NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1971, 1 May 1919, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Men who work in blast furnaces are singularly free from influenza, a fact for which the medical profession has been unable to determine the reason.

During the war nearly 14,000,000 publications representing a monetary value of something like £300,000 were sent by the public of Great Britain to the troops.

In the United Kingdom there are between 23,000 and 24,000 miles of railways, and, taking them all round, they are probably the bestbuilt lines in the world.

The Hag of Ecuador is the whitest of all national Hags. It is made up of two white liars with, between them, a stripe of blue on which there are white stars.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is 179 ft. high, and is out of the perpendicular by 10Ut. This is one foot more out of perpendicular than it was at a previous measurement in 1829.

The year 1919 marks the semicentennial of the completion and formal opening of the Suez Canal, which still ranks as one of the greatest engineering projects of the world.

Grape vines at Kippcn, Stirlingshire, last year bore 1558 bunches of grapes, which were sold for £307. The fortunate owner’s out-of-pock-et expenses for the year amounted to under £3.

The home of Evangeline at Grand-Pro, N.S., immortalised by Longfellow’s poem of that name, has been bought by the Canadian Pacific Railway, and will be maintained as a public park. To construct a great highway after the Roman method would cost to-day at least £1,500 a chain, or £120,000 a mile. So thoroughly were these roads built that they lasted for hundreds and hundreds of vears.

The most remarkable crossing of the English Channel was made in 1883 by a Mr Terry, who cycled over to France! The machine was installed in a specially-built boat, the pedals working a set of paddlewheels.

Some Swiss Presidents have carried disregard lor etiquette to an extreme. A story is told of a distinguished Englishman who visited the Presidential office, and was received by the head of the republic in Ins shirt-sleeves,

According lo the Ibid census, Now York's population was 5,002,841, This exceeds the population of the County of London, given in the 1011 census as 4,521,085, but the population of: Greater London is —or was —7,251,358. Within 4,000.14, of the surface there is 107,000,000,000 tons of coal in Great Britain. Jf 15 per cent, be deducted for wastage, this quantity represents a supply which, at the present rale of consumption uud export, would last 580 years. The former German Emperor owned hundreds of paintings, coming' from the brushes of the world's greatest masters. Included in hicollection are no fewer than nineteen undoubtedly genuine works by liubens, acknowledged as the greatest of Flemish painters. Marshal Eoch owns the prized, souvenir of the great war— a little piece of pink blotting paper. When held before a mirror one can see the dale, '*ll November, 1018," and underneath the names of the allied and German delegates who signed the armistice.

No human foot lias ever trod the summit of .Mount Everest, which rises to a height of 30,0(10 feet, and is the culminating point of the earth. Probably it will be reached by Hight in the early future when some enterprising airman wishes to do a “stunt" which will make his name famous everywhere.

The League of Nations Hag was obtained by taking one of (lie flags in the international Code —which is the universal language of the sea — and reversing (he colours. “T” in the code conr-fsts of three broad horizontal stripes, blue outside, and the middle white. The League Hag has two while stripes on either side of a blue one.

A box of cigarettes and tour-pence-lmlfpenny was all that rewarded some burglars who recently broke into a theatre at Aldershot, England. Even this, however, is not a record for smallness. Burglars who, some lime hack, blew open the church safe at St. Michael's, Liehtield, after working at it all night, found (herein but one solitary halfpenny, - the valuable plate it ordinarily contained having been removed elsewhere.

• A curious .story is told concerning Charles Bernadette, who, beginning as a French revolutionary,

linished his career as King of Sweden. It was always a puzzle to those most intimately associated with him that he would never show himself with bared arms. After his death, however, the mystery was solved. On the King's right forearm was taloofd various souvenirs of his young republican days, including the red cap of Liberty, and the motto, “Death to Kings/’

In 1917 over 45,000 tuns of paper in Germany was converted into paper yarns and woven into fabrics of all kinds.

Glasgow lias now supplanted Birmingham in (he honour of being the second larger city of the United Kingdom.

E Highly. Hie world’s Catholics number 204,000,000, the Protestants 100,000,000. Buddhists and Confucians number 421,000.000. In the English General Election 151 candidates paid;£22,oso in fines for failing lo obtain one-eighth of the votes recorded.