitled to wear the gold braid wound distinction may continue to do so on plaid clothes after discharge. London Hospital uses annually 21 miles of catgut iu sewing up wounds, and one and a-haif miles of kangaroos’ tails for other purposes.